Coffee-Fix

Here you can see me getting myself a treat. I have to admit that over the years I have become one of those awful persons who do like to drink a Latte when in town and when under time pressure or on the way to the park, I even like to take them with me. We all have our weak spots, I guess. 🙈

Getting a decent Latte had proven to be more difficult than expected... After all I am in the Middle-East... and of course you find that well-know huge American Café-chain whose name I shall not mention on every corner here but I have to admit, having lived with Swedish coffee- and "fika"-culture for 12 years, visiting manydelightful Caés in Stockholm, I have become a coffee-snob of sorts. So that was not an option. 

After weeks of trial and failure (actually I had given up after the awful coffee in the hotel and two other trials to get my beloved energy kick), my husband finally remembered to point out this place on the way to the beach. And what should I say - instant coffee heaven. 

So today when taking the kids to the beach, I took advantage of this opportunity. 

Fog

Besides Corona, fog was all over the news this week and I thought I share with you some pictures I took yesterday from our home high up in the sky...

Enjoy!

Early yesterday day morning it looked like this:

No ocean to be seen, only a thin veil of mist and some sky scraper sticking out. I honestly thought that was it, as the fog normally lifts during the morning.

But the afternoon held some more surprises. I couldn't even see the street below is, we were engulfed in a salty smelling sea of white fluff.

The evening made for some beautiful light:

 I was afraid that the views might get boring over time but so far there is always something to discover. 

More "UAE in fog" pictures can be seen here: 

https://gulfnews.com/photos/readers-pictures/photos-readers-share-pictures-of-foggy-weather-in-abu-dhabi--dubai-and-sharjah-1.1611211442441

The Emirates, Covid-19 and we

So, the Corona-virus and Covid-19, the sickness it causes, have determined almost everybody's life during the last year in one way or the other. And our little family is of course no exception. I had the outbreak of the virus quite early on on my personal radar, simply because I am a news junky and always on the outlook for events that could have impact on my surroundings, my family and myself. 

Living 2020 in Sweden was quite painful for us. Not because we could not stand the restrictions or had to change dramatically - in contrary, I finally got to enjoy the perks of being an introvert with only the occasional need for larger gatherings and the fact that we hardly had extended family around us. In the sense that we are used to see our families only every now and then. What made it hard for us was the fact that the Swedish approach of doing as little as possible became very apparent from the start and that we were definitely not agreeing with it. If you want to shrink it down in a one-liner, our motto in this case would be: "Better be safe than sorry". 
Now, my husband is over 50, I am in my mid 40s and we have a kid with asthma. None of us is keen on testing if we would get away with a mild infection or not. None of us is keen on the chances of long term consequences. Also, to us it was apparent that Sweden was badly prepared for a situation like this. Lack of educated staff in hospitals, lack of materials like PPE and equipment like ventilators and especially in Stockholm a health care system that has been privatized and reduced to an absolute minimum during the last ten years did not make us more confident.  Only this would warrent a whole blog post or more.

But then my husband had to be in the UAE during September and October and was delighted by what he saw. Everybody wore masks, everybody and everything gots disinfected, distancing rules were enforced strictly, people could only enter to the country with negative PCR-tests, tests had to even be conducted in parts when traveling within the UAE, public life was restricted, there was no lack of health care capacities, staff in hotels, restaurants and other establishments got regularly tested, case numbers were low and death numbers even lower. What was more, authorities were not shy in enforcing these rules, giving out hefty fines to establishments and tourists when not following them. Since around Christmas the Pfizer and Sinopham vaccines are available for all citizens and residents. This sounded really good, actually so much better than everything we had seen in Sweden so far. So under that aspect the decision to go and live in Dubai for a good while was really easily made. Other personal factors played heavily in of course but I will talk about that in due time.

Then came Christmas and Dubai that depends not only but to a large part on tourism, started to open up. Restrictions like social distancing, wearing masks and certain demands for how to disinfect publicly shared places remained. But with the influx of tourists a raise in case numbers was expected. I myself did not really enjoy the beach pictures posted by wanna-be celebs and influencers all over social media (not that I follow any of these but the reporting on it was hard to miss).

