Life in Dubai

Dolphins, Rain, and Registration

2010-03-09T21:05:00.005+04:00

DOLPHINS:

For my birthday last month, Jaclyn got us a ‘swimming with dolphins’ experience at the Dubai Dolphinarium. We got to spend about 20 minutes in the pool with the dolphins as they pulled us around the pool. We had a blast doing it, even though sometimes it felt like we were riding bucking broncos. The dolphins have unbelievable power, but yet they are so gentle and cognizant of their surroundings.

RAIN:

From the 27th of February through the 2nd of March, we got about 2 inches of rain in the UAE. A normal person would think “that doesn’t sound like so much water”. A desert dweller would beg to differ though. The drainage systems here are not very well built or maintained. In one area, three (of the four) lanes on the major road between Dubai and Abu Dhabi were flooded. One of the main roads around Dubai was totally closed for about a day. Some of my co-workers could not physically make it from their homes to work (without a boat). Jaclyn actually had a ‘rain-day’ from school, a day after the rain had stopped.

The flooding got worse for about a day after the rain stopped. Check out the pictures from Sharjah (another city that is connected to Dubai). These pics were taken about a day after the rain stopped.

REGISTRATION:

On March 4th, Jaclyn took her exam (boards) to become a Registered Occupational Therapist (OTR). We decided that we would celebrate a ‘pass’ on her part that evening. Then, a few days later, we got her scores back and found out that she actually did pass. A big congratulations goes out to Jac.

That’s all for now. Leave a comment below (it’s mandatory).

More Visitors and the Dubai Tennis Tournament

2010-02-23T21:37:00.004+04:00

The New Year has brought a flux of visitors through our doors. Our friends (Elizabeth and Andy) just left following a one week stay in Dubai. I think that they were both equally impressed with different facets of what Dubai has to offer. Elizabeth really liked the beach, sun, and warm weather, while Andy was thrilled to take in all of the sights.

Every time that a new person visits Dubai, Jaclyn and I seem to discover a new place to go or a new thing to do. With our most recent visitors, we went to The OBSERVatory. It is a restaurant/lounge/bar on the 52nd floor of a building that overlooks the Palm Island. Best of all, from 6-8pm, the drinks and snacks are 50% off. Check out the pictures (it's hard to see the palm in the pictures).

Here are some other photos from the last week:

Every February, many of the world’s top tennis players converge on Dubai for the Barclays Dubai Open. The women’s tournament finished last Saturday, and the men’s tournament started Monday night. My buddy (a red-headed guy named Eric who is internally referred to as ‘twin-replacement’) and I went to the opening round of the men’s tournament. Opening round tickets are only about $8, so we really couldn’t afford to not go. We got to see Novak Djokovic (world ranking #2) and Andy Murray (world #4) win their first round matches. The seats were general admission, and we found courtside seats in the 7th row.

January Wrap-up

2010-01-30T21:48:00.003+04:00

We have been very busy since our last post. Following a short visit to Illinois, we were quite exhausted when we arrived back in Dubai. Brad and Jordan came back to the UAE with us, and we enjoyed the first half of the month spending time with them. It was great to have them here for a visit. We love having people to show around. We all experienced most of what the UAE has to offer.

Crab hunting in the shallow seas of Umm Al Quwain.

The Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi

The girls had to get all 'covered up' to go inside the mosque.

Fireworks for the opening of the Burj Dubai now known as the Burj Khalifa. Khalifa is the ruler of nearby Abu Dhabi, who recently paid off a lot of Dubai's debts.

In front of the Burj Al Arab, with the Burj Dubai in the very distant background. This photo was taken from on the Palm Island.

Burj Dubai: self explanatory.

When we got back from the US, I (Adam) immediately moved to a new project. I am now commuting to Abu Dhabi (~50 minutes) everyday. I travel with a few other guys, so I don't have to drive all the time. It really isn't too bad. The project is called Al Raha Beach - The Ultimate Waterfront City. The project is 11km of beachfront property that is being developed with towers, canals, villas, town-houses, etc. You can check it out at http://www.alrahabeach.com/.

Jaclyn's work has gone really well over the last few weeks. She is working at Dubai Center for Special Needs as the work placement coordinator. She is placing a few of her students (17 to 28 year-olds) in after-school work programs, which is a really big step for special-needs individuals in Dubai. The UAE is really far behind on individual rights, but there seems to be a small movement in a positive direction. I really feel that Jaclyn is making a big difference in the lives of the students.

Maggie, our puppy, keeps growing and growing. This weekend we took her out to a secluded beach. She learned to swim, and she enjoyed wading along the shallow beach.

The last two mornings, I got to watch Marty's basketball game over the internet. That was a pretty good deal for me. Even though the video feed was a little bit choppy, I really enjoyed getting to see some of the games.

