With Friends in UAE - Dubai, Tuesday 2000 April 18

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Today, John did errands and I accompanied him. We needed to go to the Omani consulate for my visa to visit the Musandam Peninsula (Straits of Hurmuz) on Thursday. So, I got up at 7:00 and we dropped Peggy at work (Dubai Women’s College).

Then we went to the Omani consulate. Outside, there was a little building for visas. We were apparently the first there, and no one was inside to help. After a brief wait, two people came into the office. One sold travel insurance, and one did the visas. After some tense discussion, it transpired that my application had to be sent to Abu Dhabi and would take until Sunday. The insurance man and another man in the slowly forming line said just to drive to the border and get the visas there. The insurance man was as eager to sell the necessary car insurance to John as the visa man was lackadaisical about the visas. So, John bought insurance, and we will take our chances.

Afterwards, we did various errands that gave me a view of the modern buildings and streets. For some reason there was a lot of road repair or reconstruction. Parking is 2 dh for about an hour. You get a ticket from a stand somewhere about in the middle of the block. The stand is run on solar power from a sun cell perched on the top. Not a bad system.

We visited John’s office at the Canadian Business Council (Canadians in business, businesses from Canada, or doing business with Canada). It is a generous small office, with an office for John, a meeting area and a reception.

Eventually, we had cold drinks at the Carlton Hotel – John had trouble conveying what we wanted to our waitress, who we guessed to be Russian or similar. Afterwards, we stopped at a drive-through ATM, which worked well. We also did business at Thomas Cook, which does a roaring trade in remittances.

Finally, we had a delicious lunch in a fairly new restaurant: lentil soup (creamed, bit spicy), Lebanese grill (ground lamb, beef and chicken kebabs), delicious hummus and tasteless French fries.

In the evening, John took me to a cocktail party at the Canadian consulate. (Peggy was tired and stayed home.) In all my travels, I had never been to a Canadian consulate. The consul’s house was in a new area and had an expectedly large area for hosting. I talked to a Jamaican-Canadian pilot for Emirates Airlines, and later his wife (a real estate agent), a representative of BC Gas with an indeterminate international background, an advertising man of some undefined middle-eastern background, the consul (affable), and a few friends of John. We drank wine (or beer or soft drinks) and ate hors d’oeuvres. Very fine.

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Photos

Jumeriah Mosque
Traditional style, opened 1979

Jumeriah Mosque
Near the desert

Comments

[Isabel Gibson]

Visas and munchies
What a day! Having attempted to catch up in order, I don't yet know how it went at the border, but at least I know you didn't get thrown in the clink. And what fun to attend a cocktail party at a consulate. For some reason, these have not much come my way, either. That mosque is spectacular.