That was 2010

After a second frappuccino and a good hundred pages of Clive Cussler I left the beach café and headed for downtown, the Tourist Club Area as it is quaintly called.

A cool Paulaner beer was refreshing as the sun went down while I sat on the terrasse of the Brauhaus at the Beach Rotana hotel. It was all slightly surreal, with the tables already set for jollity and a very expensive menu later in the evening... noise-makers, silly hats, everything needed to persuade the punters that they are having fun. Reassuring the fact that when the revellers arrive after dark the construction sites across the water will be largely invisible, the lights on the cranes resembling, I guess, constructivist slashes of illumination.

At the Abu Dhabi Mall next door I was fortunate enough to find a great bargain. When the overnight temperature falls below 15 degrees a light additional layer seems like a good idea and since Giordano was offering, for three days only, a forty percent discount, a surprisingly elegant cotton reefer jacket found its way into a shopping bag for no more than 24 Euros.

Back at the villa my host and his companion were getting ready to make merry and anticipated a return home not before five in the morning. Ah, youth!

As for me, I have quickly become a fan of the prize-winning Turkish television drama series Ezel, just launched by Abu Dhabi Television's Al Oula channel. It passes the true test of good television fiction... even without understanding the language a viewer can get the gist of the narrative thanks to a cinematic storytelling style in which dialogue is of secondary importance. No surprise to me that the series has been sold to over thirty countries.

Oh yes, and just after I turned off the lights and hit my pillow, there was the sound of fireworks!