Christmas Day

…began with a brief exchange of gifts.

For me, two strings of pearls – one white and one “black.” Natural black pearls are actually shades of purple, blue and brown. Very beautiful.

For DaddyBird, a handmade wooden dhow.

The day ended with a pleasant dinner with 22 of our friends.

(The one mugging for the camera is Mali.) More pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/ivanbautista2008/Tweetmasparty2010#

God bless us, everyone!

Christmas Eve 2010

Last year we spent both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve with friends at our favorite fish shack restaurant, Bu Qtair. This has become the tradition.

There were Christmas crackers containing a paper crown, stickers and a funny joke. (A corny joke, if you want to know the truth – How do you fix a broken pizza? With tomato paste. What does a doofus call his pet zebra? Spot. You get the idea.)

This was our toothsome dinner – hamour, pomfrit, two shari (not pictured) and two kilo of spicy prawn (also not pictured). It didn’t take us long to stuff ourselves.

We are a little concerned about our beloved fish shack. They informed us that they now offer rice AND they brought out malmac plates (instead of paper) and forks. Getting downright hoity toity. Maybe this is what happens to a great place like this after being featured on a cable food/travel show.

Great fun was had by all, especially DaddyBird.

For more on this fun evening, see our friend Micheline’s blog. (She writes a great blog. You might want to follow her regularly.)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Time slippage

Where does the time go? I’ve been scolded for not posting more often (never make money with this blog if I don’t ya know – never mind that that has never been my intention). Not much has happened.

So, here it is:

i put up the tree.

The cats enjoy chewing on the artificial branches. (We did not even bother putting it up last year because they were still kittens.) It is currently encircled with a pair of toddler gates to keep them from grazing. Even though they could easily leap over it, it seems to be enough of a deterrent, so far.

We ate at pleasant little Lebanese restaurant with quaint decor (and good food, especially the freshly baked bread).

And I saw this in the store.

And, no, it will not be under the tree.

There you have December, so far, in a nutshell.

Dubai Metro Progress

Posted by Kanga.

We are finally seeing some progress above ground on the metro construction out our window. Compare to how it looked back in September 2008.

The traffic flow isn’t quite normal, yet. However, the main flow is not diverted around the back of our building, so it is much easier to exit our parking garage due to less traffic on that street. It is also easier to tell taxis where to drop us off and there is a safe area for them to pull over and let us out. Much improved.