Unlicensed Drinking

This article was in The National a few weeks ago, but I felt that it was important to point out to anyone who may be thinking of coming to the UAE and drinking alcohol without a license. According to Abu Dhabi based lawyer, Khalid Mustafa, federal law makes it illegal to consume alcohol for both residents and tourists. "The penalty for not having one could be as much as five years in jail and a Dh5000 fine."

That's right tourists: stay home if you can't go ten days without boozing it up. That includes those of you who may be thinking of coming to the Formula One Grand Prix, the recent Tennis Championship, the FIFA Club World Cup, or any of the world class events that serve alcohol. That includes you Uma Thurman. Don't think you can come here for the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and get special permission to drink.

Never mind that the only establishments that serve alcohol are in hotels. Tourists need to go to the local police station that is off-island in Khalifa City A, present a letter in Arabic stating your salary, and fill out the necessary paperwork. If you don't have the foresight to get a properly formatted letter in Arabic from your employer in your home country, then it's your own fault for not planning ahead. All I can say is after the first person tourist is arrested for drinking without a license, (lewd, offensive, or violent conduct aside) the UAE's reputation as a viable travel destination will disappear.

Optometrist

It finally happened. After over ten years of wearing the same glasses, they finally broke. I normally wear contacts and have been wearing the glasses only at night before I go to bed for the past eight years or so. Still, it was time to get a pair of glasses that wasn't too costly but that I wouldn't be embarrassed to wear outside the apartment.

While this is changing very gradually, when it comes to health services, I tend to be pretty picky. (I still go to the same dentist in the States that I've been going to since I was 13 years old.) I think I get this from all the horror stories I heard about Japanese doctors and dentists while I was living there.

When it was time to get new glasses, I was dreading the prospect of having to go through the process. I needn't have worried. Marina Mall, the nearest shopping mall had about a dozen or so shops. Unfortunately, at the time I went, before 11:00am on a Friday, only one of them was open. I refuse to go to shopping malls after 12:00 noon on the weekends, but from the looks of it, this shop was the only one that was open before 2:00pm. Because I wanted to have a better selection, I decided to come back.

My wife suggested that we go have some dinner there that evening and I could get my glasses. I reluctantly agreed because I didn't want to have to worry about it on Saturday. As we were circling around looking for a parking spot, my wife realized why I had my aversion: shopping malls in the evening on weekends are similar to holiday shopping in the States.

In the end, I looked at a few shops, found some frames I liked, and brought them to the original shop to have the lenses put in. I felt that the original shop, Barakat Optical, were really good about giving me advice about the lenses and had my glasses ready within 15 minutes. The shop I bought the frames at, Yateem Optician, had the virtue of having a specific frame that I liked, though the lens prices were a bit more expensive. Little by little, I am losing my fear of getting services done in Abu Dhabi.

Bicycle Thief

Living in Abu Dhabi, the first thing that people will tell you how safe it is here. Apart from the obvious danger of getting run down in the road by some maniac driving 100 miles an hour while sending a text message on his mobile phone, I would agree with that. Unfortunately, that feeling of safety can make a person complacent as I found out on Friday.

I went for a bike ride with my kids to a nearby park. For them the bike ride is the main part of things with the park just being a destination in mind. Usually we ride to the park, spend about 30 minutes there, and head back. We tend to go in the early afternoon, but got off to a later start so by the time we got to the park, it was pretty crowded.

After letting the kids play around for about 20 minutes, I decided that I'd had enough. When the kids went to get back on their bikes, we found that Tia's bike had been stolen. Even though I realized what had happened, something about seeing my daughter in tears over the loss of her beloved bicycle infuriated me.

Sure enough, after a ten or fifteen minute search of the park, I found the culprit: a girl about the same age as my daughter. As I suspected the girl has just taken the bike for a joyride with no ill intent. While I wasn't too hard on the girl, the sight of a man confronting her about the bike must've scared her plenty, because she ran away. After I thought about it, I felt bad. The poor girl was having a great time on this new toy without having understood that she did something she shouldn't have. Still, it was nice to be a hero in my daughter's eyes.

