National Day weekend at the Dubai Rugby Sevens

Happy 41st National Day.  Yes, the UAE marked its 41st National Day yesterday.  The streets have been covered all week with flags and lights in national colours hanging from all sorts of buildings.  Shopping malls have been decorated as well as numerous vehicles on the roads displaying the rulers of the UAE (plus we had a day off yesterday). 

I (along with 1000s of others) received a text from HHSHKMOHD (Sheikh Mohammad) yesterday stating:

"Dear Citizens & Residents of the UAE.  I am delighted to congratulate you, and my brother  Skeikh Khalifa, President of the UAE, as we all celebrate the 41st anniversary of the UAE.  This is a day of joy & pride, in which we remember the inspiring journey of our founding fathers and look ahead towards a bright future of endless possibilities"  Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. (ah bless him, how sweet was that?)

So last week was manic again (nothing usual there then).

Within a few short days my son was with us and now he is living and working in Sri Lanka!.  Yes that's right!  He was offered the job and Tuesday, flights were booked, visa's arranged and he flew out to Negombo, Colombo on Friday morning.   He's now working for Colombo Divers which is apparently the dive centre which was connected to the hotel we stayed in in September (the Jetwing Beach Hotel).  Although he's only been there a few days he's loving it and has already dived a number of times.

In the middle of last week, I started with a cold and by Thursday it was really bad.  However, it didn't stop me and my hubby from taking our annual visit to the Emirates Airlines, Dubai Rugby 7s.  Each year approximately 120,00 fans gather together for the 3 day tournament.  Many go to actually watch the rugby, but there are many more people there just to have fun.   

On the morning of the 7s, it was actually raining in Dubai (nothing wrong with that it is December), However, normally when it rains it usually only rains for the max an hour, however on Friday it rained almost all day.  We went in a mini bus that was arranged by a friend of a friend.

When we got there we met up with a number of other friends.  Some of our friends had dressed up in fancy dress as Alice in Wonderland characters.  Hubby and I were all set to dress up too but we got cold feet before setting off and changed our minds.  Its silly really because 100s of people were dressed up.  There were Christmas Turkeys, the Flintstones, Hawaiian Girls, numerous people dressed as Superman, Wonderwoman, Spiderman, Soldiers, Muscle Men, Liverpudlians (Calm down, Calm down).  There was all sorts.  It's a great day out for anyone of all ages from 3 to 93!

The rain stopped for a couple of hours at the most but then about 4 o'clock the sky turned black and the heavens opened.  OMG it has never rained so much.  We were under cover on one of the stands but we might as well have been stood in the middle of the pitch.  Everyone was looking for shelter and covering themselves with anything they could get their hands one, from plastic bags, bin bags, beer can boxes, seat cushions (anything you name it we tried it).

The highlight of the day for me was when the DJ, played Its Raining Men by the Weather Girls and almost everyone suddenly decided it wasn't worth trying to keep dry, dropped everything and started dancing on the stands.  It was Fantastic (and all the while the poor rugby players were still playing).

Eventually after making our way to the beer tent (along with 1000s of others) we decided to leave.  OMG the car park was literally packed.  Needless to say the Dubai transport system had no idea how to cope with the mass exodus and there were a number of heated arguments with people as they tried to get on the buses or taxis with no joy.  It was even worse for those people who had little children with them.  By miracle of miracles, we ended up finding the bus we hired and after kicking some people who weren't in our group off the bus, we managed to get back in one piece (if not a bit wet).  We did offer 4 seats to some people going back to Abu Dhabi (bless em, it was their first day of their holiday and it poured down).

So after a manic day on Friday, we joined some friends of our to the picnic at Blades restaurant in the Al Badia Golf Club.  Obviously with all the rain the day before we were a little concerned it was going to be a wash out, but no, it was lovely.  It was very relaxing.  We had quite a large table top on the ground and were given a picnic basket between the 8 of us.  We helped ourselves to nibbles from the basket, ordered food from the BBQ and were served champagne by the lovely waiter.  All in all a great day and highly recommended.