Monday, April 30, 2012

Heating up...

Well summer has arrived and boy has it arrived with a bang! A lot of locals and long-term expats have been commenting over the past month or so how long the winter has been and how lucky we were.

It has been absoultely beautiful the past month, mid to high 20's, occasional low 30 and nice cool evenings.... until last week.
The temperatures rose rapidly and summer looks like it has well and truly settled in for the next 6 months. The forecast for the next week is nothing but 36 and 37's with overnight lows of 26 - 27, I could cope if that was going to be the summer heat but it is pretty much the lowest temps we are going to see for a long time.

This change in weather is already posing a few problems:
  •  Poor Lily can only be walked in the early morning or very late evening, I am sure she will get used to it but it has been nice taking her for lots of strolls when we visit friends or get a coffee
  • How to keep Piper entertained indoors for the next 6 months..... now this is going to take some creativity
  • My plants - If you know me well you will know that I am the world's worst green thumb, I have never once in my life managed to keep a plant healthy and alive (2 year olds I can do, plants no). On a whim 2 weeks ago I dragged the family to the plant markets in Satwa on the hunt for a Bougainvillea and a Frangipanin for our balcony. One to help create some privacy and the other because I love the flowers and they remind me of home and a close friend. So basically I have already forgotten to water them at least 5 days out of the last 10 days since they were purchased...... they are not going to survive in this heat with me as their Mum (sorry Mum, I know you are shaking your head at me as you look out the kitchen window at your beautiful garden)
  • Netball - Ugh although summer netball is indoors, there is just no escaping the heat. Last night's game was a struggle and my body is feeling it today. I woke dehydrated and with a headache even after 4 bottles of water last night.
This list was off the top of my head and doesn't include all the summer 'fun' we have to look forward to like the beach water being warmer than a bath, yuk. Cold water out of the taps at home being so hot you have to switch off your hot water tank and run your hot water as your cold and your cold as your hot... true story!

Oh well enough weather bashing, only 1 week and 2 sleeps til we are off to Sri Lanka!!

Edit: I started this post yesterday and although the temp was forecast for 36 today.... it has just reached 43 degrees!

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Triple triathlon in the desert?

This weekend Naz and some friends competed in the Wadi Adventure Triple Triathlon in Al Ain.
A triple triathlon is - 350m swim in a man made wadi (dam), 7km bike leg followed by 1.5km run then repeated 3 times. This makes for a lot of transitions and hard work for competitors but meant Piper and I were able to see Naz several times during the race in quick succession and follow his progress easily.

Unfortunately to beat the heat the race started at 7am with entry roads in closed from 6:30am and Al Ain is in another Emirate so it was a 4:30am start for our drive from Dubai!
But it was all worth it! Naz's swim training is paying off and he really enjoyed the triathlon and to top it off finished 19th overall!!

The location the triathlon was held is also home to a man made wave pool which pumps out genuine 3.5 metre waves for surfing..... in the middle of the desert! Naz and a friend Brett have been travelling here for a weekly surf so I will post a separate blog post on this another day.


Pre race cuddle

Start of the race


Waiting for a high five from her Daddy




Another high five!

Cheering on the competitors





Running across the finish line with her Daddy - she was so excited to run in the race and won a pair of shoe laces at the presentation for her efforts!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The naked chef....

Time for relaxing

I know I am terrible at making time to relax, but even I was a little surprised when we worked out it has been over 3 years since we last took a real holiday (not revolving around my work or taking the laptop) and that we have never had a real family holiday with all three of us.
Well that is about to change! In just over 2 weeks we are off to Sri Lanka for a weeks holiday. 6 days in Bentota Beach and 1 in Colombo on our way home. I will try and post some updates when we are gone but most likely you will have to wait until our return..... pretty sure Naz is going to ban the laptop from coming.
In the meantime the weather is beautiful in the evenings at the moment and we have been making the most of our big balcony in the evenings to relax.
Piper has no trouble relaxing as you can see below, last night I read her bedtime stories to her while we lounged on the balcony overlooking the pool.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Chef Piper

Helping make homemade pizza's! She loves her new little ikea stool.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Trip to Australia fave moments #3

I finally stopped working about 4 days before we left Australia and enjoyed some quality family time.

Cruising on Poppy's trike

How awesome is this trike? My dad built this from scratch, it has been a labour of love over the last few years!

Piper enjoying a bubba cino in the front window and enticing customers into Grandpa and Nana Deb's shop 

Grandkids enjoying the perks of the newly opened cafe




If you are ever in Cowes, Phillip Island drop into my in-laws stunning children's shop and cafe Molly Moo and Tilly Bear, I challenge you to find a better sponge cake anywhere!
Open for business
Family dinner!
In true Victorian style it bucketed rain about an hour late and we had to dash for cover

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Glimpse at the trials and tribulations of life here sometimes...

Hopefully you saw my post a couple of days ago, we have finally purchased a car, otherwise known as 'Rex'. The journey to finally owning Rex gives an insight into the complexities of living in the UAE as an expat.

We looked at several cars over the last 6 months and none stood up to what was advertised. It was a frustrating time consuming exercise. Remember the days of the dodgy car salesman tactics....winding back odometers, posting photographs of cars that were not the same car when inspected and any other dodgy trick you can conjure up in your mind, well they are still alive and well over here!

Finally last week we found a car that matched our criteria, one phone call later and Naz confirmed it was an expat owned car and sounded like it was legitimately worth checking out. So off we headed to the outer suburb area, very appropriately called Motorcity! And BINGO it was perfect, the people were lovely, car was in immaculate condition and the kilometres were legitimate (owners were able to provide full service history, unheard of here) so we arranged to meet at the RTA first thing Saturday morning to complete the paperwork and handover. We left floating on a cloud, finally a car, and WOW how easy was that in the end....... oh how wrong we were!

