Thursday 24th September 2015.

Good morning! 9:46am and 32 degrees. 

Eid Mubarak! 

This week I am enjoying five days off for the Muslim religious holiday of Eid - "the festival marking the culmination of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and commemorating the sacrifice of Abraham" Wikipedia. 

The first night of Eid was Tuesday - a dry night where alcohol was not available anywhere, even hotels, to mark the beginning of the religious holiday. 

 One thing I absolutely love about being here is that everyone is from all over the World. It's rare that I have more than two students in a class from the same place and I absolutely love hearing about where they are from and about their culture. The children I teach all speak at least two languages, one girl speaks fluent French so I get her to translate all the French meanings for us in Ballet, which is great fun for the other kids to try and guess. When I came out here I think I was pretty ignorant of different cultures and from just being here three weeks I feel I have learnt so much, I even get in a taxi and ask them where they are from and all about the place they are from. Dubai has an amazing diverse culture.

 So I asked the children what they do for Eid, apparently it is all about giving, they go travelling to see their families, celebrate with big family meals and give presents and money to each other. I gather it is a lot like Christmas. 

 Whenever their is a Muslim holiday in Dubai, everyone gets the time off. In total there are 11 bank holidays a year in Dubai! 

Also this week, the Sheikh of Dubais son died. When someone of importance dies, the country has a period of mourning. So no music is allowed to be played anywhere apart from classical music. This applies to radio, malls, even gym classes are cancelled due to lack of music. When I first arrived here, Emarati soldiers had been killed in Yemen, so the country has been in mourning for almost the whole of September. 

 So today I spent my day off in the sunshine at the beach - white sands, clear water, blue skies and a iced green tea in hand - a far cry away from the typical rainy English bank holiday! I must say I am not missing English weather in the slightest apart from perhaps the odd Black Forest gateau hot chocolate from Costa when it's Autumnal outside. In Fact the other day I said to a group of children in class who were doing leaps across the room with heel lead, "you look like your coming down the room with your wellies on" which was received by completely blank faces. It then dawned on me that they had no idea what wellies were due to the lack of rain over here so I proceeded to explain what they were! The heat is still extremely hot, however I can feel the few degrees difference from when I got here. At night it's much cooler, I am actually able to sit out in it. Sunbathing at the beach was much cooler than the pool as you have the sea breeze. I was recommended a drink called pocari sweat, which apparently everyone here swears by. It tastes like lemon and sweat mixed together but is a absolute saviour for heat headaches! 

I haven't blogged for a while due to being pretty busy with work and getting into a routine over here. You may remember me mentioning getting lost for two hours the first week I was here, however a week last Saturday I managed to get lost for three hours. I knew exactly where I needed to be and I could even see the building but due to Dubai deciding they needed a canal running through a massive built up area, the roads were completely different and my sat nav didn't have a clue! Whilst we're on the subject of cars, I went to fill up with petrol again the other day and didn't have any cash on me. The man asked for my card and PIN number and did it all for me so I didn't have to get out the car. Dubai must be the only place you can trust someone with your PIN number and card! 

 Last Friday, a few of us went out to celebrate Kiera's birthday to brunch. It was at the Atlantis hotel - the one most of you have probably heard of in general conversation about Dubai. It is absolutely massive, has its own water park, it's own club and over 20 restaurants. Our brunch was at a restaurant there, called Saffron. It cost £100 per person, which originally I thought was a bit steep. However due to the price of alcohol over here and the sheer amount of food and drink you could get at Saffron, it was well worth the money. On arrival there was a short que to wait to check your table booking and be seated etc, however there was no need from be impatient, due to a choice of pink or white champagne whilst waiting! 

When we got in I swear my eyes nearly popped out of my head, the amount of food and drink was completely overwhelming. There was a station for every kind of alcohol you can imagine, jaeger bomb station, pimms station, slush puppie with vodka station, cocktails in pineapples and watermelons, the list goes on. 

