A room with a view

Today is Friday, October 12th, which means it is the weekend here in the UAE. Tom and Danielle took Eric to a swim meet in Dubai, leaving early this morning.  Eric is a good swimmer; very fast.  I think it was Monday evening (maybe Sunday? honestly, finding it a bit challenging to keep the days of the week straight, with the Friday-Saturday weekend and me always wanting to remember what time it is back home) ... anyway, let's say it was Monday evening ... Tom and Eric and I went to Officer's City to swim laps.  Officer's City is a large building that includes a hotel, restaurants, Olympic size lap pool, a shooting range, fitness rooms and classes, and probably more. It's geared toward those in the UAE military, but anyone can pay to use the facilities.  It's not too far from where we are living. (We are costing out if we want to share a family membership or not, because the pool is nice and swimming laps feels great.)  Next time, I would like to take a few more minutes and view the displays they have, documenting the military history of the UAE (cool photos, uniforms on display, that sort of thing).

So, here is a photo of our villa, from the front. (People live in apartments or villas here, and instead of a condo complex you will hear it referred to as a compound.)

In this compound, there are four and five bedroom villas; ours is a five bedroom. We just have neighbors to the right, and not on our left; that helps with noise from neighbors.

Just around the corner (to the left of our villa) is a compound recreational area. A couple of workout rooms (one for ladies, one for 'gents'), a small indoor pool, a larger outdoor pool (maybe 25 yards, which would be handy for early morning laps), a couple of tennis courts, a shaded play area (slides, swings, etc.), and grass area.  It overlooks an large inlet area from the Gulf.

After doing the treadmill for a bit, I walked around. I had my camera with me at that point, and took some pictures of signs to show Tim. (He has a new web-based business, and photos of all kinds for designers and anyone else interested.)  We have security here, and my taking photos of signs got their attention. They asked if I live here, and left me alone after that. Glad we have security, and glad they are taking their jobs seriously, but it was a sort of odd feeling knowing that I had raised some sort of suspicion in their eyes ... if you are visiting any sort of government building, ask permission to take photos. Absolutely don't take photos of military buildings. That's not where we are living, but got an idea of the looks Tim gets from other people when he is taking photos of things that "normal" tourists do not (like brick walls and road signs).

Here is a photo of the main entrance of our villa compound, if you are exiting:

It is kept nicely landscaped.

And not too shabby a view; this is the backyard, from my bedroom window; new tile and sod:

I will take more photos as I explore the area, and share some on the blog over time.

K.