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Well, this is it. Sadly time here was so short. I've just had a fun 3 days with a friend who was visiting from Australia. We even did a few things that I hadn't done before.

• We took an abra (small boat) across the Creek to visit the Gold Souk. (Cost a massive 50 fil/person; approx A$.18!) Marilyn got a way better price on those curly toed shoes than I did, lucky girl!
• Went to the Sharjah Blue Souk where I did a reasonable job of bargaining for some pashminas for me and a couple of trinkets for my neice. (pic of outside; pic of inside)
• Had a friend from the Palm Jumeirah project take us out on site for a tour. Things have changed a bit since I was last there. They've got a lot more villas started and a few of the hotels and they're just getting ready to start the construction of the tunnel from the top of the palm to the surrounding crescent.
• We had afternoon tea at the Burj Al Arab again where we caught a lovely sunset. (If you look closely at the picture in the lower left you might just be able to make out a smidge of the Palm Jumeirah.)
• Of course I had to take her to The Madinat where I got henna done again. (Though I'm saving you from the pain of more pictures, though I had a cool new look of black and red henna in the design.)
• Saw a pretty sunset from the balcony of our house.

I've been wanting to show you a selection of what villas here look like. They call houses villas, though they're usually enormous. I've been fascinated by the massive variety in them. The pictures were taken in 2 different areas of Dubai and you can see that though some of these houses would be neighbours they don't look anything alike. And I'm not saying that they're pretty; in fact, they're most frequently quite icky. I've started you out with my favourite one which is right on Sheikh Zayed Road (ie the road with 5 lanes in each direction!).

A couple other things I wanted to show you...

• One of the massive pictures/billboards of Sheikh Zayed.
• An example of the calligraphy art that is often done for company logos.

Guess what...petrol prices are rising here too. Though it's still cheap petrol, people here are complaining like mad.

Don't forget to check in on our new life back in the US by visiting Jim's blog (http://jimva.blogspot.com/).

If you have a craving for more Dubai blogs, here's a good starting point.