Empty House

Our guests departed this morning. I think they had a great time. This is my supposition based on the fact that they kept saying 'we're having a great time'. I don't think you can actually 'do' Dubai in 3 days, but they certainly did the vital bits. These are:

• Lunch at the Irish Village.
• Abra (water-taxi) across the Creek.
• Wander round the soukhs.
• Buy something at the Gold Soukh.
• Walk for miles around Deira City Centre.
• Get lost trying to find our apartment building, after venturing into the city on the bus.
• Hang around in a cafe at Media City while I have a meeting.
• Have a good look at the little art galleries in Bastakiya.
• Eat a shawarma.
• Marvel at the amount of construction going on.

The only thing that was a bit disappointing was that they got confused about their departure date. They thought it was Thursday (tomorrow), but discovered yesterday that it was actually today. They tried to get it changed, but the flights are full. We had planned to take them on a desert 'safari' tonight - you get get driven around a bit of desert, end up at the tour operator's desert camp, do a bit of sandboarding (possibly not, our guests are about 70 - active but fragile), enjoy a barbecue buffet, watch a belly dancer and then go home. It's a shame we couldn't do this. We've lived here 11 years and never been on one of these things. But they've travelled halfway round the world to get here and didn't even get to see any sand dunes or camels.