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Published: January 5th 2018
I arrived in Dubai and returned to work after just a few hours sleep, I delivered a few gifts to work friends and settled back into the team. Friday arrived quickly, I took a train to The Mall of the Emirates station where I boarded a taxi out to Sports city, I was heading to Dubai cricket stadium with some of my Sri Lankan work mates for the ODI between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. We decided to buy the more expensive tickets as that allowed us access to the stand with the bar, it is still damn hot so Anthony and I began consuming beers at a cracking rate while we waited for Dileepa and the others to arrive, soon I was surrounded by Sri Lankan lads who are always happy and smiling between pints of Heineken. Unfortunately the game didn't go Sri Lanka's way but their supports sang and played drums right to the last ball, the Pakistani's may have been a little more reserved but they added colour to the day. Around 1030pm we left the stadium and headed to the Business Bay area for a late Indian snack before heading home.
By sunday I was coming down
The pitch
Dubai cricket stadiumwith a nasty flu which laid me low for a couple weeks I worked from home regularly during this period. I think my boss wanted to keep me away from him. Towards the end of this period I headed into Loco to meet some of the younger lads for a few drinks, Ivan, Artur, Yaz, Lloyd and Ali G, it is always amusing with the younger lads because as the night goes on the banter increases and it is always a good way to end the working week. Next day I attended my first notorious Dubai friday brunch, an invite went out across the Investigation's teams and I was the only one outside of the organising team that showed up, I didn't know the other people but we had a huge day none the less, I consumed two whole bottles of Sav Blanc and made some new Greek, Indian and Sri Lankan friends.
Another week passed, two days at a training course and a visit to Fibbers at the end of the second day before returning back to work, my workload is huge and I am working ten or eleven hour days which is putting a lot stress on
Sri Lankan fans party
Dubai cricket stadium my body so I have started exercising more and trying to cut out unhealthy food. Friday night saw me travel down to to the Marina for Chris' birthday, he met me at the train station and we headed to Abbi's building to meet her and her husband then continued to the Hilton on the beach, beer, good food and entertainment provided a pleasant evening. Next morning Krimeed picked me up and we spent the whole day looking at cars it was tiring but necessary and I have a better idea of what I am looking for now.
The following weekend I spent the whole day buying, registering and insuring my small Peugeot hatchback and taking my first frightened drive on Dubai's roads this was followed up the following weekend with a drive to the big booze shop at Al Qumman, booze is expensive in Dubai but where we went it is cheaper than Australia. Unfortunately it seems my car has a leaking fuel tank, idiot French put a plastic part on the tank which broke when hit with a hard object. It was stressful getting the car home, we couldn't stop in Sharjah as booze is illegal so we
had to drive all the way back to Dubai. Krimeed has been a savior he deals with most of my problems and helped me arrange the ordering of a new fuel tank so in a few weeks it will be repaired.
Another stressful week passed with a Wednesday night trip to a cinema in Jumeira with a Sana and Carl to see Thor, I enjoyed the movie. Friday I rose early and went for a five kilometre walk, the weather is wonderful and I enjoyed myself immensely, in the afternoon Faisal picked me up and we went for a big Turkish lunch with some of his Jordanian buddies before heading to the Dubai car show. It was my first car show and surprisingly I really enjoyed myself there were some amazing machines. Saturday I decided to walk down to Jumeira Beach, the beach is quite nice, they are building a restaurant and shopping strip along the foreshore, unfortunately only a few places were open so I headed back to my apartment total distance walked eight kilometres. Mid week I visited the Dubai Mall and tried on some suits they are expensive but Friday they are having a fire sale
so I needed to try the gear on now to avoid the weekend crowds.
Tim arrived in Dubai the following Friday morning so i went and parked myself in the coffee shop downstairs and waited for his taxi to arrive, when it did we had a coffee then I showed him around the building then we head to the mall to get my suits, it was Tim's first visit to a place like Dubai Mall and the Aquarium, Ice rink and waterfall impressed him. Next we headed out to the Aussie theme bar Bidi Bondi out on the Palm before finishing the evening at Fibber Magees.
Early next morning we hopped in the car and drove the 120 kilometres to Abu Dhabi checking into the Ramada on the Corniche around 10am, after breakfast we headed out to the Louvre which had opened just a week early spent a few hours negotiating the crowds as we enjoyed some great antiquities and pieces of art. From there we went out to the Yas F1 grand prix circuit circuit to watch the air displays and the F1 qualifying before heading back to town for dinner. In the morning we headed down
for breakfast hen walked out into the city, it was hot morning and after about an hour we found the souk mall and the old fort before catching a cab out to the spectacular Sheik Zayed Mosque. The mosque is an incredible building that appears to be modelled on the Taj Mahal, all white marble with gems stone inlays very impressive. Then it was back out to Yas Island for the grand prix, it was a good vibe out there, people eating and drinking and just having fun, the race was ok but the airshow was much more spectacular. The after race concert featured Pink and was enjoyable enough even though the crowd was massive.
Next morning was the drive back to Dubai and work, Tim spent the next three days wandering around town, in the evenings we went out to eat, Thursday was a public holiday for Muhammad's birthday, in the morning we went down to Old Deira and wandered through the preserved buildings to the old fort museum before crossing the creek by Abra an dicing into the city's famed gold souk. A taxi then took us to my mate Jamie's place where we had a few
beers before he drove us out to the sevens stadium, where we spent much of the day before heading back to Financial Centre. In the morning we drove out to Sustainable City o pick up some free rugby tickets before heading back out to the stadium in the desert, it was a really great day there were quite a few people from work to hang with and atmosphere was vibrant. Saturday was much the same a great festive day with some good rugby, Tim leaves sunday evening so we went to Dubai Mall to see the the fountain go off which I must admit was cool before heading to Loca for dinner.
Tim left later that evening and I settled back into normal life, I have another mate coming in for a few days in late January which should be cool. I went out for a drive the next weekend to get my new fuel tank and was nearly killed by a dickhead who thought it was ok to overtake a turning vehicle on the right, I was then clipped by another arsehole on a bicycle and then hit by a taxi door as I walked passed, it seems
God has dropped all the world's idiots in Dubai. I went with Krimeed to the HSBC Carnival which was a big kids end of year show, I was extremely bored but I did get a free lunch and caught up with a few work friends. Last weekend we had our end of year show at the Maya Restaurant the Meridien Marina, it was a great night at least what I remember of it. It has been many years since I went to a bank show and it wasn't a disappointment, not many sober people, I ended up at some crappy night club at 3am and suffered a bit of a hangover the next day. The week has been interesting enough particularly as there was a storm and I saw my first downpour in Dubai, people dont cope well particularly on the roads as there is no drainage system here so there were something in the vicinity of six hundred accidents in 30 minutes.
With the weekend comes a walk down to the Mercato mall and the cinema where I met Sana and saw The Last Jedi, I enjoyed it almost as much as the eight kilometre walk, today I
Every boys dream
The Dubia Car show am heading down to the Jumeirah Beach Residence district to have lunch with Nur at the Copper dog pub, the food was quite good as was the happy hour, here ha been a thick fog enshrouding the city every morning for a week now. I worked Christmas day for the first time in my life, although I went in late after skyping with friends and family. We got the go ahead from management letting us leave at noon so I headed home for a few hours and tucked into a bottle of wine before heading over to Jamie's in Satwa to have Christmas dinner with his family, it was really kind of him to invite me so when his two year old wanted to paint my toenails I didn't protest. I decided to walk home it was a pleasant night and the 4km walk helped me to sober up.
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