Sandstorms

Growing up in Chicago, discussing the weather has taken up good hours and hours and hours of conversation. Especially wintertime. Even here in Dubai, I hear about crazy winter conditions and I reach out to friends from home. It has supplied endless hours of conversation for me.

Well, here in Dubai there is no such thing as a winter storm, BUT there ARE sandstorms. I have seen some here and there pass through, but nothing was like this past weekend when we had a MAJOR sandstorm. Before I go any further, I have to say sandstorms here are NOT like the Mission Impossible 3 with Tom Cruise, when you have this immediate and sudden mass of sand coming at you. Ooohhhh no (I've had to explain that far too many times). Usually it's a little cloudy and windy and life goes on. Well, this weekend not only did the sun disappear completely (hmph. Why was it the ONLY weekend I finally had time to R&R at the beach that this happened?), but it was extremely windy with sand blowing all over the place (even in places like my apt which is no where near the sand) AND it RAINED!!!! Because rain happens soo rarely here, this was quite exciting.

Just like those cold, bitter winter days when it is snowing and snowing and you just want to sit inside and cuddle in a blanket, have some tea, and veg out in front of the TV, here it was nearly the same. We are TOTALLY spoiled that it is sunny 90% of the time, so with NO sun out, it was fairly gloomy and nothing like a little hibernation for the weekend. I also have to say it's a bit dangerous to be outside because the fine sand is sooo fine that it's a hazard for the eyes and it literally gets all over the place (it can cause a lot of problems for cars too).

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures, but it would have shown a grey sky with like a couple hundred meter visibility. The Burj Kalifa was totally hidden, you could probably see only up to floor 25 out of 150 (or whatever it is) and the "skyline"  (the only reason I " " this is because being from Chicago, which has an AMAZING skyline, the one here is like 10% of ours) disappeared completely.

The GOOD news of all this is that 0234320432048392 years later, okay 4+ months, I FINALLY finished my photo book of Antarctica!!!! It has been quite a project and VERY time consuming, but I am proud of the end result and wanted to share: http://travellen007.shutterfly.com/pictures/8. There are also links to other photobooks I've made from my trip to Rwanda and Uganda and also my World Trip from a couple of years ago.

Sooo.... life in Dubai is NOT all about fun in the sun, it can be about no fun in the sand!

Happy April everyone!!