Posted by Kanga.
On the way home last Saturday night we happened upon a car fire. It was on the east side of the tunnel on the Sharjah-Kalba road. Not sure what it takes to engulf a car in flames. Really bad driving or really bad manufacturing or the combination of both?
Posted by Kanga.
Saturday was my first outing in a week. I’ve been down with a terrible cold and am still not truly well.
Back on October 20th, we had attended a promotional event at the Ford booth at GITEX (big technology expo). They were demonstrating the MyFord Touch system which integrates your technology with your Ford vehicle. Which means that you have a large touch screen monitor to the right of your dashboard that allows you to control your phone, music device (iPod or other player), access the Internet, etc. It is also voice activated to free you up while driving. It is very impressive, but I would not want it in my vehicle. The car is the last place I have without Internet access and therefore the last place I can count on my husband actually listening to what I say without being distracted. For the non-ADHD driver, it might be just the thing.
Because we attended that event we were also invited to the debut of the 2011 Ford Mustang. 
First we rode on the indoor track with a professional driver.
I am so thankful for the helmet. I banged my head several times. Here’s what it looked like from the outside.
Next was the outdoor driving experience. There were two options – an obstacle course timed competition with V6 models and a straight “floor it” with V8 models. I didn’t drive, but DaddyBird did. Here is his rather entertaining first run at the obstacle course. The fellows standing in the foreground are Mali (grey shirt) and Rami (white shirt).
And, then his V8 runs. DaddyBird is in the white car and our friend Mali is in the red one. (The video is somewhat disrupted by the umbrella blowing over on me.)
A fun time was had by all. Guys + fast cars = happy guys.
Cars here have strange names. This is probably the cream of the crop – the Nissan Sunny SuperSaloon.
Here’s the KFC and Pizza Hut signs somewhere between here and Ras Al Khaimah.
How did we know what floor of the shabby parking garage we were on? Why by the “2″ drawn in crayon on the wall next to the elevator buttons, of course.
So, we rented a car, at least until Dec 3rd when we fly out to Germany for our little vacation. They didn’t have the small size car, so up graded us to a rather luxurious one. Great leg room!
Paul’s mantra as he drives: “I have full insurance. I have full insurance…”
Friday is Scrabble Club, so we won’t get to do fun driving until Saturday! Problem is that we can think of several destinations, but only have the one day to do it in.
Maybe I should explain Scrabble Club. There is a group of people who meet once per month on a Friday and play Scrabble all day. Paul is the Scrabble player, I just sit around reading or entertaining myself as best I can. We’ve only been once (missed the last two due to illness). He played only half the day – four games and won three of them. So, come Friday, game on!
Once a month our neighbor gets a group from the college together to go to Quiz Night at one of the bars in town. There are four categories of questions of 10 each and a picture round with 10 pictures that you have to identify. The picture round this time was Star Trek characters. The MC jokingly told us we had to put down the character name, actor’s name and the episode. I did manage to write down the character’s full names and the actor’s full names. There were insufficient clues for the episodes, which is good because I cannot name the episodes. The sheet is now proudly displayed on our refrigerator. Anyway, our group did well in the other rounds as well and actually won the game. One of the questions in the “entertainment” round was what is the name of Mr. Data’s cat. I knew the answer to that one, too. See, all those hours watching Star Trek paid off.
This is the “sidewalk” outside our apartment. Good luck walking on the sidewalk. Don’t you just love the no parking signs?
We were at the bus stop at 8 am to begin our journey to get our driver’s licenses. We had our licenses in our hands by 9:14 am and I was to work by 9:40 am. I wish everything was this easy.
After we got our licenses, we were standing at a bus stop waiting for either a bus that would take me close to the college or a taxi. Traffic was quite thick. A taxi driver in the far lane saw us and signaled, so I signaled back. He crossed four lanes of traffic to come over and pick us up. Typical Dubai taxi driving. Needless to say that we had to run a little way to get to where he had pulled over (blocking the right lane) and the driver behind him was honking madly.
Now that we are licensed, the search for a car to lease begins in earnest. Hopefully, we will have wheels soon! Then watch out. We will be making the best of our weekends.
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