It’s mid of July and we have survived almost 3 months here – 1 week from now will be exactly 3 months. One challenge was Ramadan. Check. Another challenge is summer which is very…well, summer-like. Temperatures hit 42-43 degrees during the day, fall back to 33-34 during the night. It still feels very pleasant to be out in the mornings. But it will get worse before it gets better.

Today we spent the morning walking at our amazing Saadiyat beach, the Persian gulf at its best (I have seen so far). We walked 5.5km and managed to collect quite some nice shells…

We saw a couple of fish and one big Stingray fish. Ouch. Luckily no contact. 🙂 But water is amazing, it was difficult to get out of the sea. Much cleaner than what I have experienced in southern European beaches and not crowded at all. Well, 6am Sunday morning, that is 😉 We have a streak of private beach belonging to our residences. Happy as clams!

So we finally moved over the past few weeks to our permanent residence (in the pic above behind me), which was quite a hassle. We didn’t bring our furniture from Denmark, so had to buy stuff here. We ended up getting Malaysian oak – the bedroom set, the living room… The space is enormous, and half of our cupboards are still empty. And yes, there is still place left for more clothes and shoes 😛 Not that I had much time for shopping yet.

While summer is pretty quiet – people are on holiday – there is plenty of time to do sports. Now we are looking to take some diving classes and maybe speed-boating too, to be ready for the autumn season. We have an amazing golf course just near our residences, but as I say… golf is not a sport 🙂

The week after we are going to Dubai to party, one night out with friends, another night out for Unite with Tomorrowland at Festival City. I haven’t properly been to Dubai yet, so plenty of things to try and see there. People mostly talk about great restaurants here and there. We are not foodies, and we like our simple stuff cooked at home mostly, but it is a sin not to try a couple of nice places. Last Friday we had brunch at Asian fusion – Koi – which is just at the doorstep of our residence. Too tempting. Finally I am getting all the seafood and fish in the world…yum yum yum.

As for the desserts, the date harvest season approaches and locals start bringing and sharing fresh dates to work to try. The taste is beyond anything I ever tried back home. I mean, I am not even sure I tried a date before I came here! 🙂 Our favorites are small black Ajwa dates, which are considered to be holy, contain most iron (good replacement for meat!), and are also most expensive (EUR 28/kilo).

We miss some home stuff too. We tried to order some lakrids from Denmark, from Bulow. Unfortunately, by the time the package arrived here, the balls were transformed into…well, a tasty mass of lakrids with chocolate 🙂  Never send chocolate to us, please!

…not that I wouldn’t eat it anyway. Hehe.

Speaking of Denmark, we have something else that reminds us of it. The gift of our colleagues has settled in well, finally.

Vi ses.