Three days ago the AP press then published a report that was picked up by several international news outlets. I quote the text from AP press: 

„Masks off the minute you step inside. Bars packed and pulsing like it’s 2019. Social media stars waving bottles of champagne. DJs spinning party tunes through multi-hour brunches.Since becoming one of the world’s first destinations to open up for tourism, Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, has promoted itself as the ideal pandemic vacation spot. [...]
Now reality is catching up to the big-dreaming emirate. With peak tourism season in full swing, coronavirus infections are surging to unprecedented heights. Daily case counts have nearly tripled in the past month, forcing Britain to slam shut its travel corridor with Dubai last week. But in the face of a growing economic crisis, the city won’t lock down."
(https://apnews.com/article/dubai-party-haven-coronavirus-6edff7b2ecc2a94b1ca0cbeea0de1b32)

While all true, the tone is quite malicious and the overall text not very nuanced. Now, AP press is not alone in failing to report in a nuanced matter. Over the years I found that news outlets all over the world seem to have a problem with reporting in nuanced manner. I can find this in reports about Brazil and Sweden. All is always described very black and white, something I find very tyering to be honest. But it did only take a couple of hours until this was contradicted by the UAE in a statement:

“The Dubai government has reiterated its efforts to maintain the highest level of protection against the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring the full compliance with preventive and precautionary measures.Reacting to a story by the Associated Press (AP) about the COVID-19 situation in Dubai, the Dubai Government’s Media Office issued a statement rebuffing AP's claims.“
(https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/dubai-slams-rumours-about-covid-19-situation-in-emirate-1.1611077426903)

This also is true. Still all measures are in place, people adhere to it and if somebody is not, some attentive staff is not far away to remind you of it. If one has “bad luck“ it might be an official fining you for overstepping the rules. But it was also apparent that this sort of control became naturally harder to maintain with the raising number of people moving out and about in public spaces and establishments. But since yesterday, restrictions on several levels have been tightened again, one example here: 

“Dubai: Entertainment activities by performers, live bands and DJs at restaurants and beach clubs have been put on hold after the authorities uncovered several violations by some establishments, a top official of Dubai Tourism told Gulf News. [...] He said over 3,100 inspections were carried out across the city over the last three weeks, with more than 200 violations being identified.“
(https://gulfnews.com/uae/what-entertainment-activities-have-stopped-in-dubai-and-why-1.76654891)

There was more information coming out during last evening and this morning regarding other areas of the pandemic and day-to-day live. 

Why am I listing this up here ? Because compared to everything I have seen and experienced as a Corona-response in Sweden, heard from other countries this is FAST. And it is consequent because it is also being reinforced. It is added to an already established base of measures that never have been taken back in full.  We still as a family keep our social distance, we for now and as long as necessary refrain from visiting touristy spots in danger of being overcrowded (since living here we can chose days and times when we know it will be far less people) and we hardly go to restaurants or other establishments and if we do, we sit outside, socially distanced in an rather empty spot were staff has been disinfecting the table, wears masks and gloves and so on. 

All will stand and fall now with the new variants of the virus and their spread, namely the ones from Britain (that is already proven to be here in the UAE), South Africa and a new discovery from Kenia. But the response of authorities here has been in large competent, swift and consequential and so far I do not have to worry that one of my family-members or myself will not be treated (for anything) because there is no capacities left in the health care system. This is the de-facto situation since March in Sweden, were the list with pushed-back treatments of all kinds is immense. In Sweden, going to the hospital contains a risk of contracting the virus at the moment, also something that hardly is mentioned. The information flow is slow and numbers on cases always delayed. So you never really now what the situation actually is. 

So whenever you see some photoshopped bikini-/bathing trunks-clad picture of some minor celeb and influencer visiting Dubai or read a sensationalized news report you might want to keep this in mind.

What happened before on "Hinter Schwedischen Gardinen"....

 I warned you I would write a recap. And here it is.

As I already "spoiled" in my previous entry, we got Dubai the 4th of January in the middle of the night. 
I unfortunately do not have any pictures from the airport but it was awesome. For the first time in 12 years I could smell and feel humid, warm air the way it only smells and feels in countries that are much, much closer to the equator than Sweden. I was ecstatic, to say the least. 

We spent the first three days in a very comfortable hotel with an incredible breakfast. So incredible that I broke my principles and enjoyed some salmon and Egg Benedict in the mornings. What principles you might ask yourself? I have started to eat only plant-based food well over a year ago and am intending to keep on doing so. But the Eggs Benedict were just too perfect and I am a former lover of soft cook breakfast eggs and .... well, I land only once for the first time in Dubai in a nice hotel, so the moment had to be seized. Now I am back to plant-based. 

