24 March 2004

The car is (was) here!

We took receipt of our new car yesterday and spent a happy few hours driving round trying to find the local Apple shop. But it's back to the garage again today...

This is it:

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And lovely it is, if it weren't for the annoying rattle that starts somewhere round 80km/h. So it's back in the shop to hunt for the source of the noise.

A word on driving in Dubai. It's crazy! Everyone here drives like a cross between a Parisian and a Roman with a bit of the Cairo driver thrown in. Bumper to bumper, using the hard shoulder to overtake, tooting the horn incessantly with a complete lack of patience. It's a little scary, and not for the faint-hearted, but I am sure we will get used to it and be mad like everyone else soon enough.

Strangely, the local equivalent of White Van Man - the Indian guy with a decorated pick-up - is quite tame, it's the locals with the flash American cruisers that are most likely to change their mind at the exit at the last minute and cut back onto the motorway across lanes of traffic, or park three-deep on a through-road during the school run. Cab drivers, while experts at close bumper contact, are also quite safe, if a bit too reckless for our liking. They also have the bad habit of just stopping in the middle of the road to pick up fares (what's new?), but at least they are friendly and know the town.

We are keeping in mind that if we kill a pedestrian we will have to pay blood money to the family and if we injure a camel we become responsible for it, and hope that neither of those things will befall us.

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