This and That July 2009

Just got home from work in time to watch the ninth inning of Mark Buerle's perfect game. Fortunately, I went to the TV before I went to my computer, so I didn't know the outcome (it's 1pm here, so it's a replay of last nights game). Anyway, great catch by Dewayne Wise in center to save the day--good theatre. I enjoy football, hockey, basketball; learning to enjoy cricket, rugby, and soccer; but Baseball will always be the best game there is. No matter what Bud Selig, striking and cheating players can come up with, the game always rises above it. Now if someone can just cool off the Phillies.

Humidity has kicked in for the summer in Dubai. As the monsoon season swirls thru the Indian Ocean and India, some moisture is pushed up into our desert region. May and June were hot, 105-115 EVERY DAY. But it was a dry heat. Now in July, temps are down, 95-100, but with the humidity it can feel pretty nasty outside. Really, it's no worse than back home where I can remember bending over a putt and sweat dripping from the bill of my cap onto my golf ball. Guess this will be status quo for August and September. If I had the choice, I would take the heat over the humidity.

Someone pointed out to me that the soft drinks out here use real sugar...even Coke. Probably better than the high fructose corn syrup that is fattening up America. Brings back memories of New Coke in the 80's when they went back to the Original Coke, but with substituted corn syrup instead of sugar. I'm still drinking the yucky diet stuff most of the time anyway.

Here are the results of a search for flights between Atlanta and Dubai leaving Sept 13, returning Sept 27.

British Airways $716 fare $591 tax/fees $1307 total

Luftansa $856 fare $479 tax/fees $1336 total

United $832 fare $411 tax/fees $1243 total

Delta $1102 fare $45 tax/fees $1147 total

Now, if I look at these figure (keeping in mind, figures lie and liars figure) it looks like the cost (fuel, depriciation, salaries, and other services and expenses) of flying one seat from Atlanta to Dubai appears to be roughly $800; yet Delta can take advantage of a lower tax structure and charge $300 more...pure profit! Even a Delta flight connecting thru Amsterdam is only subject to $90 tax (+1102=$1192 total)

Considering most Delta flights between ATL and DXB are mostly full, there is no incentive for them to be more competitive (Ok, even though they have the lowest fare and it's non-stop, something doesn't taste right). Perhaps they can add another daily flight and lower their prices! It's just not much of a free economy when one player has a $300 advantage.

I brought a dozen books back from the US this month. Barnes and Noble is much cheaper than anything over here...typical paperback is $12-13 (and almost nothing is ever on sale). Anyway, a dozen books eats up alot of my wieght allowance in the luggage, so I took the books out of the boxes and bundled them in saran wrap (every ounce helps). Well, turns out this was a great move. I was flying from Boston and changing planes at ATL for Dubai (I know 2 hours of backtracking...but it was cheapest--see above). Our flight from BOS landed just before a Thunderstorm hit the airport but not before they closed the ramps due to lightening. We sat just outside our gate for about 2 hours waiting for the weather to clear. When we did pull in it was still raining and the luggage got a good washing. When I unpacked in Dubai, all the clothes were wet, but my books were dry! Sometimes you get lucky.

Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki was a wonderful place to spend a few days. The waterfront is beautiful and alive with boats and open air markets. The downtown Esplanade Park softens a lively, contemporary city. A transport system of ferries, trams, and a subway line make the city very accessible.

I stayed in a hotel that used to be a prison, third floor of the cell block. The cell doors were small, but opened into very nice accomodations. There were still bars on some of the windows in the common areas and the perimeter wall surrounded the hotel. They also sold handcuffs at the reception desk. The Tram stopped right at the front gate, so escape was easy and convenient.

Helsinki has a couple very nice museums. The Kiasma Contemporary Museum had some mind boggling displays. They also had alot of art created behind the iron curtain last century which was very interesting to see. Lot's of dark themes, worker themes, but also other's celebrating communism. Unfortunately, alot of the commentary about the artwork was not in English--it would have been cool to know the back story to some of the pieces.

