The View Today

 Inspired by my last blog post I thought I might try to every now and then share the view from the balcony with you. It changes much more than one would expect, might it be the light or things happening far away or weather conditions or just because I am once again bedazzled by its beauty. So under "The View Today" I will from now on post pictures when I think it is worth it. 

Today we saw sand blowing over the ocean coming from the desert (the brownish stripe at the horizon) and a second cruise ship arriving at the dock right in front of us. I am not sure if there are people on it, but we are closing in on Eastern so travelling might - unfortunately - catch up again. 

 

High Rise Problems

About a month ago I stumbled upon this news article about the highest residential building in the world from the New York Times and could not stop smiling about it:

The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks 

As you might remember we are for the moment still living in a high rise building. According to this Wikipedia article we have now been pushed from rank 2 to rank 5 in the list of highest residential buildings. Obviously New York really could not let the fact that Dubai had outdone the Big Apple stay true (just look at the table in  the article) and had to catch up in the competition for the highest residential building. I still did not really manage to calculate how many meters above ground this exactly is but it is high enough to let people on the ground below shrink to the size of ants. 

Tallest residential buildings in the world in 2015 

 As I mentioned before, I wouldn't like to live here forever but it is an exciting experience for a couple of months. Living so high above the ground has its own challenges, quirks and perks. 

I can for example attest that the wind in the hallways and the whole apartment during stormy days sounds like a really loud whistle and at night times it can feel like living in a haunted house. There is also a small water leak in the wall between the master bedroom and the en suite bathroom but nobody seems to feel like opening the wall and checking it out for real. Instead the real estate agent sent a worker to paint over the water stain. Maybe they want to fix it when we moved out in a months or two, since it doesn't seem too dramatic (yet). But since we are only renting it,  I see my role reduced to simply report any damages that I detect and hope for the best. Something more that is rather annoying is the dark hallway leading up to our apartment. With no source of daylight, the functioning of the electric light fixtures and motion detectors is crucial. But somehow the ones in front of our and a neighbouring apartment are not functioning properly, despite several attempts of the maintenance team to fix this. So when standing in front of the door, I am mostly fumbling in the darkness or with the flash light on my phone after the keys in my bag. Sometimes when I step out of the apartment, all the lights are magically on. But I so far could not figure out from which direction a person came to work that kind of magic or whatelse might have caused the motion detectors to function. Light switches are also no where to be found. A fact that is rather bemusing since every single electricity outlet in the apartment has its own on-/off-switch. Not sure what the logic was there. 

Another thing that makes me marvel is the balustrade on the balconies. Once more a situation in live where I am decidedly happy to not be too tall. The balustrade/railing reaches up exactly to my chest with the minimum height recently being raised again. A fast internet search showed that in 2013 there were still fatal accidents with children falling out of windows and from balconies because the railings were rather low, reaching up only 90 cm. Now it should be around 1,40 m,  which feels really secure. But I do not envy anybody taller than me, having that balustrad/railing going lower than chest height on me would definitely be a reason not to live that high up. Or utilize the balcony. Primarily of course because of the children but secondly also because I am not that fond of heights. Or - to be more precise - standing close to edges of great heights. Just looking straight down from the balcony makes me go dizzy and uncomfortable. And righteously so: looking at the above picture we should be about 275 meters up, living on floor 75 from all in all 97. But as long as you look straight ahead it's a marvellous view. 

The view straight down on the street below from our lower balcony.

It also fascinates me how the human mind works. Every time I enter the elevator I do feel completely safe. Never mind that I am on my way up 275 meters or am already dangling 275 meters above a narrow abyss hanging on a couple of steal cables, fully confident that they will not fail. I occasionally wonder what I would do if I got stuck - or worse, the cables would rip. I must have watched too many action movies with faulting elevators and people climbing around in lift shafts. Oh, and don't forget to clear the pressure on the ears around floor 40 on the way up!  

People are often mindless and so complaints about noise and disruption are regular. Not from us though except for once when a bunch of younger people decided to have a spontaneous dance- and sing-out at two in the night on the balcony to the left, one floor above our sleeping rooms. In this case I solved it the good old German/Swedish/European way with the aimed usage of clearly understandable expletives to emphasize the lack of my enthusiasm. A better idea would have been to talk to the security guards but that idea struck me only the next morning. Actually under normal circumstances I would have hardly noticed it or cared for it but it had been a bad night anyway, with kids waking up because of bad dreams and some other things going on that were stressing me. In this case the party was the last drop and definitely keeping me from sleeping again. 
But there are also things being thrown from balconies. Not such a good idea since the wind will push things thrown down towards the house again and whatever is flying down is certain to land on a balcony further below. The most recent announcement in the elevator (I forgot to take a picture) was highlighting an incident with a glass bottle (!) that landed and subsequently broke in pieces on a fifth floor balcony next to a playing child. It is about there where it stops to be funny in my opinion. 

