Selling Everything!

We were worried about not getting rid of stuff, but it has been the opposite. Our car was only on dubizzle (like e-bay) for an hour before I got a call. 1st caller bought it! It took another week to sell it officially and another to get the check, but it was really quick. The furniture is trickling out slowly- it's all been sold, but we are here til July 3, so we need stuff to sit and sleep on. Ingrid took the photo of Deira and the metro from our balcony. The only item we shipped was the wood bar from Kashmir. It weighed 350 pounds and cost $1300 to fedex to Tucson. We stuffed it with items, then the nutjobs at the airport asked us to fill out commercial import forms for 4 pairs of USED shoes - 50 questions on % of man-made vs natural fibers, distribution id numbers, and a bunch of other stupidity. Then they wanted us to do a textile form for Ingrid's used shawls! Thread count? Stitching? % of natural fibers? WTF? I said NO. We held up the flight and then they refused to fly it. It left the next day to Paris and is now stuck in customs in Memphis. We just hope it gets there in one piece and not too much stuff inside gets broken! It's amazing how quickly the time has passed - 2008-09 in Madrid and 2009-2012 in Dubai. Lookin forward to comin home!

A Day in Dubai

Ingrid & I took Zaman and Kamal, 2 of the workers from Sharjah, on a day around Dubai. They had never been swimming in the sea before, and it was Kamal's first time to see the water! He was amazed and a little bit scared of the fish! We ate Indian food, went clothes shopping and to Dubai Mall to see the waterfall, dancing fountains, Burj Khalifa and have pizza. The guys had a blast! I'm sure it is a day they will never forget when they return home to Bangladesh and Nepal this summer after a six-year contract. Only by living in a place like Dubai can people from four different countries, religions and first languages come together and enjoy one another's company in peace.

THE REST OF THE WORLD NEEDS TO GET A CLUE.

Heading Home and Future Plans

We finish our contracts June 21. We move out of our apartment June 23 and will be staying with friends. No email access, but cells still active: 971-50-932-6059. We fly home to Tucson July 3 on a 24-hour trip via London and Chicago that I am not looking forward to. We are going to Florida in August to see our families and celebrate Ingrid's 40th, and I return to school 22 August. Neither of us will be working right away. After four years abroad, I plan on spending my time working in the garden and floating in the pool. Oh yeah, & there's that dissertation that needs writing...

Crete Days 4 & 5

We haven't returned to Crete, just found a bunch of pics that I never got around to uploading. These pics were taken on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. The weather staerted out very stormy with high winds, thunder and heavy rains - a nice change from the sun and dust of Dubai., but then around sunset, the skies cleared. I took photos at the outdoor market of the largest cabbage and mushrooms I have ever seen. The last pic is of Ingrid inside the mom & pop restaurant we stumbled into during a squall. What a find! Calamari, stuffed peppers, warm goat cheese in olive oil and homemade wine in a place that sticks out over the sea. Great place to start 2012!

Crete Day 3

We spent a whole day touring the central part of the island - seeing a cave, windmills, snow and a rainbow! The pic of us sitting behind the stone reminds me of Fred and Wilma Flintstone!

Home and Around Town

Now that our days in UAE are down to 57 as of 7 May 2012, I thought it would be interesting to post some pics taken during the last month or so of typical scenes around Dubai. You'll see my in-laws Mauricio and Tamara who visited us frmo Miami last month. Hope you like!