Improving international relations

The UAE, Abu Dhabi and even our work are very cosmopolitan places. 80% of the population of the UAE and Abu Dhabi are expats. At work there are just over 30 of us and we come from over 10 different countries. A varied mix of people. As you would expect, we teach each other customs, words and phrases from our respective countries, most of the stuff is useful and interesting, but sometimes we do what everyone does and teach each other a bit of slang. It's a good bit of banter and a bit of fun as well. Every day you hear different accents, speaking in a language that you wouldn't expect, a Brummie like me trying the odd Arabic word, a Lebanese guy speaking Greek.

The funniest thing I heard was earlier on today. We have a local Emirati who works with us, like everyone he's a nice guy, very friendly, and he likes to get involved as well. There he was earlier this afternoon chatting away to me in the office dressed in the full kandura, the national outfit, and, when I told him I was Greek, he looked me straight in the face and said in true Only Fools and Horses fashion, "So Chris, you are a bubble!" I never thought a guy in a dishdasha would ever call me that!

Picking up the gauntlet

I'm very rarely ever someone who would walk away from a challenge, the opposite in fact and readily accept them, however trivial, or stupid or childish they may be! Yesterday one was set, probably the most stupid one ever encountered, and like most, I just couldn't walk away from it.

Three of us set ourselves the challenge of how many of the world wide phenomenon that is the Big Mac can we eat in one sitting! We gave ourselves individual targets, and all three achieved them and one in fact beat theirs!

I won't embarrass anyone by giving away numbers etc, but the below picture shows you the three participants and the three stacks correspond to the number ate by the individuals. The order of the stacks does not correspond to the order of the participants.

Business as usual

I was chatting earlier this week to my mate from the navy and telling him how safe I felt over here. Walking around late at night, whether in a busy part of town or down a dark secluded alleyway, I'd never felt vulnerable or at risk, not like I do back home in some parts of Birmingham. And though we are in the Middle East, there was no feeling of risk of terrorism. He just kept quite and looked at me as if to say, that's not the case, but I can't say anything!

The next day, a news story on the Beeb website said the Foreign Office had increased the threat of terrorism level in the UAE to high, story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7456547.stm. And a subsequent email from the British Embassy said "It is more a case of higher vigilance - there is no specific threat to British interests."

So what do you do? It's simple, you just carry on. What has become apparent over the last 7 years is the threat is everywhere, and if it's not high now, it may be one day and vica versa. You can't let it control your life, where you go and what you do. The only other thing you can do is follow the British Embassy advise, and be that little bit more vigilant, but I'm not sure I know what to look out for!

It's a small world

Only a couple of weeks ago I was thinking that there is so much going on over here in the UAE, and so many people from so many countries working or visiting, that I wouldn't be surprised if, eventually, I bumped into someone I knew. The other week I spent 2 days at an exhibition in Dubai, and while walking around on the first day, overheard people speaking in Greek and as I looked up, I saw the cousin of one of my longest friends who I'd met a few times in Cyprus recently! As an architect, he was visiting the same show.

As if that wasn't coincidence enough, the next day, while driving up along Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai to the show again, I was driving behind a car with an Aston Villa scarf displayed and laid out across the back shelf! As the Holte End song goes, "Villa here, Villa there, Villa Villa everywhere!"

Bravo ADNEC

Well it had to happen somewhere, sometime. As of last Sunday, the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre became one of a few venues in the area to become completely non-smoking. It's the only way some of us smokers can cut down. The smoking area has now moved from literally the other side of my office door, to down two floors and outside. And believe it or not, it has helped most of us cut down. Not because the 2 flights and of steps and then a further 10 metres is hard to do, but because, when you're in a suit, going outside into the 40 degree heat and blazing sunshine just for a fag is not exactly comfortable.

Fair play to them, everyone seems to be following the rules, but there's only a few of us who work in the offices there now. It'll be interesting to see when the exhibition season kicks off again after the summer and visitors start coming in to the shows to see how well the non-smoking works.

The Royal Navy in AD

A long standing pal of mine from my Uni days is in Her Majesty's Royal Navy, and they docked their ship in AD on Sunday for few days. He's currently an officer on HMS Chatham and has spent the last few months in the North Arabian Gulf around Iran and Iraq. This was their first time on dry land for about a month and I managed to get together with him and some of his navy chums a couple of times, for the odd beer. Well, actually I had the odd beer, but they seemed determined to drink AD dry! But I suppose they deserve it as after these four days, they're back up to the North Arabian Gulf, and aren't going to be on dry land again for another month. It's actually pretty good to see a pal from back home over here.

He managed to take us onto the boat this evening and have a look round. An amazing experience. As you would expect, these boats aren't made for comfort, they're functional, and the equipment on there was pretty impressive, and that was before we saw the weapons, including the 4.5 inch "gun" at the front!

It was good to walk around a Navy boat and see how "our boys (and girls)" live when they're out at sea, and though they haven't yet fired (and hopefully won't fire anything in anger), they are risking they're lives in dangerous environments, and are doing it without the home comforts we all take for granted.

Here's my pal and me on the ships bridge - that's me in the captains seat!

New car

Picked up our brand spanking new car last week, and like nearly everyone when they get a new car, am pretty chuffed with it. As a rule, I don't like Fords. Memories of my Dad's old beige Sierra that I crashed 3 weeks and 2 days after passing my test, and left in a crumpled mess.

Well the new car is a Ford Edge, a pretty big 4x4, with a 3.5l, V6 engine and about 290bhp. An automatic that does about 14mpg. But then when you can fill up it's 60+litre tank for about 100 (dirhams that is), or just under 14 quid, it doesn't really matter. Has all the toys on, which on reflection are necessities, sat nav, reversing camera, bluetooth through the stereo for your mobile phone, remote control dvd player and the most important of all, the auxiliary input for your ipod!

You need a big car over here as nearly everyone has them and if you had something small, you wouldn't stand much of a chance on the roads! in fact the Ford Edge is probably one of the less conspicuous 4x4's out here. Porsche Cayennes and Hummers stand out like a sore thumb and are 2 a penny!