The Finnish Museum had an awesome collection of art celebrating the Kalevala, the collection of Finnish mythology. These stories, set in verse, are held sacred and tell about how the world and Finnish people came to be. From what I gathered, it's a colorful story. There were also a few Picasso's and Van Gogh's on display.

Other sights around the city included Sibelius Park, The Church in the Rock, the Helsinki Zoo (an island of it's own) and Suomelinna (which means Fort of Finland), an island fortress set in the mouth of Helsinki Harbor. The Fort, mostly constructed in the 1700s, consisted of over 6 miles of fortress walls and more than 80% are still standing. It was considered an impenetrable Gibralter of the Baltic--but the Swedes and Russians both dispelled that reputation. Today the island is a beautifully presevered UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site and still home to about 800 residents who live in many of the original barracks and commute to Helsinki by ferry.

I guess the oddest sight, was the Carnival Samba Parade through downtown Helsinki which was loud, festive, colorful, and lasted for over 2 hours. There must have been 2000 dancers with accompanying floats and bands. Apparently, the weather in Finland isn't agreeable for a Mardi Gras parade in February, so they hold it in June, sponsored by the Brazillian Embassy and peopled by the hundreds of dance clubs throughout Finland. The costumes were incredible and would rival anything you would see in Rio. I have photos on my cell phone and if I can figure out how to get the downloaded I will post them.

I do have other photos if you want to take a look.

Tallinn, Estonia

I took a trip to Helsinki in June. I couldn't find a reasonable hotel room for the first few days of my trip, so I flew in and a few hours later I was on a boat across the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn, Estonia where rooms were available and reasonably priced. The ferry was a hydrofoil capable of crossing the 70 mile Gulf in about 90 mins...little slower this trip since the seas were a little rough (nice Six Flags ride for a good part of the trip).

Tallinn is the Capital of Estonia and has been around for over 700 years. There is still a wonderfully preserved Old Town area still surrounded with the original city walls and gates and a Castle area overlooking the Old Town on a rise known as Toompea. Toompea is now used as the seat of the Estonian government.

Old Town was wonderful for walking and was filled with shops (from your modern Gap store to shops selling homemade leather-bound journals and other medevial crafts), restaurants, bars, nightclubs and casinos. The main square was surrounded by outside cafes and with sunlight til 11pm at night it stayed busy til the wee hours of morning--I should know. Estonians also enjoy breaking into spontaneous song--I ran across this a number of times. Sadly, the food was pretty bad. Remember when you order a pizza with sausage, hot dogs are a variety of sausage. I also had a meal with a large hunk of Wild Boar on the plate--it was very tender and tasty, but sure could have used some southern BBQ sauce.

Estonia has been independent from Russia since 1994 and there is alot of new construction too. There is a very lively town center with restaurants, bars, and malls.

There is also a wonderful park area just a short tram ride from Old Town (or I actually wound up walking back). Kadroig Park borders the Gulf of Finland and is the site of one of Alexander the Great's Palaces, now a preserved estate and museum, and the Estonian Contemporary Museum, KUMU. There is also a popular memorial dedicated to a vessel and sailors lost at sea in the late 1900s.

The Estonian people were very friendly, helpful and easy to talk to. I also met one American who worked at the US Embassy, some Irish men who were building a conservatory at a nearby estate, and a couple Latvian high school students on a working weekend (no, I didn't do business with them).

Tallinn was beautiful and fun from the minute I stepped on shore until I left. It's probably a well kept secret for most Americans (I'd never heard of the city until last month). If you are in the area, do yourself a favor and plan a few days.

Sorry, there are alot of photos...enjoy!

June

I apologize. I've gotten a little slack on my blog. I've been here 8 months and I guess the new is wearing off Dubai and most days are getting pretty routine. Every now and then I still raise my eyebrows at something. I have also done a little travelling this month, so that gets in the way too. July will be no better.

