The Good Life

As Monday comes to a close I have been reflecting on the "good life" that I am enjoying. I have been here for 3 weeks as of tonight. Materially, I have been set up in a good situation, I am in a 35 story Apartment in downtown Dubai, I have mostly furnished it with decent furniture at reasonable prices. I have been welcomed by coworkers and have a good job. I feel as safe as I have living anywhere because there is no crime to speak of. My apartment has an extraordinary number of Europeans and young professionals...is very clean and appears to be well maintained. The job is an awesome opportunity where I have been brought in as a Senior Manager, I am compensated generously,and have tremendous growth opportunities. And I have been here for 21 days and have not paid a cent in taxes! Please, no pinching in Dubai...
Yesterday, the cable guy came, he was late and he messed things up, unfortunately there are things that they mirror the United States in. While hanging out waiting for furniture, cable and TV a neighbor from down the hall stopped by to visit. Her name is Estelle, she is married with no children and wanted to share with me her house cleaning secret. She was excited that a European/North American was moving in, while the former tenants were polite, I gather that they used a lot of curry while cooking...but I digress, she uses a cleaning service that charges 30 Dirhams a visit, comes up to 3 times a week, will do ironing and cleans windows, bathrooms and floors...as you may recall from your earlier math lessons that is $8.18. Yes, you are right I booked them for Thursdays...I'll let you know.
I bought a new camera and I played with it on Saturday night. I was trying to take pictures of the Burj (Worlds tallest building) from my pool, but I was too close. More interesting there were white spots all over the picture....it looked like big snow flakes. I discovered that this was sand blowing in the air, during the hot summer months the sand blows so much sand that the skyline looks like LA's during a high smog day. I will try and upload some of these pictures tonight. I am told that from October through April, that it is very clear and beautiful, and that on a couple of days we may even get rain...We first have to survive August where days in the mid 120's with humidity hovering near 80% are normal...First night of TV tonight...I miss Entourage, True Blood and yes sadly Big Brother...The Internet is censored, so I don't know which loser Ali ended up with...lol, God Bless you and the US...
Thanks for reading....