Then there was literally every kind of food you could imagine from Chinese, to chocolate fountain, to roast dinner, to cheese board, to ice cream and toppings station. I came out feeling ten times bigger and extremely glad I wasn't wearing a super tight dress! 

 I spent Saturday out for lunch with Michelle and her friends and family at a lovely hotel and then on the evening I met Sophie, Anna and Natalie from home, who were here on holiday. We went to the Cheesecake Factory - this time I left enough room for cheesecake! We then went to see the dancing fountains but due to the Sheikhs son dieing and everywhere being in mourning, I failed to see them for the second time!

Most families seem to have nannies here, so many children are brought and picked up from class by their Nanny. By the pool last week was when I realised just how much they are part of the family! A lady was sunbathing by the pool and it wasn't for a while until I realised that the child playing in the water was her daughter playing with the Nanny so her mum could sunbathe in peace!! 

 On Tuesday evening just gone, I had dinner at Michelle's which was lovely, we had home made curry followed by wine in the garden - one thing I really love about being out here, being outside in the open air on a evening rather than inside with it raining out. We also also had a meeting about the Ballet show which will happen in March. So the next few days will be spent (apart from sunbathing) planning and starting choreography. As I write this I am currently enjoying an espresso and croissant - yes on my own Eleanor! - before teaching a twirling tots class - a class for 18 month to 2 year olds with their parents. So will eat and drink up and get to work, 

Happy Thursday everyone, 

 Xxx

The drink saving me from the heat...

My lovely flat mate and I before brunch at Saffron... 

Atlantis - the hotel where we are brunch - not a great photo due to being in a taxi whilst taking it!...

Five choices of prawn crackers...

The biggest chocolate fountain I've ever seen...

Ice cream station ... 

Watermelon cocktails, out of a real watermelon!... 

 Pineapple cocktails... 

Jäger bomb station...

Lobster anyone?...

Fairy lights, candles and wine at Michelle's... 

Note to my future husband...

When shopping in new look in Dubai, you receive free chocolate...

How bank holidays are done in Dubai... 

Breakfast this morning... 

Friday 11th September 2015.

11pm and 32 degrees.

After my two hour trek around Dubai on Monday, my bad luck with driving and my car continued. Tuesday morning I had off so I decided to chill out after my manic Monday night and sunbathe around the pool. However the chilled out mood wasn't to last as I arrived at my car to find a note on my front windscreen 'check your tyres!!', which I did and found my back tyre to be flat as a pancake. I am so thankful taxis are so cheap here so I could still get around easily enough. A ten minute taxi will cost about four pounds here, which if you take into consideration the hassle of driving and finding a parking space and splitting it between friends, you end up paying barely anything! The bad luck continued and on Wednesday Kiera and I set off to Hartland school forty minutes early for a twenty minute journey and ended up there an hour and a half later due to ridiculous traffic! 

Apart from these couple of incidents, the last few days have been a blast, the teaching has been great, the pupils at Prima are lovely, hard working and a pleasure to teach. The studios are big and mirrored with barres set into the walls. All the studios I teach at are inside buildings or malls so there's no locking up in the pitch black on your own, it's all very safe. Last night Michelle, Kiera, Lesley, two of Michelle's friends and I went out for brunch. This was a much classier version of brunch than last Friday's experience! It was at a place called channels inside a beautiful hotel.  Last night there was a Thai theme so there were endless amounts of curries, rice, duck pancakes, fried king prawns, fried squid, the list got on. Then there was dessert... I'll let the photos below speak for themselves but it was amazing. Darcey Stevenson you would be in heaven! 

As my family and close friends know I am a bit of a food snob, but this food was all gorgeous. I never had an empty glass, waiters walked around all night topping up our wine and cleared our plates straight away to enable us to get new plates for our next round of food! It's safe to safe I ate a LOT and it's a good job I had a baggy dress on! 