The Dubai Mall has been screening a popular local kids cartoon called "Freej." It is being shown on a big screen with English subtitles, and there is a big pile of bean bag chairs for kids to sit on. I watched about 5 mins today and it was a little disturbing. The first line I saw said "Open the damn door!" The episode also dealt with characters possessed by different spirits, including ex-pats who wanted freehold property and executive positions. Of course, these demons were exorcised in due course. None of the kids seemed to be laughing, so I guess I'm wondering who the program is really aimed at. If you want to learn more go here.

Working at DXB, I do get to stroll the ramp just about everyday. It's getting pretty toasty these days and I'm just amazed that these guys can work on the ramp in this weather. I've been in the belly of a few planes and it heats up in a hurry when a plane is just sitting. Unlike ATL, the ramp workers in DXB don't wear shorts. Also, all the tugs have black seats and steering wheels and most have no cover over the seating area. Then again, when I worked summers on the ramp in Macon, GA it was one of the best jobs I ever had--hope that's what these guys at DXB are feeling.

So far, none of the big Middle Eastern airlines belong to any of the big code-share alliances. EgyptAir belongs to the Star Alliance; Royal Jordanian is OneWorld are the only 2 I have noticed. I wonder why no one has paired up with Emirates? (thought Emirates miles can be applied to United mileage plans). I wonder if it's Emirates resisting? Same for Etihad in Abu Dhabi. As for my SkyTeam, I do have a few choices. Delta, of course, but they are a one-trick pony. KLM can get me to the USA; so can Air France (absolutely the worst air line); Kenya Air gets me to Niarobi and other points in Africa; and China Southern can get me to China.

Rents have tumbled in Dubai. From the absolute peak when I signed my lease in November, rents have fallen almost 50%. I hope my landlord is in a dealing mood in the next couple months when I go to re-negotiate. I like my place here, but I'm not so much in love that I won't move--there are alot of nice places available around here. I will probably stay in the Downtown Burj Dubai area though.

I got Max an Omani flag for his collection. It was hand-tailored. It is also missing the official emblem from the red vertical panel. I guess I'm going to have to make a 3rd trip to Oman. That's ok, Muscat is on my short list of places to visit.

Being American, ice is a pretty important part of my diet. Usually, it's no problem to get ice in a drink when I am out and about--sometimes it's only one cube, but you can get ice. For home, forget icemakers, ice cube trays are too much hassle, so I purchase a bag of ice and keep it in the freezer. My freezer is pretty small, so it's pretty important to dedicate so much space to ice--it's that important! If you're curious, a large bag of ice cost 3.75aed (about a $1); pretty reasonable.

That's about all for June. It's gotten hot (105-110+) and the last couple days the humidity has kicked in--good time to get out of town for a few weeks.

I had a Theory for about 46 mins...

Ok, if you are one of the 8 people in the US who care about the USA men's soccer team, then you were pretty excited about what happened this week. For the other 250 million of you, the USA needed to beat Egypt by 3 goals, and have Brazil beat Italy by 3 goals (the equivalent of a 14-0 drubbing in baseball) to advance to the semi-finals in the Confederations Cup. The Cup is a big warm up event for next years World Cup in South Africa. It happened. Then the USA pulled off a huge upset Wednesday by beating #1 ranked Spain to advance to their first world class tournament Final against Brazil (who drubbed the USA in pool competition, 3-0)

The game was a pretty big deal here in Dubai, so I went to the local hangout to catch the game last night. Big crowd, lots of Brazilian fans and probably the most Americans I've seen in one place since I have been here (there were 8 of us). Shockingly, and very easily, the USA took a 2-0 lead against Brazil into the locker room. At this point, I'm thinking conspiracy...

South Africa is holding the World Cup 2010. The power houses of Europe and South America are all going to be there in force, but what about those 8 Americans and their 250 million friends? How do we get them to jump on a plane for 17 hours to follow their team? Voila! we get them excited by letting their team pull off a huge soccer miracle. Beat Brazil and tens of thousands will be filling up their credit cards with tickets, planes and hotels Monday morning. Is Delta Air Lines in on the fix?

