Happy zzzz New Year (yawn)

Garren and I had good intentions for this New Year's Eve celebration. We have been planning to drive to Liwa, the empty quarter of the UAE to camp in the middle of the desert among the orange-red dunes. It was a nice contradiction to last year, when we were freezing in a fire tower in the middle of Mt Hood National Forest.

However, our plans changed.... while we slept.

We arrived back at my apartment at 2:00am, unloaded our bags and headed out for some shwarma. Mmmmm. Garren passed out soon after that, and I was up until 6am. The next thing I remember is Garren waking me up and asking what time it was. I looked at my phone. 4:00. PM!!!! What to do? Go back to sleep, of course! We woke up the second time at 7:00pm and proceeded to make plans for the evening - Liwa was out of the picture at this point - too far away, too much work.

So I made some phone calls and we come to find out that all NYE celebrations in Dubai are cancelled by the Sheikh! Yep, apparently you can cancel NYE if you are a Sheikh. His reason is understandable, to show solidarity for the Arabs under attack in Palestine. So all hotel bars and restaurants, that had been planning this night for months, and were poised to make millions of dollars, had to cancel their festivities and shut down for the evening. Those who had tickets were given refunds or vouchers to use at a later date.

There was one place open - the good ol' Irish Village. They had originally planned for live music, fireworks and a buffet. The buffet was the only one left standing. So Garren and I headed out there to meet some friends around 9:30pm, had a few drinks, ate some food (which was really good for a free buffet) and waited around for the change of the New Year. I think there was a little hooting and hollering at midnight - but certainly no countdown. A little weird to be surrounded by so many people and have the New Year come in so quietly.

The Village cleared out pretty quickly after that. Of course we had just gotten up so we were wide awake and wanting to stay out later - but there was nowhere to go, everything was shut down. So sad. The one evening that we actually go out and have energy to stay up past midnight (I know I sound like a lame old duck), there is nothing to do. Oh well, guess I'll try to sleep and get back on UAE time. Happy New Year!