Hi all!
Well, I think I'm all caught up with photos! I found that if I work on it during the day, they upload without a problem. Now, here are some other "fun" facts about Dubai. Dubai, like any otehr place on Earth likes to get money. So here is the new way to do that...
They have made a "National Card". Now no one has told us directly that we need one, but the rumor is that everyone needs to get one including all children. Not sure of the exact cost but it is over $100 each! Now we already have a gate card (to use to get in and out of the airport), a driver's license, a labor card, and an insurance card. All that we had to pay for (of course). So here comes this new card. Now remember, no one has told us that we need it, but if so we need to have it by this December or January 2011. No one really knows the correct date, rumors are December but the website says January. Apparently if you use the website you can make an appointment, but if you go on to the website it states that it is no longer accepting appointments, so you must go stand in line to see if you can get it done at one of their facilities. Their facilities say that they process about 700/day, but from what we hear they only process a few a day. You wait in line at 7:30 am for the doors to open at 8:00 am. They let in about half the line and send the rest home because they have decided that they are only working until 1 pm that day and they can't handle any more. So, still think this is a great place? I have two more beautiful stories.
In October the powers that be decided that people were not buying/renting all the buildings that have been built. (By the way, they are talking about places like Palm Jumeirah that go for 450,000Dhm rent/year...$125,000!!!..RENT!!!) So they made it illegal for people to live in the same house if they were not related. So if you, and your 2 buddies shared a three bedroom house, you would have your electricity cut off, be fined some outrageous amount of money and eventually be thrown out (because your land lord would also be fined). This is happening now since the final date was end of October. Now if you signed a contract stating and paid until past October you were out of that money. The landlord does not need to pay any rent back to you from what you will not be using. So if you signed a contract in September until Sept 2009 you are SOL!!! Now they are stating that they made this law because of the problems they were having with landlords renting their house to 20 people at a time (literally you would buy a bed for 8 hours/day and that bed would be used by 3 people, in a room that had 6 beds) I agree that that type of rental should not be tolerated, but instead of fining the landlords for that behavior they have penalized everyone that cannot afford the rent here on their own. Add to that the landlords everywhere are upping their prices. We are moving this week because our landlord refused to fix our water heater then upped the rent by $25,000!!!) We decided that for the price we can get better. We found a place that is smaller but is in a nice community with a big pool, basketball court, and picnic area, (and dead end street to ride bikes!!!) Still think this is a great place? Okay, I have one more for ya...
My neighbor here is from South Africa. She has been here for 3 years. They are trying to get Canadian Passports and live there when they ae finished here. They have a little girl who, when they first arrived, had beautiful blonde hair. When they stopped at a gas station a man came up to them and said that he was taking their daughter. They physically had to pull their daughter away from this man. They got in the car and drove home. At school kids would cut her hair so that the could keep it as a keepsake.
Now, anyone else want to come to Dubai? Okay, done venting for another day. I know that things like this happen everywhere, but it's the fact that I haven't heard anything "good" about being here, and people are being driven out of this place faster than they are coming in. Soon they will have all this work to be done and there will be no one to do it for them because they could not afford to stay here.
Well, I'm hoping to be home soon. One interesting thing...I asked Samir what he wants to do when this year is over and he said that he wants to stay in Dubai. So I am happy that he has finally made some friends and is getting used to the school. Khalid, wants to see his friends from the Montessori school and does not want to stay here, but he is getting used to the school more. Ziyad told me yesterday that he has one friend now. That makes me feel better about bringing them here. All I got last month is that this place is boring and that there is nothing to do and that the kids at school are mean. If they are happy then I can be happy (maybe I will take up belly dancing some place?)
See you all soon! One month left before we get back to the States!!!

Then we had Samir's Birthday. He said that for his birthday he wanted to watch Ed, Edd, and Eddy (cartoon) and play WII all day long. He did!! But we did manage to get him (and the other boys) out of the house to at least walk around in the downtown area before it was time for bed.
Khalid wanted to go to the park for his birthday so we had our birthday breakfast and found a park to play in. The only problem was that it was still too hot to do much so we could only stay for a short time.

Here is the park that we went to

Catching up pix

Hi! These are some of the things that were happening between now and our trip to Mauritius.
First of all the kids had their first day of school.

These are pix on Palm Jumeirah. This is Abd's Uncle's house.
This is the view across the "frond" (branch of the palm). All that construction will be high rise apt buildings..I think? It goes on 24 hours/day, but you really can't hear anything from the house.
This is the Atlantis hotel. There is only one other one in the Bahamas. It has a water park in it. We have tried to go there, but it was so packed they were parking on the street and walking (in the 100F heat!) to the hotel...um..no thanks, we'll wait. There is a huge controversy right now because they caught a whale shark off the coast. They said that she was "struggling to survive" and therefore they brought it to their facilities. Now she is part of the exhibits and they are refusing to let her go back into the wild even though there are constant petitions and experts saying that she will not survive.
You are going to love this...See this building...It is an AIR CONDITIONER!!! One of about 4 (that I saw) that is used for cooling buildings on the Palm.

Back to Dubai

So after Mauritius the kids spent a few hours in the ski Dubai area. I think they are somewhere in this picture.

Our boat ride with the dolphins

Okay, this is my first time trying to upload a video but this was so cool I had to try... (crossed fingers "hope it works!)

Misc. Mauritius pix

This is the sunset...pretty. We would spend almost everyday stopping what we are doing to watch it set. I liked it with the boats.






This is off our hotel. We were doing some rides and all the boaters were saying that the dolphins were in the area. So we took a ride out and there they were. Check out the one right next to the boat. Very cool!!! We also have another scenic view from the boat.


So this is for all those people looking for "you know who" in Pakistan and Afganistan... PSSSST---Hey look in Mauritius, we found him!!!

These are pic for the Casela reserve. They had a "great" bug exhibition going on...


This is Abdallah's shoulder and a part of Z's head. The driver would throw bread to get the animals to come over. They would stick their whole head's in the truck!



Ah...the bug exhibit.Notice the giant spiders... my (gulp) favorite.

More Mauritius

These are pictures that we took at the Crocodile Reserves:


And these are the wonderful crocodiles that will either be eaten at the near by restaurant or made into shoes/belts/purses in a few years (sad but that's what the guide told us!)


This is the Rodriques Island Long necked tortoise that was killed to make oil (about 150 to make one barrel of oil)Can you imagine?



These are pictures of all the birds that have become extinct between Mauritius, Rodriques, and Reunion islands. Together they are called the Mascarene Islands.




This is the famous Dodo of Mauritius!

Mauritius pix cont

These are pix of the gigantic tortoises in one of the reserves. These are actually from the Seychelle island since they were wiped out of exisitence on Mauritius, but they are trying to reestablish them here. We had pictures of Khalid on one, but Samir refused to get near them!