Alas, Brazil scored in the first 40 seconds of the second half and pretty much ruled the rest of the game, winning 3-2.

It was a good theory, and I'm not sure it's totally baseless.

I Wish

For those of you outside aviation, general aviation aircraft usually use their registration ID when communicating with air traffic control. In the USA, those callsigns start with "N" followed by some numbers and a couple letters (N404BS, N501RW, N1AU). In Dubai, they start with A6 and then usually 3 letters (A6ALP, A6FDB). In other countries, it will be all letters--up to 7 (HGSTVEK...pronounced Hotel, Golf, Sierra, Tango, Victor, Echo, Kilo). It can be a mouthful, even when we shorten it to the first 2 letters and the last 2 letters.

But every now and then, you get a pretty cool callsign.

Oman, here we go again!

I finally decided to give Oman another try. If you keep up with the blog, you know that I made a farcical attempt to drive to the Oman coast in January. Well, this time I was going to the coast again, but there is only one road to get there--so I liked my chances. I was headed north to the Musandam Peninusla, a part of Oman that is cut off from the rest of the country by the UAE, and also forms the southern coast of the Straits of Hormuz. It's also known as the Norway of the middle east with it's fjords and islands. I also took a navigator with me this time, Greg, ex-FAA from DFW, who is training on my crew--thus we have common days off.

Anyway, we took off early in the morning for Kahsab, Oman. It was about a 3 hour drive with an uneventful border crossing.

The road in Oman hugs the coast with some sections of the road carved out of the mountains and cliffs that fall into the sea. We saw several areas that had suffered rock slides, which seem to be pretty common. But the scenery was pretty awesome. The day was hazy, so I imagine a nice clear winter day will make an even better trip.

We stopped at a little fort along the way and took a few pics. We arrived in Kahsab around 10am. We signed up for a dhow cruise up the inlet and since it wasn't til 1pm that gave us a little time for lunch and finding souveniers. I'm collecting flags for my son, Max, and we actually stumbled on a tailor who sews flags. Other than that, souveniers were pretty few and far between. Kahsab, is the biggest city in this part of Oman and it is pretty small...like about the size of Hamilton, GA.

Lunch proved interesting. The diner we picked also doubled as the school lunch room for the local boys school--mostly middle school age. So we had lunch with about a dozen youngs kids. A couple of them tried to talk to us in English, but most of them just talked about us.

Our cruise was pretty nice; we had the dhow to oursleves along with 2 guides. Spectacular (if barren and devoid of life) scenery, lots of geese and some playful dolphins. We also stopped to do a little snorkelling...saw a few fish.

On the trip up, Greg was reading from the guide book and it mentioned that alot of smuggling went on, with boats running cigarettes across the straits to Iran (about 45 miles). We had about forgotten about it until we were coming into the harbor and saw about 7-8 boats headed out laden with large boxes wrapped in grey, and trucks loading more boats at the quay. The boats were about 20-25ft, open, with a couple outboards on the back. Obviously, if it's in the guide book, the authorities on either side of the straits care little about this enterprise or are recieving their cut of the profits.

On the way home, we stopped at the famous Barracuda, a tax-free liquor store in Umm Al Qaiwain (alcohol is taxed at 35% in Dubai). Many folks make what are called "Barracuda runs." The danger lies in bringing the product back to Dubai since you have to travel thru the dry emirate of Sharjah. The odds are small, but if you are stopped or get in an accident, you can be in serious trouble. There are also stories of people being followed from the Barracuda until the get to Sharjah where they will get 'bumped.' For a price, the bumpee promises not to call the authorities.

We made some calls, bought some for ourselves and friends in Dubai and hit the road--we weren't followed and the trip was uneventful.

Overall, it was a good day trip--but wait til a nice crystal clear day in the fall or winter. Until then, enjoy our trip.