Long Awaited Photos

2009-12-21T22:20:00.008+04:00

I have promised many people that I would pass on photos from our honeymoon safari. With Jaclyn in the US for the past few days, I have finally taken the time to sort out some of my technical problems (thanks Jeff) in order to post the photos. These are only from the safari. I haven't had time to work on the photos from our short beach stay where we got some great shots of monkeys.

Baby Elephant

Giraffes are very friendly and like to pose for the camera.

Impala

Warthog (Pumba): These were my favorite.

Don't know why.

Leopard: by far the best thing we saw.

These creatures are awesome (~20 yards)

~25 yards

These lions were honeymooning too (~25 yards)

Hippo

African Buffalo

As you can probably tell, we upgraded our camera so that we could get some good, close shots of the animals. We each took about half of the pictures. Jaclyn is learning to handle the camera pretty well...

We also went on a quick weekend trip to jordan in October. We landed in the capital city, Amman (2 photos of Roman ruins at the Citadel), took a day trip to Petra (ancient city carved into a canyon; google it!), and experienced the sunset at the Dead Sea (lowest place on Earth, saltiest water on Earth). The Dead Sea actually requires unique swimming techniques because of the buoyancy of the water. The water actually feels like baby oil.

We were only in Jordan for about 40 hours, which wasn't long enough, but we got to see some cool things.

Look at the size of the people on the steps.

We have thousands more pictures...way to many to go through. Send me a line if you want to see any more of a particular setting.

Christmas in Dubai and Maggie Pics

2009-12-21T21:19:00.003+04:00

Since Jaclyn and I will both be back in Illinois for Christmas, and because we will be uber-busy when we are there, we celebrated the Adam-Jaclyn-Maggie Christmas on Dec. 11th this year. As far as we could tell, we did a pretty good job with our first Christmas.

It all started on the evening before (the 10th), when Jac and I made Christmas cookies. It turns out that neither of us are especially fond of sugar Christmas cookies, but we made them anyway. At least with the cookies, we had something to give to the neighbors. Jaclyn whipped up the cookies and icing (it may have been frosting, I cannot remember the difference) from scratch and we made a proper (British term) mess.

At one point, Maggie got ahold of something in her mouth that I did not want her to eat. I promptly went after her to pry it out of her mouth. As you can see, 'Maggie' became 'Spot' for about 20 minutes. It was just too cute to clean her off.

The next morning we celebrated Christmas (complete with our $2.75 tree and $40 limit on gifts). It was fun, and Maggie really liked ripping into the presents.

After the gifts, we proceeded into making brunch. Within about 2 hours Jaclyn was able to whip up quiche (with home-made crust), coffee cake, and biscuits all from scratch (she is really a top-notch wife and cook). I offered my assistance as her Indian Chef (the real term is pronounced 'soo-chef', which I can only assume to be spelled 'Sioux', which is obviously a tribe of American Indians) and by making the gravy. It was quite a feast, but it is kind of a let-down when we spent so long cooking and only the two of us got to enjoy the food. Christmas Day continued with naps and movies. All-in-all, it was a great success.

I took Jaclyn to the airport on the night of Dec. 15th for her return to the US. I will be leaving on the night of the 23rd. Hope to see you soon.

Adam

The Blog

2009-12-06T22:32:00.002+04:00

Hey all,

I think that you all received an email from us about rugby yesterday. It was actually the first post on our brand new blog site: www.adamandjaclyn.blogspot.com

It also contains links to some of the other Meinhart blog sites (shibatas, kochers, wilkes, righters).

You can spread the word about the new site.

Adam, Jaclyn, and Maggie

Dubai Rugby Sevens

2009-12-05T20:03:00.004+04:00

This weekend in Dubai was the annual "Dubai Rugby Sevens" Tournament. Rugby Sevens is a new'ish' version of rugby where each team has 7 players (instead of the standard 15) but the game is still played on a full-sized pitch. Each game is only 14 minutes (2 - 7 minute halves), so a new game starts on the field every 20-30 minutes. Between games (and during half-times) is a big singing and dancing session in the stands. There is no assigned seating, so the stands do tend to get pretty rowdy.

We enjoyed two days of the action in year number 2 for the new "Sevens Club". Check out the stadium pics:

(The stadium is built entirely out of construction scaffolding)

(The bowels of the stadium look very different from most stadiums)

(The stadium looks good from the inside.)

Here is the group that we went to the tournament with. We were all a little bit subdued (the picture was taken on day #2):

Here is Jaclyn, supporting her win-less USA team:

The headlining act (crowd-pleaser) at the Sevens was Austin Powers, leading the dancing from the field.

(Oh, and costumes are an integral part of the event.)

More to come soon...

Adam and Jaclyn