Construction

This entire city is "under construction".....I've had at least 20 people tell me that about 25% of the world's cranes are in Dubai. Whether that statistic is true or not there are enough cranes here to store in Paris Hilton's who-ha. I can't wait to see this city in 5 years. It's either going to be a complete disaster or it's going to be the best thing that has ever happened to the Middle East since the day I was born (side note: the latter is a highly unlikely scenario). AND, there is still so much land up for grabs.

Actually (true story time), one of the only strips of beach where you don't have to pay an entrance fee was about to disappear due to some development hungry hustlers. Pretty soon people started petitions online and wrote local newspapers about their disappointment of the closure of the last public beach. It only took two weeks before the Sheikh called off the development. And that is one of the positives of having "semi-authoritarian" government. So, beach time is back on!

My Finger

So last night I met up with a friend (John Coleman) from college who is in Dubai on business. We met up with some of his coworkers and other friends for dinner. We went to this great restaurant in Souk Madinat, which is a very posh/trendy area near the Burj Al Arab.

Here.....

Right as they brought the food I went downstairs to use the restroom. I went to close the restroom door and smashed my right middle finger right in the door. It was unbearably painful but I figured after a few minutes the pain would subside. I went to wash my hands and realized that underneath my fingernail was completely red, black with some shades of purple. By the time I went back upstairs where our table was I was feeling sick to my stomach from the pain. I calmly sat down at the table and it only took two minutes before everything started closing in on me. Next thing you know I'm laying on back at the table behind us and drinking sugar syrup straight up. I felt like such a loser considering that I had just met the 7 out of 8 people that were at our dinner table. Below is a picture of my finger.....a day later. The black dot on my nail is where my mom's friend tried to poke a hole in my nail to relieve the pressure. Unfortunately after several attempts and some excruciating pain she was unsuccessful. So instead she gave me some codeine for the pain.

And that's a night out with Arezoo.

The Cheetah

My brother's friend has a pet Cheetah. Her name is Bella. It's still a baby so it's not full grown yet. I'm not going to lie, I was a little frightened of the idea of a loose Cheetah. It's actually very friendly, except when you don't feed it.

The Casa

The pool

The Neighborhood

So here are some pictures of the neighborhood. It's more like a community (called Silicon Oasis) and it has it's own website (dso.linux5.flipcorp.com/). The "community" has a few pools, a grocery store, gym, liquor store (very key), and a DVD rental for now. Oh, the pool also has it's own restaurant and you don't even have to get up to get some food, the waiters come to you. It's more like a resort. Tough life, I know. When the community is done it will be like a mini-city.