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Desert Gardener

Santa Claus observed my enthusiasm for the tulip bulbs that we had planted and got me a voucher for some more gardening goodies. This past weekend, we headed to the local garden center, loaded up on herbs, and spent a satisfying afternoon out on the patio with a bag of soil and a bunch of plants.

Edited to add: On Posie Gets Cozy, she had a photo with a newspaper article headlined "13 Culinary Herbs Worth Growing Indoors." I found the article and used it as inspiration for this project.

Run Run Run

We signed up for the 10k event associated with the Dubai Marathon this year and, because the start area was right outside our apartment, we were able to roll out of bed and head right to the start on Friday morning. What a great course this year, along Emaar Blvd and then through Zaabeel to the World Trade Center area. The rising sun casting a lovely glow on the scenery and the blue skies creating a clear backdrop for the skyscrapers. James felt fantastic, pushing the pace at the end and even saying that he could have gone for another few miles (and would like to do the Donut 10 miler with me in November, noted!). We got our awesome tshirts and medals and then enjoyed the luxury of a short walk back home, from where we bought the paper and then stood out on the patio as the Ethiopian winner of the marathon crossed the finish line.

Sun hasn't even come up yet and there's a flurry of activity at the start area. We're about to head down ourselves.

We get in with the crowds in the start area, and admire the costumes.

Sun starts to rise

About 10,000 people did the 10k, apparently

Officials fire a gun..

And we're off!

From Emaar Blvd, turn onto Financial Centre Road as the sun starts to shine.

Then turn right towards the World Trade Centre.

Workers watching the runners.

Turn around and come back past Emirates Towers.

Continue on past DIFC.

One interesting part of running in this region is that you see how the Muslim women dress for the race and, as you can see here, yes they do still wear a sporty veil.

Ethiopian fans

We would later read that nine of the top 10 marathon finishers were Ethiopian. Beautiful efficient strides, and exhilarating to watch their long lopes to the finish line.

Finishers, particularly thrilled later when we saw that we had a sub-10 minute/mile pace. Feeling fantastic!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

That parsley plant that I bought in November is flourishing, and I've been using it in lots of cooking. To the right of the massive parsley is a smaller sage plant, also used in cooking.

CoughFest 2012, and Thoughts on Foreign Medical Systems

Whether it be the milder climate, the lack of a daily public transit commute or the less dense population, we have been remarkably lucky in not catching many cold viruses since moving to Dubai. I had some sniffles in 2011 and, another time, got off the flight from South Africa with a raging sore throat that quickly evolved into a shortlived headcold. But never anything with a wallop.

Until last week.

I had returned to work the week of New Year's Day, and found the office to be at around 50-60% capacity. Most people were still on their holidays. (This differs from work in the US, where people are back in full force after the new year because no one wants to immediately start depleting their reserves of the new year's vacation days.) And then, in the 2nd workweek of the month, the office was back at full capacity. Except that a lot of the people just returning from holidays were coughing. Without covering their mouths. Which meant I ended the week with chills and sniffles, and spent the next week working from home thanks to a severe cough.

I called it CoughFest2012, or The Hackathon. Bleary eyes, terrible sleeps, coughing jags that just kept going and going once started.

Finally, on day 4 of my Work From Home mode, after sitting in the living room and listening to the sunrise call to prayer because I couldn't sleep, I went to the clinic to see if I could get a prescription for Robitussin DM. Ah that magical DM, which always knocks both me and the cough out for the night so that I can at least get rest, sweet drug-induced rest.

Turns out DM isn't available in the UAE, so instead the doctor equipped me with an assortment of 3 different medications, and they seemed to do the trick.

