Road closures

Only in Dubai... President George W. Bush came to the U.A.E. for a visit. Typical Dubai style, parents were text messaged on Sunday evening that there would be no school the following day due to the President's visit. Did they let the teachers and staff of the school know? Of course, they e-mailed us around 5:30. What time do we get off work? 3:30. They intended to close all of the main roads around town, planned extra security for all of the government offices and schools and then the day before the Dubai visit, the government declared a national holiday. It was nice to have an extra day off work, but also interesting because it was the first time since I've been living here that I was actually a little wary about working at an American School and being in the Middle East. With all the recent happenings in Iran and well, all over the place near here, you start to just think about it all a little more. The weather has been crazy, just cold and rainy. I ran in the rain Sunday afternoon and people were looking at me as if I was crazy. Yesterday we were just sitting at our windows watching the few cars that were out go through these massive puddles, I know good way to spend our day off, we did go see a movie for the first time too, which was fun. It rained a bunch more this morning and the city is literally flooded. They do not have any sort of drainage system, just walking to work was a disaster. I am soaking wet, boots drenched and freezing. Our school is totally flooded and different rooms are leaking. Cars were getting stuck in the sand, kids were taking off their shoes and wading through the parking lot to get to the front door, they were trying some crazy pumping system out front, but it wasn't working. It's as if this town has never seen rain before. I'm sure the pictures in the paper tomorrow will be hilarious! There are these huge round abouts that have no signage or system, you just have to sort of figure it out and sometimes there are cones in the roads to help out a little. Apparently at one of the largest ones in town, all the cones are floating around, cars are stuck and so it goes... I'm really hoping the rain stops before the marathon. I'm not sure what the sidewalks and roads are made of, but they are completely slippery and I have a tendency to fall a lot, so, hopefully no rain.