Yawn. We're Here!

Day 02 - The day started early because at midnight we were still heading down the Persian Gulf. Our flight got in at least 20 minutes earlier than its 01:05 expected arrival. It was good as we used the extra time to get another COVID-19 PCR test, as did everyone on our flight and one from India. The free process was well set up and it didn't take too long. Luckily I had managed to load the buggy, Dubai app so my results came to my phone right after we woke up from a fitful few hours of sleep. 

I wondered if flying this way would result in less jetlag and it's still too soon to tell. We got to the hotel and unpacked enough to go to bed before 3:00 AM. We managed a bit to deep sleep but were ready to get up at 8:00 AM regardless. Our hotel is right in the old part of Bur Dubai and not far from the 'creek', the area I still consider the heart of this city. All that is new and glitzy is out on the highway toward Abu Dhabi, an area that was mostly desert thirty years ago. 

We got a studio apartment in an apartment hotel right near the BurJuman Centre. It was a mall that I'm pretty sure had its grand opening when we lived in Karama. That was a lot of 'water under the bridge' and I'm sure the land behind, where we're staying was unbuilt desert over to the Silver and Golden Sands apartment complexes. Some Dubai Men's College Staff lived in those buildings too.

Our studio was probably not as good of a deal as the normal one and two-bedroom apartments in this building but it is fine for us.  It has a microwave, induction burner, and enough pots and pans to cook.  As Jay is a wizard with whatever he has available, we took a few trips today to begin to fill up the full-sized refrigerator. We did our shopping at the big supermarket in the BurJaman as well as a couple of local, neighbourhood shops.

 

We got some sharmas for a quick lunch and decided to take a nap at 2:00 in the afternoon as is our habit anyways. We avoided staying asleep until the middle of the night, luckily. We got up and walked around the neighbourhood in the evening. It's perfect weather with highs of around 30°C in the day but high-20s at night.

 

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For dinner, we ate a takeaway roast chicken, and stuff from our refrigerator like cheese and flatbread.  We managed to finish unpacking the essentials and make use of the copious, hot water for showers.  We discovered I needed to use a VPN in order for Jay to telephone his sisters via Whatsapp.  I see Etisalat hasn't changed its ways in the last three decades!  All the gadgets are plugged in.  I think we might be on the local time zone fairly easily.