Galloping Galan Gazette August 10,2006

Galloping Galan Ga
August 10, 2006
Hello from Dubai, United Arab Emirates! We got here July 19, after spending a hectic and wonderful month with our children, grandchildren and family, driving, camping, driving, talking, flying, visiting, and more driving! We left Plymouth, Michigan, and drove our motorhome to Provo, Utah, to visit Marci and Mike, Sibhana and Daemien, and Rick, April and Tyce,, then drove on to Washington where we collected Nena, Ryan, Jordan, Alaina, Colton and Livvy, and went on our journey to British Columbia to camp. There we learned that passports are needed, at least over July 4th, so we went to “Plan B” and spent several days in Glacier National Park in Montana. It was great fun, and even though many family members were severely disappointed that the original plans had to be amended, we did learn one thing: We love our family more than Canada!


We got back to Washington, took showers and flew to California to say goodbye to Waldo’s family, and reassure his mother that we were not moving into a war zone.
Schatzie and Heidi went with us throughout our travels, and were cared for by Nena and family during the times we were in California, and when we moved to Dubai. They arrived Saturday morning, after 4 days of traveling—they couldn’t fly when the temperature was over 85 degrees, so they could only fly at night.
Cay’s first impressions of Dubai are HOT, HOT, HOT!! Extremely efficient air conditioning! People from all parts of the world, in many different styles of clothing, and Arab women in beautiful abayas (the overgarments) with sweats and tennis shoes on underneath, and young men in dishdashas (the white “shirtdress”)with baseball hats on instead of the traditional gutra (the head-scarf). Cracked me up!
Some of the sights we have seen around here are the hotel that looks like a sail, and the ski slope inside the mall. No kidding! There are no mail carriers—there are no addresses as we know them, so we have to make a map, or agree on a place to meet, to guide delivery people to the house. The custom here is that you get a post office box, so we’re using Ford’s. The weekend here is Thursday and Friday, so we go to church on Friday, which makes it very interesting when you’re trying to coordinate phone calls.
We have been impressed with the levels of efficiency and expertise we’ve encountered, as well as the friendliness of people we meet. One problem is that, since just about everyone speaks English, you would think we could understand each other…..but no! Indian English is very different from Australian or South African, which is very different from our California/Michigan twang, and so it requires lots of patience and humor (or, as they say here—humour).
We were informed today that the sea shipment of our furniture will be arriving in our home on August 15th, and it will be wonderful to sleep in our own bed again. If we have a complaint about the apartment we’re in now it’s that the bed is so hard we might as well be sleeping on the floor!
Well, that’s all for this first installment…More in a few weeks!
zette