Saturday morning arrived and after an early morning trip to Bur Dubai to the only branch of our bank in Dubai that actually holds money we arrived at the RTA on time...... the owners and car were 45 minutes late so not a great start.
The car passed it's mechanics test and Naz then spent 2 hours in and out of lines to complete insurance and registration handover while I attempted to entertain Piper in the waiting room. Finally we got to the last step... only to discover Naz had an outstanding traffic fine in Abu Dhabi... and this is when the UAE madness really began.

Naz had an incident with a hire car and a taxi that got in the way of his reversing 2 months ago when he was working at Yas Island. At the time we followed all the protocol, checked the website for a fine, had an Arabic colleague of mine read the paperwork and we all came to the conclusion the police officer had not fined Naz (it wasn't made clear by the police officer at the time due to language difficulties).
Wrong - he was fined after the incident?!? All UAE emirates are very distinctly and independently governed so this fine was also not showing up on the Dubai fine website. I should point out you are not mailed your fines here, it is up to the individual to regularly check a website to see if he has received any fines.
You are unable to purchase a car with outstanding fines so we had to pay immediately, which should be easy, it was only a small fine..... but after 3 separate attempts to pay on their 'integrated' system which allows you to pay fines for different Emirates they informed us the system was down and we would need to drive to Abu Dhabi to pay...... yes drive right then and there all the way to Abu Dhabi for 1 lousy fine! The customer service rep was helpful and gave us clear directions to a service station just over the border which contained an automated fine paying machine. Thankfully we had a hire car for the weekend so off we went!

After stopping at the wrong service station we finally found the right one and the automated machine..... which of course we could not get to accept Naz's license or violation number. Eventually we saw a patrol car in the car park and Naz ran out and asked for help. They confirmed the machine was not working and the walk-in office where you can pay your fine was closed for the day.

Completely and utterly frustrated we then drove back to Dubai, returned the hire car and picked up our new car from the RTA car park. The previous owner was kind enough to sign all the paperwork and authorise everything and trust we would complete the paperwork the next day. The RTA Manager also agreed to this and held the paperwork for us to return the next day with a receipt for the paid fine.
All night I logged into the online payment system only to be met with nothing.... I tried every known phone payment service also to no avail.

So come Sunday morning I headed to work and poor Naz and Piper once again headed down the highway to Abu Dhabi. This time however he went directly to the office to pay in person. After handing over his license details he was bluntly informed no fine existed and he must be confused and the fine was in the Dubai Emirate...... do I really need to describe Naz's reaction to this......
After a little vocal encouragement from Naz the customer service rep tried and again and what do you know there the fine was! Back in the car with receipt they headed back to Dubai RTA to finalise our car purchase.
Arriving at midday Naz was then informed by the staff at the RTA only the manager he had dealt with the day before could finalise the registration and could he please come back after 4pm when he started work.
Home again and back again at 4pm..... this time told no again as the manager was not working that day at all! Well as Naz's blood pressure went up and his arms started gesturing wildly (highly offensive over here) I grabbed Piper and headed for the door trying to work out how on earth I was going to explain to my boss that we had been deported! After a long tense stand-off and much gesturing they miraculously found the paperwork, signed it off and presented us with our registration card!!

At this time I have to point out the whole affair had become so ridiculous we couldn't even laugh or smile with relief as we got in 'our' car and drove away, we were exhausted. It should also be noted that our story of grief when relayed to my colleagues and friends was met with a lot of "took me 4 trips to get mine", "that's not too bad I have heard worse", "Oh good you got it done, that was quick" aaaaargh the madness of this place sometimes kills me. In many ways it is so modern and sophisticated and others so backwards it baffles me!

NOTE: I wrote this yesterday and since then experienced my craziest Dubai moment yet this morning but have to save that story for another day as I am still too seething and angry and need to calm down a bit so I can edit my anger.






Sunday, April 15, 2012

Easter 2012

Not only did Easter Bunny read Piper's letter that she would be at Grandpa's house and not in Dubai but he covered all bases and left a trail of eggs at Grandpa's, her cousins, Nanny and Pop's and even a bunny on her bed back in Dubai!
Silly dad once told Piper easter is the best because you can eat chocolate for breakfast...... and she wasted no time in reminding us of this on the day!


Where is the egg Mumma I can't see it?

How many eggs do you have in your bag?

Breakfast

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Trip to Australia fave moments #2

Favourite photo's from an amazing wedding shared with a beautiful couple and fabulous family

Uncle Nazza helping his favourite nephew and little fire fighter in training

Beautiful nephew and nieces

O'Brien boys all together


Marching band leading the procession to reception venue through the streets of Port Melbourne..... Amazing!


Almost there
Family





Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Trip to Australia fave moments #1

Ok so I didn't keep my promise and post photos during our trip but I am going to make up for it this week.
Thank you to everybody who welcomed us home and made the time to catch-up, house us, feed us etc. It was an extremely hectic trip and we did not get to catch-up with everyone we would of liked too.
We did however manage to fit in 2 weddings, a baby shower, countless family dinners, a work conference for me in Sydney and way too much driving time between the city and country (something we need to work on next trip).
Below are a few of our fave moments with more to come over the next week!

My beautiful friend Annie's baby shower was amazing!


Stunning cake made by Annie's sister to match the invites!

What's a baby shower without some fun games

Piper and her cousin Stella


I love those curls

Watching Poppy's cows


Baking fun with Auntie Leigh


Uh huh.... pink on the inside too, with a chocolate easter egg baked inside!