Bills in Dubai...

I know I have spent a lot of time saying that things are different in Dubai, but I thought you might like to see an example. Here in Dubai we get bills months after the due date, have to have a letter of no objection from our school (or company if you don't work for the schools) in order to pay your bills on line, pay the internet bill in person at Virgin Records and the gas bill is the best one of all. Last week I came home to a bill sitting right outside my door for gas for the last 5 months. It says on the bill "December Invoice was printed late, the new due date for payment is February 29th, 2008." The best part was I got the bill on March 11. Anyways, Jesse and I went to the mall to pay both our internet bill and also our gas bill. The mall you ask? Well, of course you go to the Dubai Islamic Bank, enter in their account number, put the correct change in bills in the little slidy section of the ATM, then they print out a receipt and fax it all in. Seriously? Is that the best they can come up with? No other time in my life have I found bill paying an optional thing. Before we did that, we tried to go pay our internet bill only to see a hand written sign that says Closed, system down. Only in Dubai...