Now 99% recovered, I thought it would be neat to jot some interesting observations about the medical system here:

1. Healthcare is really quite excellent. You can walk into the clinic and be seen within an hour. They present this option as if it's a huge burden, "we have no openings in the next hour," but they clearly haven't sat in an American medical office for hours and hours and hours, so this is a perfectly acceptable wait.
2. The clinics all seem to be brand-spanking new, with polished surfaces, Norwegian wood and interior decorating everywhere. Many have neat pictograms to show the directions to different specialty departments.
3. The clinics tend to be filled with a mix of locals in national dress and Western expats. The parking lots are always packed. It's mostly at doctors' offices that I have seen families of locals, surrounding grandmas who wear their traditional burqa (which is not like the Afghani burkah, but instead looks like a gold masquerade accessory - click here to see).
4. Technically, you don't have to get a prescription to get meds from the pharmacy, you can just buy it as a walk-up customer for the list price. Good deal for cheaper items.
5. Medical insurance pays for all pharmacy purchases if you present a prescription. There is no exchange of cash, no copays. You pay the equivalent of about $15 to see the doctor and then get the pharmacy stuff for free. Doesn't matter how pricey the medicine is, it's free - - even items that were costing me about $150 per month copay in the US, no charge here.
6. As mentioned, I couldn't find Robitussin DM anywhere. A little Googling seemed to indicate that it's banned here because of hallucenogenic properties (poppy seeds, also banned). In a way, this isn't a new situation because the Tylenol 3's with codeine that we could take in Canada were similarly banned in the US, but I wondered how people deal without this cough syrup. Based on my experience, it's all about the nasal sprays.
7. Reporting a daily exercise regime to a doctor will blow his mind around here, they have been seriously impressed. (Makes me wonder how much of the reputation for sedentary-junk-food-consumption is true in the city.)
8. Marital status is always a topic of conversation for lady patients (or at least it has been a topic of discussion for me every time)
9. As they go through the usual battery of questions about medical history, when doctors get to the "smoking?" question, they then add the clarifying follow-up, "not even shisha?"
10. A few unusual tics: my insurance card through my work expires at the end of January. So when I went to get a prescription refilled, they would only give me enough to cover to the end of the month. Whereas in the US, we would get the new card well ahead of the previous one's expiry, here I'll maybe get my new card in the first week of Feb.
11. And, again insurance-related, I once got a text message that gave me a week's notice that they were revoking coverage of the place that I usually visited, leaving me to scramble to find a new doctor. It all worked out, but it felt like one more annoyance.

When we were talking about moving abroad, I told James that good medical was a "must have" for me, and I can report now, after a year or so here, that Dubai has been totally excellent.

Two Doses of Colour

Our latest tulip, bringing the total flowers to 4/10, with 5 other green shoots taking their slowpoke time in blooming.

Second dose: my colleagues ordered frozen yogurt yesterday and the delivery guy brought their treats in this pretty, insulated carrier.

Channel Surfing and Local Music

I recorded these videos on my camera after switching the channel from the camel racing. I thought that friends & family outside the Arabian peninsula might find these local music videos to be quite entertaining.

The men are doing the traditional yola dance, which I've read is designed for them to show off their rifle spinning skills. As one write-up in the local paper described: "The yola dance requires men to stand in a line together, facing another line of men who loudly chant lines of poetry. I'm sure you have been impressed by the back-and-forth movement of the hands and the head, and the men's ability to bend during certain parts of the poetry and music."

You can see the line of men in this video.

Some more here, that shows the bending that the writer mentioned.

Speaking of Cold

I don't think I ever posted this photo. I took my camera on a morning run because I kept passing this Dubai Lake staff who was all bundled up in his winter woolies in December, when it was about 18C.

Cold Front

Here's a headline that's rather unexpected in Dubai. Of course, the "below freezing" temperatures are in the remote mountains and not here on the coast of the Arabian Gulf. But it's still chilly out there. Brisk winds. People bundling up. Only (only! I write with a bit of sarcasm, after having seen photos of the snowfall during this past weekend's Manhattan Half-Marathon) 12C out there. I've got wooly socks, a mug of tea and a sweater on tonight.