There - I fixed the foto. But since I was in a hurry, it's a bit blurry. And a rhyme. ;)  

Last but not least: one time two of my sons had to wait for an empty elevator on their way down for quite a long time (there are restrictions on how many people are allowed to be in the elevator at once due to Covid). I was not with them (I was waiting downstairs) and they thought - hey, why not give it a try and go the stairs. Well, it took them around 25 minutes to get to the ground floor, they were soaked with sweat and suffered from severe muscle soreness the days afterwards. Mind you, they usually play football (as in soccer) two to three times a week, not counting the matches. 

Expo 2020 Dubai

Expo 2020 Dubai is the world exhibition in the UAE that was originally planned to run from October 2020 through to March 2021. There is no need to explain in great detail what happened in 2020, with the emerging of the pandemic, the preparations and construction of the exhibition site came to an abrupt halt. 
The event is now planned to take place from October 2021 to March 2022. This collides with the cooler winter months so that visitors can actually enjoy the exhibition without melting in the summer heat. 

One can question the meaning of world exhibiton's - or "Expos" as they are called nowadays - in a time when information is easily obtained online. I found a good article from 2019 published by Forbes that might explain the UAE's incentive for the event quite well. But maybe during the pandemic we all realized how much we sometimes long for the ability to physically visit places and live through them without an intermediate device separating us from the actual experience. The success of these exhibitions varies greatly and on a personal level I only vaguely remember a one day visit to the Expo in Hannover 2000. Funnily enough what has mostly etched itself into my memory was the rather traditional pavilion of Yemen that so vividly brought the country's culture alive. 

But back to the Expo 2020. By the end of January the first pavilion of three thematic pavilions opened up after completion for a "preview" until the beginning of April and we gladly took the chance to go and visit "Terra - The Sustainability Pavilion". The other two are the "Opportunity Pavilion" that is meant to focus on future of humanity and the "Mobility Pavilion" which focuses on mobility in the future and the past.

 Our first obstacle was to get there which was a bit of an adventure since by then I still had little orientation of directions, distances and what would be the best means of transport. So we tried to get as far as possible with the Metro. A new line was build out to the Expo site and cost-free shuttle busses are to be in service from the new station as soon as the event is open but for now, the new Expo Site station is not frequented. So I roughly had to guess which would be the closest station, jump of there and hail a taxi. After a bit of an odyssey with the taxi we finally made it to the site of the pavilion. 

We had to pre-book our tickets online for a certain time slot which is a clear attempt to keep the spread of Covid-19 down. As soon as a time-slot has the maximum amount of tickets booked, it will not be available anymore. I choose a Wednesday, early afternoon, assuming that most people would be at work/school and with that the numbers low. We first had to pass this gigantic steal construction which looks much less impressive on this photo due to my mediocre skills and mobile camera:

 Afterwards we went through the security check, got our temperature taken and until we made it to the pavilion itself our tickets were checked at least five times. Everything with a smile and in an attentive manner as everything here in Dubai is about attentiveness. The first view on the pavilion is impressive:

The roofs and sun shading are all solar panels generating the electricity that is need to run the extensive pavilion. Before entering the actual building one is guided through "the past" highlighting basic but vital facts about life in the desert as it had been in the UAE traditionally. This is also something I like about Dubai/the UAE. Despite being an extremely young country there is always the attempt to reconnect to it's beginning and roots. Archaeology, history, tradition and the traditional way of life are always referred to and give a frame to the constant and rapid development of especially Dubai. 

One then emters into a gigantic interactive play-area that gives a loos introduction to the topic and already here I was happy. Happy because the questions asked in these games are spot on and don't shy away from tackeling even the wholy grale of economics. As it was explained to us the whole pavilion will be utilized as an educational centre after the Expo, for schools and other interested groups to come visit and educate themselves about sustainability. 