 After brunch we headed out to a club called societe that played music from the 80's, 90,s and 00,s. We had an absolute blast singing and dancing for hours to everything from cotton eyed joe to spice girls! The one thing that really hit me was the amount of smoke. In Dubai smoking isn't illegal indoors and the smoke burns your eyes. The good thing though was the lack of creepy men on the dance floor like in England! It's no pozition dance floor here! Everyone was just having a great time dancing and I felt so safe, you can even leave your bags and drinks down easily without the risk of them getting spiked or stolen! 

 We moved on from soceite about half midnight to Mahiki, a high class club at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. There are no entry fees at the clubs in Dubai but you pay for it in drink price - £70 for five vodka lemonades! But this is obviously due to all the alcohol being imported. We had a blast and ended up getting taxis home around 3:30am.

Today I have spent the day in the sunshine by our pool followed by an evening stroll with Kiera along 'the walk' on Jumeirah beach. I'm really grateful how well Kiera and I get on and how much we have in common, we didn't know each other at all apart from a few Facebook conversations and emails so I do feel really lucky. 

You will see from the photos how gorgeous the beach is from the photos. But do excuse the cranes bang slap in the middle of the sea. These are apparently there as Dubai have decided to build the biggest big wheel in the World, but to make it the bigger and better than everyone else's it's going to be in the middle of the sea! 

We ate at the Cheesecake Factory but didn't leave enough room after our massive burgers for the actual cheesecake... The menu for cheesecake was a double page of every flavour you could think of and looked amazing So will have to return for that! It's really strange to open the menu and not see an alcohol page. Alcohol can only be served in licensed hotels so in food places along the walk there is no way of getting it. You have to have a licence and be over 21 to be able to buy it in shops and if it's found in your house without one you can be arrested. I had a passion fruit mohito this evening but obviously without the alcohol.

I'm up early to teach Musical Theatre and baby ballet in the morning so off to watch Corrie and then to bed

 Night all xx

Brunch at Channels - the main courses...

Kiera loving the food...

Duck pancakes... 

Bread anyone?...

The desserts...

Who said you can't drink in Dubai... A gigiantic bottle of vodka... 

The vast cheesecake menu... 

Jumeriah beach, ten minutes taxi ride from my front door... 

You can just make out the base of the big wheel they are building... 

No donkey rides like Scarborough here Grandma and Grandma, here they do camel rides on the beach, they Stank!...

Sparkly Palm trees!... 

Beautiful lighting inside a hotel... 

Tuesday 8th September 2015.

Morning! 9:21am and 35 degrees. 

You guys will all be asleep whilst I'm writing this. That is one thing I'm finding wierd in Dubai - my Sunday is equivalent to my Monday, Corrie is on at 10:30pm and I'm skyping Mum and Dad at 7pm and then realising they're not even home from work yet! All a bit topsy turvy at the moment, i definately need to catch up on some sleep due to staying up late to catch X factor! 

So I started work yesterday and it's brilliant. The studios I'm working in are lovely and spacious and the children/students are all lovely. 

Yesterday morning I was teaching at a brand new english school in Dubai called Hartland, they have put dance, drama and singing into their curriculum (amazing!), so Prima (the dance school I work for) are going in to do the dancing. 

Here is the first place I've been asked to cover my shoulders. Dubai is no where near as strict as everyone makes out to be. Basically as long as you don't wear tiny shorts or revealing tops you are fine to where pretty much anything. Even in the malls!

Today I had my first emotional break down in Dubai...

I successfully drove on my own, for the first time, too and from my first class early this morning. I then successfully managed to get myself to the petrol station, which was manic with cars pushing in and beeping everywhere! I even managed to get myself to the studios this evening, which I was warned could be a bit tricky.

