Category Archives: what can you do in the desert?

Unknown ex expat

A lot has happened. I’m no more an unknown expat but an unknown ex expat. I moved back to Germany and my life changed a lot: almost no more parties or weekly catch-ups, a freezing climate and a new job.

Here’s a short recap and what happened since the last post:

– visited Libanon one more time and enjoyed amazing food, good parties and relaxing times at the pool and the beach

Continue reading Unknown ex expat

Pizza Potluck Party #2

Pizza Potluck Party – what the heck is that all about? 4 things:

  • I prepare pizza dough
  • I prepare tomato sauce
  • I have some cheese
  • you bring whatever you want or cannot imagine to work as a piza topping

We’ve done that in the past where we created one sri-lankan-german pizza with combining a sausage crust, lingus and pineapple on a pizza… mmmh still mouth-watering when I just write about it.

This time one amazingly awesoe person started to prepare an 18hour apple-wood smoked pork shoulder to have some pulled pork for the pizza. I mean: some people (including me) would already die for ONLY the 18 hour smoked pulled pork. But coming back to the pizzas – here are some of the creations from that evening:

  • Lingus (raw lingus but also fried lingus, chilies, onions), pineapple, corn and red birdseye chilies
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  • Meat lovers 18 hour smoked pulled pork pizza: the friend lingus combination, pulled pork (only to be added at the very end or last 2 minutes in the oven!), some birds eye chili or orange habanero
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  • Pulled-pork at its best: mango, coriander leaves, orange habanero and pulled pork
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  • For salmon lovers: corn, mango, a mixture of joghurt (better results expected with creme cheese) with salt, long pepper and slightly smoked salmon (to be added at the very end, once the pizza is out of the oven already for 2-3 mins)
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Other hints for pizza stuff: I use the dough recipe from Jamie Oliver who combines e.g.

  • 400gr of wheat flower (ideally italian typo 00 but any bread flower will do)
  • 100gr of semolina
  • dried yeast (1 pack)
  • 1 tblsp brown sugar
  • 1 tblsp fine sea salt

And you HAVE TO buy a stone for making pizzas. Just try it once and you will never want non-stone pizza again. The thing is: pre-heat your oven with the stone to the highest temperature your oven can do for 45 mins and then your pizzas will be ready in max 8-10mins.

Buon appetit.

Ski Dubai flyer, ice cube bbq and car-in-a-box

Thanks to two amazing visitors I came across this epic piece of marketing material. It’s from Ski Dubai. Yeah, the world famous place where you can do skiing in the desert. And apparently you can also meet some penguins.

“It only consumes as little energy as an average sized hotel.”

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Just for the records: of course my visitors did NOT go there 🙂

Talking about winter things in Dubai. Ice cubes. On a bbq. Did not really make sense to me but I was sure there must be a good reason why you do this.

“You know, grill is very hot. And flames would come up – so we put ice cubes”. Well, WTF??

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Dubai is the place for luxury cars (which – sometimes – catch fire). And it’s a little sandy, dusty etc. So what would you do when you have to park your Maybach, Rolls Royce or what-have-you in a basement parking for a while? Exactly – it’s easy: put your car into a plastic tent, air-tight with high pressure so that really nothing can come in. Omg.

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Wanna get up early again? You can go fishing. And then see dolphins.

So another great thing to do in Dubai is have friends who own a boat. Then you can bug them and somehow get them to get up at 5:30 in the morning for ‘fishing’. Of course they have fishing gear. Of course you will not catch anything. But if you’re lucky you see dolphins. Like quite a lot. And do fun stuff with the crazy 8.

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Yet another weekend in the desert

Another idea of  life in Dubai.

On Thursday (which is the last working day in the week) you can first sip a Desert Donkey at Fume in Pier 7 (did you know that vodka, raspberry, coriander and chili make a grand cocktail?), then have dinner followed by a power nap before you cab to Media One Hotel to get into Level 41.

Of course there is someone who has a table behind the dj, so no admission and some drinks for (almost) free. Then again you get reminded that you’re in Dubai when you order 5 shots of tequila and are asked to pay 250 AED / 62,50 Euros. The music was cool but at some point the club seemed quite empty. As it turned out, all people went two levels up 41 levels down and then 43 levels up to get to Q43. When we wanted to follow them, we were not matching the entry criteria (couples / women). So we took some more free rides with the elevator. When leaving level 41 (it closes at 3pm), we had a really tasty hotdog (‘beef sausage, like in Germany!!’ ???) from an Irish guy. After that nothing much happened. Some rumors say a sort of parade on JBR happened but I didn’t get any confirmations for that.

On Friday you can do some shopping, cooking, eating before you invite way to many people to your apartment to eat & drink together. Who would have known that it would turn into a concert with a live acoustic guitar player (thanks!) using an some pill packing as improvised pick and a youtube dj showing that Bon Jovi actually had some really cool stuff. Ah and of course if you didn’t prepare enough food, your guests might end up ordering at burger fuel. The healthy burger of course – avocado, mango, no bun. However, avocado and mango could not be found and led to a huge investigation case.

On Saturday you can start cleaning your flat, do some cooking for everyone who couldn’t make it out of your apartment before you head off to a mixology session. So you learn how to mix cocktails and you can drink them – that’s what we expected. As it turns out, you are shown how to make 4 cocktails, before you can try to create one yourself (but they will pay a lot of attention that you really use that measuring glass!!). Since you could get 5 cocktails for 150 AED, it was a fair deal. And our group was really cool, thanks again for that. And I learned that every 5 star hotel actually has a wheelchair, in case someone gets sooooo tired that it’s easier to carry them out in a wheelchair. A wheelchair. Seriously?!?!? And no, just for the record: it wasn’t me.

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Okay expat – what can you do there in the desert?

A lot of people ask us spoilt expats: ok so you’re living the dream, you have a nice car, live in a high-rise building with a pool and gym, but you live in the desert. What the heck can you do in the desert? Especially in the summer?!

Here’s what. Stay at a pool, read, get tanned, listen to music. Of course not every weekend. More examples will follow.

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And last but not very least: as always it’s about your company. The people who are around you – friends. And I have to say that I have been blessed with wonderful people (of course I’m just saying that because I have to be with you a little longer…). Yeah, you know I mean you. And you of course. And even some colleagues are not too bad.