Don't I live in the desert?

Gone are the days of me cursing the permanent sunshine and extreme heat. It's been cold in Dubai since I got back. And yes, when I say cold, I mean it's been in the 60's. Apparently, my years of enduring Chicago winters did nothing for me. I'm officially a desert-dweller. Sixty is cold. Thankfully, I brought back winter clothes and shoes 'cuz my flip flops haven't seen the light of day since I returned.

As if my dissatisfaction with the cold of last week wasn't enough, this week, it's been raining. Yes raining. For days now. We got our first semi-real rain Friday night (while we were at an outdoor shisha bar). That was actually kind of exciting! A little rain is nice...but now, 6 days later, the novelty has worn off.

And who knew how much chaos a little rain could cause? It was bad enough that "for security measures" most of Dubai was shutdown Monday for the President's visit, then evening's rainfall caused utter chaos in Dubai. This picture is right outside of our offices.

Now mind you, the rain wasn't that heavy, but consider a city (country rather) that has no drainage system on the roads and you have a problem. I tried for two hours to get a taxi to work on Tuesday - no good. Called a friend who was stuck in traffic on her way. At 930, she was by the Makhtoum Bridge which is normally about 10 minutes away. She said she'd call when she was close to my house to see if I hadn't gotten a taxi yet. At 11am, she was nearing my exit, so I finally got to work...more than 2 hrs late. By 4pm, there were rampants rumors of power-outages across the city and the office was instructed to go home. Roads would be even more dangerous with the flooding and no lights after dark. It's Wednesday now and schools were closed yesterday and today and will be closed again tomorrow. All for a little precipitation. I guess this is Dubai's version of a South Carolina "snow day."