But luck would not hold out and this evening I found myself driving around Dubai for TWO HOURS in the dark. Dubai change their roads so frequently that they had not appeared on my sat nav.  This resulted in my driving up and down and round and round until I had to give Michelle a call, who turned into my superhero for the evening and came and rescued me.

After a lot of stress and tears, I decided this was the perfect opportunity to test out the free McDonald's delivery service! Yes, McDonald's actually delivers to your door here, in fact you can pretty much get anything delivered! 

Will have to love and leave you as the pool and sunshine is calling and I want to get in some hours of sunbathing before the heat gets too much!

❤️

Saturday 5th September 2015.

Hello! 11:21pm and 32 degrees.

Yesterday Kiera and I experienced our first brunch. A regular occurrence in Dubai where ex pats gather at restaurants and eat and drink all you like for a certain price. These range from high end champagne cocktail brunches to low end english pub brunches - unfortunately yesterday's turned out to be the latter! So we stayed for a few hours then left for and afternoon by the pool and the Mall. We also experienced our first  sand storm - sand and dust everywhere, the cars were covered! Our lovely maid told us this usually happens when the climate is starting to change. It would be nice to be slightly cooler, I attempted to sunbathe for an hour today and ended up dripping with sweat after five minutes and a headache! However our pool cooled me down!!

This afternoon/evening I went with Lesley, another girl that teaches for Michelle,  to Dubai Mall - the biggest shopping mall in the World. It is over 13 million square foot and equivalent to more than 50 football fields!!

There is every thing you could think of, from high street shops to designer shops, from popcorn shops to cheesecake restaurants. There is a ten million litre aquarium and under water zoo, an ice rink and fountains - all inside the mall. I am definitely never going there alone as I would never find my way out!

Outside the mall is the famous fountain show - however it was broken this evening, typical! We still walked around the massive lake and watched the sun go down next to the Burj Khalifa - the tallest building in the World. I'm starting to realise whatever the rest of the World do, Dubai do it ten times bigger and better. 

Still having to pinch myself to make me believe this is where I live now... 

Burj Khalifa...

Sunset at Dubai Mall...

The 'underwater zoo' INS Dubai Mall... 

The fountains in Dubai Mall...

Our pool...

Me with about 1/50th of the Burj Khalifa behind me...

Thursday 3rd September 2015.

Good evening! 8:30pm and 36 degrees. 

I'm definitely getting used to the temperature already, my sunglasses are still steaming up as soon as I step out of the door but air con makes the heat pleasant and not unbearable.

 Michelle bravely took me out in my new rental car today and you will all be happy to know I am alive after my first drive in Dubai! I absolute love driving a automatic car, so much easier and driving on the other side of the road wasn't too bad, however the roads are so confusing and drivers just cut across in front of you all the time. So I will be setting off ridiculously early to get to work as you all know how brilliant my sense of direction is!! 

 This evening I have been to the Ibn Battuta Mall with Kiera opposite our apartment compound, it's probably about a five minute walk, but with the heat as it is at the moment, there is no way I would be carrying six bags of food shopping walking home. The malls are as amazing as I've heard they are - massive statues and fabulous decor everywhere, air conditioned, so clean and hundreds of shops. Kiera and I had some street food in the centre of the mall, similar to the food court in Leeds Trinity before heading to do 'a big shop' at the giant supermarket. 

This was an event in itself - Mum you will be amazed! You can literally get every type of any food you want for any allergy and preference. There were three double aisles just for juice and an entire counter like you get a counter for fish, just for nuts! Lauren and Nicole you would be in heaven, more choice than waitrose!

 I'm absolutely shattered after a very busy 72 hours and need to Skype my grandparents so will leave you with a few photos from today and Dubai facts I've learnt from being here. If any of you want to Skype me my Skype name is jfharker1991 

 Xxx 

 Facts...

 - We have a maid. (I know how appalled Jan will be reading this) Apparently this is a done thing in Dubai, the service is £12 for three hours and we will be helping out the local workers by giving them the work. So we had to really! 

