And then one day, blessedly, it was cloudy

We are going through a bit of a cold snap here in Abu Dhabi. The low today was 28 degrees, the high 38. When I left my hotel and ventured outside, the first thing I noticed was that I didn't feel as though I might pass out.

The second thing - the remarkable thing - was that after witnessing 71 straight days of sunshine, it was, as best the UAE can be, overcast. The sun was there, I could even feel it, beating down on behind a thick cloud cover. But I could not see it, and that was the joyous part. As I shared a cab to work with a colleague who is also staying in my hotel, I joked that I felt like taking the day off, just so I could walk around without being assaulted by its rays.

I am heading back to Canada for a couple of weddings next week, and then a stay at a cottage in Quebec. My friends there are hoping for a bright, sunny Canada Day. I wish for cold, damp rain, a chance to wear my Lululemon track suit and drink hot cocoa.

Trust me, it's lovely, but you really do not want the sun to shine every day.

Things I might not say in North America, now that I've lived in Abu Dhabi

1. I am hot.
2. It is humid.
3. Why is this grocery store so busy?
4. My goodness, that is QUITE a hairy man.
5. I wish the sun would come out.

It is so humid...

...that two nights ago, my colleague's glasses fogged up the minute we walked outside. It was quite hilarious.

It is so hot...

...I tried to walk across the patio at the beach club and burned the bottom of my feet.

In Dubai, he is going to be designing a hotel, but in Abu Dhabi...

This is Brad Pitt:



Mr Pitt has been chosen by the Los Angeles architecture firm Graft to help design a five-star hotel in Dubai that will double as a place to hold awards ceremonies.

He does good charity and awareness-raising work and I am sure he is a good father and I know he is still definitely gorgeous, but I thought you had to spend four gruelling years in architecture school to design buildings. My bad.

45 degrees today and again, not a cloud in the sky

For some reason I keep thinking about that Eddie Vedder song, Hard Sun.

The cab drivers are funny sometimes OR my husband should get here soon

I don’t have a car here, and don’t think I am going to get one. First of all, as I have previously indicated, there is a parking crisis. A couple of weeks ago a colleague offered to give me a ride home. When we got to the car, it had been blocked in by another car, just parked behind it. Like a "T". We honked, and asked around, and about 20 minutes later an Emirati woman came strolling out of a nearby apartment building. "Sorry," she said, half-heartedly. "There is no parking."

Secondly, people drive like maniacs and there is a ton of traffic and roundabouts and goodness knows what else. Almost every day I see or am almost in a horrific car accident. So, no, not so much with the driving.

Luckily, cabs are unbelieveably cheap. Just a dollar or two dollars to go across the city. And the drivers are (almost always) entertaining or at the least rarely crabby.

I have become used to the sensation of being watched from the rear-view mirror - no longer finding it creepy. Just pretending it isn't happening.

In one cab, the driver just said "helloooo" and "thank you." I kept saying "you are welcome."

"Thank you very much," he said, while we were at a stoplight, halfway to my destination. Silence. "Thank you," he said, again. "Thank you." Nervous laugh, from me. Blessedly, the light changed.

One cab driver combed his beard for half of the four-minute trip to work. Another asked my name, and when I asked his, he said "Clinton Bush" and then laughed maniacally. Then he said "people get in my cab and ask my name and I say 'Clinton Bush'," like I hadn't heard what he said. Which I had, obviously.

One cab driver told me he had two wives and seven children. He wanted more children, he said, but definitely no more wives. "Too many wives," he said.

Of course, much of the time when drivers care to talk to me, they ask if I am married. I alternate between lying and making up a husband. A husband who is arriving next week. From Canada. I draw the line at making up children, though.

Once, after a few questions, a driver asked if I had brought my husband with me from Canada. I said no, there was no husband. “Oh, you’re not married?” he said. “Lucky.” We laughed really loud. Then, in his thick, Middle Eastern accent, eyes watching me from the rear-view mirror, he said: “your face. Very nice.”

It was kind of sweet, actually.

Another cab driver, this one flirtatious, also asked where my husband was. I said ‘he’s coming next week, from Canada.’ ‘You have kids?’ he asked. ‘No,’ I replied. There was a bit of a silence, and I thought I might be off the hook.

Then he turned around and looks at me, smiled, and said, in a knowing tone: ‘You’re not married.’

Spooky, how he knew. I have to work on that husband story.