Day 28 – Wednesday 10 January 2018

Another school day, another 7am start & more of the same today, a couple of lazy old movies this morning, some more on-line learning & a walk to the shop.  The grocery store nearby is very interesting, the fresh fruit & vegetables are from all over the place. Mangoes from Kenya, limes from Spain, Valencia oranges, Brussel sprouts & watermelon from Australia, cucumbers local UAE, garlic from Spain & China, peaches from France, kiwi fruit from Spain etc.  All very fresh looking & good quality.  There is also something I never expected to see in a muslim country, there is a cool room special section with all sorts of pork products, a huge variety of sausages, salamis, ham, bacon, crispy pork skin, lard, pork ribs, pork legs & pork belly, etc.  There is a large sign over the door that states “Pork section for non-muslims only”.

Another thing I never expected to see is a liquor store, these are uncommon & very discretely placed, usually tucked away in a distant corner, sometimes in underground carparks with no obvious signage.  To buy alcohol you have to apply for a special licence from the government & it must be presented when you purchase, the licence is not available to muslims.  The selection is amazing, all types of alcohol & lots of very expensive brandies & whisky, some bottles more than $2,000 Australian.  There is a good choice of quality Australian wines, expensive though & the beer selection is mostly European, not so bad at all & reasonably priced.

Not all palm trees we see are palm trees, there are some very tall ones that you sometimes notice have a metal post or two poking out the top, disguised mobile phone towers, a really great idea.

Tonight Charles plays squash & I go with him to spectate.  This is the first time Charles has been to this venue, it is a new one & we find the location OK, finding the squash courts is a lot more problematic.  Lights are off & we go to a few spots asking if they know where the courts are, we get a few loose directions then end up meeting a player from the other team who knows the spot.  We walk through a darkened entrance, through a few open glass doors then get to a door labelled “Anti-doping testing”, we are assured this is the door to go through.  We walk along a long corridor, we pass another door labelled the same, then down a flight of stairs then along another corridor then a plain white door.  Behind this we find the two squash courts with a small group of people waiting to play.  Signage is not all that good here in the UAE, though the signs that you do see are mostly both in English & Arabic.

Chatting with one of Charles team-mates helped to break another pre-conception I had about personal safety & security in the UAE.  She had moved back to England after a number of years working in Abu Dhabi, then after having their house broken into six times within a year living in England decided to move back to Abu Dhabi for the safety & security being so much better in the UAE.  Crime is not something you hear very much about, the penalties are severe.  Any expatriate committing a crime serves their jail sentence & is then deported, for any crime.  Drink driving is prohibited, any driver detected with any alcohol is jailed for a minimum 3 months.  For serious crimes such as rape, the person is executed within a week of sentence.  It is a very safe place to walk around.

We got home to a nice Thai beef salad dinner.  Played a little bit of Xbox with Austin.  Charles & I had a nice chat for a while over a few glasses of Australian red wine before we realised that it was after 11.30pm.  Another great day.