Jetlag hit us much harder than I had expected and so did the change in weather. During the first days I was constantly very tiered and very dizzy. I could have sworn that the floor under my feet was rocking gently like a ship in a calm sea. The days flew by in a haze and we were soon busy trying to find a first apartment. We had originally planed to get here before Christmas which was not possible due to organisational matters and by now a constant stream of tourists from Europe had found it's way to Dubai, causing a raise in prices and grazing the housing market empty.

This was not making us happier, also because we had hoped to come here and find relative "safety" regarding the pandemic but with the influx of tourists the case numbers in the UAE are also on the rise. Abu Dhabi for example has harder restrictions than Dubai, but is also not as dependent on tourism as Dubai. Dubai on the other hand, with the duty to wear masks, to keep a certain distance and staff that is constantly disinfecting all kinds of surfaces, a high rate in vaccination being rolled out for all citizens and residents ( I think right now second after Israel) as well as the fact that all staff is quite regularly tested for Covid, feels still safer than Sweden. But it remains to be seen how the opening to tourism will effect Dubai during the next weeks.

But by searching for a place to live we made our first friends here, two real estate agents from Uzbekistan who did everything to get us a four bedroom apartment that was not overpriced. We in the end chose a three bedroom from somebody else but have still good contact with them.

Our apartment is now in the second highest residential building in the world - on the 75th and the 76th floor. The views are amazing, looking right over the Jumeirah Palm, the JBR beach to the left and towards Burj Al Arab to the right. The apartment is spacious and comfortable with a fully equipped kitchen, three bathrooms, a nice dinning and living area and will be more than all right for the first two months here. During this time we will have to fix paper work to really establish us here and look for an apartment with one more bedroom so that our two oldest can have some more privacy.

In the meantime we are enjoying something that resembles half a vacation, half trying to establish our lives and navigating day-to-day live while my husband is already working (albeit from home for the moment). We spent some time at the beach and some time exploring the city, getting used on how to move around, what to do, what to avoid. The children love it so far and soak up the new surrounding with a calm and joyful curiosity. Everybody is enjoying the light and the warmth and the comfort of our temporal home that offers - as do all residential buildings here - an indoor and outdoor pool.  

A real shock were the food prices at the supermarket I thought I was used to sometimes hefty food prices from Sweden but Dubai beats this easily. During the first trips to the supermarket I actually did not want to buy anything at all, everything seemed ridiculously overpriced with each item costing around 3 times more than in Sweden. Now I found better supermarkets that are somewhat "cheaper" and am also slowly getting used to it. 

In contrary to Sweden there are people ready to do every kind of work. People who pack your groceries at the cash register, somebody to weigh your fruits and veggies, somebody to carry the groceries to the car and then - this was a real shocker to me - somebody at your residential building who will load your groceries on a hotel-style baggage cart and drive them up to your apartment and even unload them there INTO your apartment (the rest one has to do oneself of course). In short, coming from an egalitarian country like Sweden this is a culture shock. And I will probably get into that at one point or the other. 

Surprise, surprise

Many years have passed since I last managed to publish a post on this blog. I am actually not sure anymore   why I stopped. I guess life was busy, exhausting, and I had to focus a lot on what was going on on a day-to-day basis. I continued falling in love with Sweden, making the country, the city we lived in, its language, its habits and traditions my own. This because I am a believer that it is easier to adapt to your surroundings, even culturally. No, not 100%, not in a way that you deny your roots completely. But I find it exciting to immerse myself into new cultures, learn about them, learn to understand them and - if it comes to day-to-day life - adapt to them to a certain level. Now, in a hyper-modern, multi-cultural city with a Middle-Eastern, muslim culture as a backdrop it will be interesting to see if this approach still works. I guess only with modification. 

So, now here we are, the year is 2021 and I am for the first time in a long time not on European soil anymore. I once again find myself in a place of which I never thought I would be at all. Namely Dubai.

How did we get here?
After years of struggling to make some decisive career steps my now husband got the chance to work in Dubai. Actually, he will have to travel a great deal and in this case Dubai is the better hub for him and for us. Staying in Stockholm would have meant that we would not have seen each other for sometimes months at a time and we therefore decided to relocate so that the separation would be shorter in time. So despite an ongoing pandemic (or maybe also because of it), we packed our bags, got onto an airplane and left Northern Europe behind us for an indefinite amount of time. 
 
And why is this blog in English all of a sudden? Because I want to give my friends from Sweden, Brazil, some family members in the US and everybody else in this crazy world the chance to read and follow this blog as well - if they are interested. ;) 

We have landed here in the middle of the night on the 4th of January and in the next post  Iwill try to give a short recap of "what happened so far....".