Some of the games can only be played with two people cooperating, a simple but oh-so-clear message that nothing will be achieved in the future if we do not collaborate.  Then it was finally time to get into the main building that is divided into two main areas: "Under the Forest" and "Under the Ocean". We choose "Under the Forest" first and I soon realized that the 45 minutes walk-through calculated by the organisers would never be sufficient. Only this part took us about 1,5 hours and we could have easily stayed longer. Overwhelmed by the exibition, taking fotos became also a bit difficult. There was just too much too see, discover, read and do and think and talk about. 

One first gets an impressive introduction about the interconnectivity that characterizes forests below the ground. The aim clearly being to make us aware of the great web that all life on earth is. Only this delivered incentives and stimulations, questions and facts that one teacher easily could fill a whole year of lessons with. I was in awe.
After that we entered the "Hall of Consumption" where exactly that was demonstrated and reflected very clearly. Having read one or the other book about climate change and sustainability and humans relation (or the lack thereof) to nature during the last years I was happy to see this. Because this is a clear educational effort to install awareness into every single visitor. And also here the questions were right, balanced between showing individual but also responsibilty as societies. I like especially the fact that this Expo might reach cultures and people that for so long do not have these questions primarely on their mind. People from all corners of the world that might live through a fast development of industrialisation and could benefit from having a common knowledge to maybe make better choices than Western countries did in the past. [Yes, I am an idealist. Albeit a realistic one ;) ]. 

Still now, weeks after our actual visit, I get excited thinking back to the exhibition and how well constructed it is as a whole. 

We then came into the "Laboratory of Future Values" where the vistiors learn about possible solutions.  Throughout the whole exhibiton the visitors are also invited to reflect about their own values, the importance of these values and last but not least their sustainability. 

From then on we went into the part "Under the Ocean" but with the younger children's patience starting to fade and everybody getting increasingly hungry, we rushed through it in mearly half an hour, 45 minutes maybe. Definitely a reason to go back and explore this in greater depth before it closes on the 10th of April. But this part of the exhibition is equally as impressive and important. Overall the concept is the same as for "Under the Forest" but I like that this pavilion tries to educate and sensitize its visitors for two of the worlds most important ecosystems and the interconnectivity of nature. Not to mention that I was extremely thankful having a whole afternoon for one pavilion only. When the whole Expo opens, we will want to visit several times, in the hope it holds an as high standard. 

Oh and yes, we did not have any problem keeping distance to other visitors, it was luxuriously spacious to move around, all the attractions available to use without any waiting time and hand sanitisiers at every single interactive station and many more inbetween. We used them everytime before and after having touched anything. Of course everybody wore face masks too. It thus felt completely secure and since nobody got sick afterwards it seems to have worked - at least for this time. 

 If you are interested in seeing more pictures, please visit the following websites: 

GulfNews.com

and

WhatsOn.ae

 

  

Cockroaches

It just happened. Since we got here, I was waiting for it to happen: I saw my first cockroach! 😱

Now, I don't like hysterical reactions in general but there are two crepy-crawlies I loath: spiders and cockroaches. And while I still can muster some admiration and acknowledgment of the spider's importance in the world of insects, cockroaches to me are just 🤢. 

There is a reason of course. Cockroaches in Brazil tend to be larger (around 5 to 10 cm), they are incredibly fast ... and they can fly by spreading out their wings. And they are everywhere, plentiful. 

Since we got here I was a bit on the lookout for cockroaches wherever I went but to my surprise they kept themselves well hidden so far.

So when I just saw this little darling in the changing room to the indoor pool: 

I was rather bemused. With roughly 2 cm in size it has nothing on what I am used too. But I won't let my guard down, I am ready for the big, flying ones too..... 😉

It's the small things in life

 Our youngest son just made the most amazing discovery today..... 

Our friendly neighbourhood supermarket has a SECOND floor with all the stuff that I had been desperately trying to find, wondering why they did not have it on offer in just this store.

Now really, for having been in this supermarket almost daily to get fresh croissants or bread (bread tends to evaporate into thin air faster than one can blink in our home. Same goes for apples, even if one buys buckets of them) I totally had missed the stairway to my personal heaven of a complete grocery shopping experience. 

And most frustrating .... they even offer affordable, okay-quality yoga mats for only 20 dirhams!!!! 

This after I have been running around the whole neighbourhood (and it is not a small one) trying to get ok-looking yoga mats for a reasonable price. And I thought I had found them - in lime green for 30 dirhams. Nothing against lime green but lime green and yoga mats .... Well, I even bought a second one - in lime green!!! - so my husband and I could yoga together in complete colour harmony: 

So much for my first world problems and the day-to-day miracles of new spaces here in Dubai.