Lost and found

Today's experience is so typical of life in Dubai. As I've mentioned before, there are no street addresses here so directions are given by reference to local landmarks. In Dubai if you ask someone where they live, they might say something like, "In the Old Pakistani Consulate area, in the building with blue shutters opposite the mosque." (The Pakistani Consulate moved out of the area about 10 years ago though.) Sometimes it all gets farcical. As an example I recently phoned for directions to a company office and I was told that they were located "next to where the Oasis Centre used to be". Used to be?! For heaven's sake, the Oasis Centre burnt down in 2005 which was before I arrived here and also, this being Dubai, there's probably another building on the site, so how does "where the Oasis Centre used to be" help me find them today? There *are* signs with street numbers on them but they only add to the confusion. The city is divided into nine sectors and each sector is then divided into a number of communities. There are currently 129 communities in Dubai. The streets within each community are then numbered. Unfortunately the street numbers are repeated in each community, so for example there's a 22b Street in Community 317 and also in every other community in Dubai.

Anyway, today I needed to find the offices of Royal Jordanian Airlines. I called them and a nice man told me the offices were "in Deira (the suburb), past Dnata (a landmark office building) behind the Nissan showroom." While that's lovely, it's a big area and he didn't tell me the name of the office building they were in, so they could have been anywhere. Hmm, time to think laterally. So I got onto the Nissan website, found a list of their showrooms in the Middle East and, thank you Nissan, they had a map of how to get to their showroom in Dubai. I used the map while I sat in the taxi cruising round the streets of Deira behind the Nissan showroom until the driver spotted the Royal Jordanian sign.

Once I'd finished at Royal Jordanian (nice people, very helpful) I headed back to the main road to get a cab back to work. On my way I walked past the Lamborghini service centre. Parked across the footpath blocking my way was a red Lambo and leaning against it was a man, my age, too much time on a sunbed, open shirt, chest hair, pointy shoes, you get the picture. He looked me up and down, smiled at me, ok he leered at me, and said "Madame" in that sleezy "I am such a man" voice most women have heard at some time in their life and wanted to puke. Anyway, I gave him a look that said words to the effect of "You and your stupid car are blocking my footpath mate. Stupid Lambo. You're a dime a dozen mate - give me a SS any day of the week." At that point he smiled at me and no joke, he had a gold filling in his front teeth. Spare me, I'd just been leered at by a living caricature. I flounced off down the street giggling to myself. I was wearing my flared skirt so I knew my flounce looked ok from the back. Yes believe it or not, since coming to Dubai I now do a passable 'Madame flounce' even in 3 inch heels.