 - Pretty much everything is done for you. We didn't have to pack our own bags at the supermarket, and to fill up with petrol (which is £5 for a full tank!!) we just rock up to the petrol station and someone fills up for you, you don't even get out of your car.

 - Everywhere is air conditioned - yes, even the bus stops have sliding doors into an air conditioned bus stop! 

 - Even though we are in the middle of a desert, Dubai is VERY green from the springs underground. There are hundreds of palm trees, which are sacred - if you crash into one you have to call the police to report it and then pay for a new palm tree!

The mall...

The honey counter...

The nut counter... 

Wednesday 2nd September 2015.

Good evening from Dubai! Currently 9pm and 35 degrees. After just 24 hours of being here I am completely in love with this place. 

 Rewinding back to yesterday... 

 The flight - If you know me well you will know I absolutely hate flying and my usual routine for flying is two double amarettos, an tablet for anxiety and many tears and that's before I even board! However yesterday, after getting up at 7am with about four hours sleep (the waiter from the night before decided to ignore our request for DECAF coffee, resulting in my brain working overtime at 2am!), and a tearful goodbye with Dad, I decided 9am was a little early for alcohol... So I just went for a single amaretto!

 If you haven't flown with Emirates before, you need too. As soon as I stepped on the plane I felt reassured. I was welcomed by beautiful flight attendants in gorgeous Emirates uniform, given three seats to myself and a warm cloth to freshen up before take off. The plane was so massive I didn't feel take off or landing apart from some very slight turbulence half way through. The faultless service was continued with endless complimentary drinks (mainly G & Ts), afternoon tea, raspberry cheesecake, blankets to have a nap with, baileys coffee, and when it got slightly darker, the lights dimmed and tiny lights appeared on the ceiling - similar to the 'star cloth' Miss F and Miss T! I'm aware I'm starting to sound like a review on Trip Advisor but the flight has magically cured my fear of flying... For now. Get on an Emirates flight Nicky Austin! 

 The arrival - After disembarking the plane, I made my way through passport control, where I had my passport stamped with a 30 day visa and got told I had a beautiful name! After waiting about 45 minutes for my case (which seemed like a lifetime!) I wandered through Dubai airport to meet my lovely new boss Michelle. My first impression of Dubai was how clean and how hot it was. We drove through this city of lights to the other side to the Movenpick Ibn Battuta Gate Hotel Dubai , which takes roughly half an hour to get across, completely mesmerised by the amount of lights and palm trees. Here is where I had my first taste of the Dubai lifestyle... we drove up to the hotel doors and Michelle told me we would be going here for drinks as Dubai doesn't have pubs just posh hotel bars and to hop out of the car as it was valet parking! Here is where I met Kiera (who I'm sharing my apartment with) and Matt, (Kiera's boss). The girls enjoyed a free evening as it was ladies night and it was buy 'three for free', so for all those rumours out there that girls can't drink in Dubai, stand corrected! 

 After a tiring a day, I arrived back at my new home, my apartment in The Greens, which is lovely and spacious - a three bed place with three bathrooms, a kitchen, and a lounge. So much space for just the two of us, so anyone fancy a holiday, there's a guest room for you all!

 Today... After a good nights sleep, I spent most of the day with Michelle, sorting out arrangements for the start of term on Sunday - The Dubai working week is Sunday-Thursday. I was made to feel so at home by Michelle, her lovely mother in law and her new gorgeous baby Harlee, and spoilt with lunch and tea at her beautiful Villa. 

 I'm pretty much unpacked and super tired after a busy couple of days. Tomorrow I'm heading out with Michelle in my new hire car to give driving over here a try, which will be interesting to say the least!!

 Below are a few pictures of my new home in the desert and to show you how much I'm missing the English weather... 

Night all! Xx

The beautiful hotel... 

Palm tree city...

My lovely lounge...