It’s a Beautiful Day in This Neighborhood

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day to be neighbors, won’t you be mine?  could you be mine?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist when Paul mentioned the word neighborhood about this post, the song just popped into my head.  The use of “beautiful” might be a bit sarcastic in regards to our “neighborhood” but it actually is looking nicer than it did 1.5 years ago when we moved in.  They have made some good progress on some of the homes under construction, so it’s looking a little bit more like a residential area and less like a dumping ground for construction materials.

Below is a photo of a sign that is posted nearby—I think it does a fairly good job at displaying the true character of the place we now call home.

When I got home from frisbee the other night, I noticed that a nearby house which usually has some sort of decorative lights up was completely revamped and lighting up the whole street.  I didn’t really know what to think.  Then last night, when we started to hear loud arabic music we took a walk down to see what all the commotion was about.

Apparently there was some sort of party.  Tons of cars were pulled up and lots of covered ladies and girls were entering.  One weird thing though was that the girls, and a few of the women that were showing their clothes from under their abayas, were wearing almost celtic looking clothes—plaid, pleated skirts, knee high socks, hair in braids.  It was very bizarre.

The other excitement for the weekend was a huge sandstorm that blew in on Friday morning and lasted through at least today (Saturday).  It did stop at night, but during the day the wind was howling.  Our apartment is now completely covered in a fine film of dust.

I don't think this photo really captures it, but I'm a bit surprised that this tree is still standing after being blown sideways for 2 days straight

Please focus on the dust, and not the dirty dishes.  Thank you :)

Dust everywhere

And this is what we have to thank for the dust--all of our windows have this massive hole (I can stick my finger through it) which allows sand, dust, hot air, and bugs in...  all year round

I also snapped a few shots of the road when we went to Hippy Chic for breakfast this morning.

The way the wind blows and drifts it almost reminds you of a blizzard

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, but the city of Abu Dhabi had workers out in this mess sweeping and shoveling the sand off the roads...  yes that needs to be done at some point, but while the sandstorm is still going?  i mean really