One week down...

Image from here

Well, we have survived our first week in the Middle East and not too badly I must say.

We celebrated this milestone on Thursday by a trip to the world's largest performing fountain at the base of the Burj Kalifa, which is the tallest building in the world, next to The Dubai Mall which is the largest shopping mall in the world. Bigger is better here.

The fountain is no ordinary fountain, it's a dancing fountain. Every half hour it performs to Andrea Bocelli's crooning and leaps into the air about 500 feet. It sounds cheesy and it is a little, but it's hard not to get swept up with it. There's such a festive, joyous atmosphere here. The girls were elated. At 7pm, the sun was setting and the sky scrapers looked like they were painted on the pink hazy backdrop. The sandy sky makes the sun really glow and you truly feel like you're in the Middle East. It's just like the movies. Exotic and romantic.

Thursday is like Friday in other parts of the world. It's the end of the working week, weekends here are Friday and Saturday. So with everyone else in Dubai we wandered through the mall looking for something to eat.

The Dubai Mall has so many eateries and we wanted to celebrate, well as much as you can with three kids in tow. We chose Red Lobster, lobster for the adults, fish and chips for the kids. Seated in the restaurant you could have been anywhere in the USA. Soft drink refills, do you want fries or a baked potato with that? That's the constant strangeness about this part of the world.

We ate, chatted about the week, the waitresses goo-ed and gaa-ed at Darbs as they always do.

It was a lovely night. Touristy and cheesy and we felt excited about the fact that we now call this city home.