Summer Cold in Dubai

Yes I feel crappy. I have caught a terrible cold. How in the world when it is a 112 degrees outside do you catch a cold? Oh well, so I had lunch delivered in (KFC) and I thought I would blog instead of taking a lunch.
There is a ranking order of Nationalities in the UAE. You will be glad to know that Americans are at the top, on the same level as the Emiritians and the Lebanese and other Middle Easterners. Europeans seem to be at the same level, then the class structure goes down. Almost 85% of the residents of Dubai are not citizens. The only way to be a citizen is by being born to Emirate parents. If you are born here it does not give you citizenship like in the US. As a non-citizen almost every thing I do requires my passport and my resident visa. I had to have a sponsors working visa to come here, then apply for a resident visa once I settled in. I found it interesting that the first thing I had to do was have a blood test for HIV and Hepatitis. If you are found to have either one, you are immediately quarantined until you can be deported. The authorities are in complete control, censoring the Internet sites and generally protecting the residents from physical and moral health issues. It is estimated that 80% of the people here are Muslims. I have yet to see a prayer rug for they have prayer rooms they go to when they are called to worship. In the malls, at work or anywhere in public. The calls to prayer are broadcast over loud speakers like our tornado sirens back in the US. The times vary, as right now the first call to prayer is at around 3:45 in the morning. It would wake me up every morning at my hotel, but I have not heard it at my Apartment (yet). Saturday, while walking at the mall (yes Yvonne that is the number 1 thing to do when its hotter than Haties) the call to worship came and it reminded me of the way the movies portray the chanting of Monks, very melodic as it echo'd off the walls. Sadly, it is apparently live as sometimes it sounds like Rose Ann Barr singing the National Anthem...
Oh well, my lunch break/blog is over, back at it...(are you bored yet...???Wait til I tell about my lunch date....) That is my blog teaser...lol.

Best wishes from the Gulf Tower B in downtown Dubai,

John