a very short night — we arrived in dubai city at 23:25 last night and got to our ridiculously expensive hotel at 1:10 this morning and i got up at 5:00 to be picked up by the shuttle to our workshop location at 6:00. well, it was supposed to pick us up at 6:00, it did turn up at 6:30: what i had heard in the night was not (as i had imagined in my sleep-deprived state of mind) the hotel crew washing off the desert dust but was indeed and in fact: rain!
the first time i’m on the arabic peninsula, in a desert state, it rains! typical. rain in the united arabic emirates is like a couple of centimeters of snow in the southern states of the US: it hits both on the wrong foot and in both cases you have accidents all over the place. the largest one was without doubt a “sweet water tanker” that had titled over on the highway to abu dhabi.
during the workshop with our client i keep fighting against sweet sleep — inspite of very interesting presentations.
luckily, we finish earlier than expected, have a lovely dinner outside with a view across the waterfront, then manage to get the bus back to arrive earlier than scheduled to take us back to the hotel — which we do, once the bus driver has been told how to get back to dubai…