Maid's Quarters

When people think of classic late 70's, early 80's sitcoms like Dif'rent Strokes or The Jeffersons, the characters of Mrs. Garrett and Florence come to mind. Both of these characters were the households' live-in maids. If you were huge fans of these shows like I was, you'll have noticed that we never see where these beloved maids actually lived. That's because if their living quarters were anywhere near the size of the maid's quarters in my apartment, the American viewing public would have protested in horror.

While it is difficult to get a good idea of size from this photo taken from the doorway of this room filled with sporting equipment, I can actually lie down on the floor (when the room is empty) and have my feet and head just barely touch opposite walls. That's keeping in mind that I'm not very tall. Also, there are no windows apart from a tiny one to let some air in, so there is no natural light.

Pretty much every apartment in every building I've been to has a maid's room. The maid's room in our apartment is a little small compared to some of my friends' apartments, about a half to a third of the size. There is also a bathroom with a shower that we use to dry swimsuits and store cleaning supplies. Some of my female friends use this extra room as a walk-in closet and bathroom to get ready in the morning. Other uses are as a room for a cat litter box or as a room to dry clothes. As you can see, we use ours to hold bicycles, tents, and various other sporting goods.

A friend who lives in our building uses his maid's room to actually house his live-in maid. When I first met him, he told me that with coming from a modest background, the idea of having a servant working for him made him and his wife uncomfortable. They tried to give the maid one of the bedrooms so she could have a little room to spread out, but she was uncomfortable with the idea of their young son having a smaller room than her so they switched back. In addition, she never comes out of her room unless she's working, despite being told to come relax in the living room if she wants to. It seems odd to me to be cramped in one tiny room in your off time, but it must seem equally odd to the house help (at least in this woman's case) to be given the space to spread out.

Eclipse

It seems that there was a partial solar eclipse today. I knew that there was going to be an eclipse visible from the UAE in January, but I didn't realize until too late that I could have seen it. Here is a picture from the Gulf News. I did notice that this afternoon it was a little dreary compared with usual. (By a little dreary, I mean a sunny winter day in Wisconsin.) Also, the students were a little sluggish, but that's nothing out of the ordinary.

Opened Package

Some friends of ours in Japan sent our family some Christmas gifts that arrived just before the new year. On the outside of the package which had been opened was some tape that read "Found Opened and Officially Secured." I know that packages sent to Abu Dhabi are opened to check the contents which is why the phrase "found opened" seemed strange to me.

When we examined our gifts, we noticed that there were presents with gift cards to "Alex" and "Tim" from James, Johnny, Emma, and Tish Lawne. We were initially confused because based on the price tags on the gifts, they came from either New Zealand or Australia. We later figured out that the packages must have been opened by customs officials and part of someone else's package got mixed in with ours. If you happen to know Tim or Alex or any of the Lawnes, let them know that I have their shorts and Powderfinger DVDs.

New Year Camping

Happy New Year, Everyone! This year we decided to ring in the New Year with a camping trip near where we camped during the four-day weekend we had during National Day. We drove out to Liwa and set up camp in the early afternoon. We had a nice evening relaxing in the desert and saw in 2011 sitting by a campfire with champagne. Unfortunately, it got so cold that we were unable to sleep well.

As we drove to the area, we noticed a lot of dune buggies being towed behind trucks. As it turned out, it was the Liwa festival in which trucks drag race up a huge dune. (Click here to see a video sample of this.)

I was a little annoyed that we were camped about 5 miles from it and didn't even see it. However, when I talked to one of my students today, he told me that only about three trucks went up the dune and then the festival stopped for some unknown reason. At least now I know where the festival is and to make sure that I watch out for it.

On the way home we drove to the Emirates National Auto Museum which was closed. We could see some of the crazy oversized vehicles that were on the outside of the giant pyramid that houses the classic cars. In this picture, you can see the world's biggest two-wheeled caravan which includes eight bedrooms and bathrooms and has four garages. This is yet another example of a Guinness World Record held by Abu Dhabi. To give an idea of the scale, my son is standing next to the wheel.Hopefully the museum will be open the next time we pass through.