Where are we???

My mom asked us:

"OK, so you don't have a street address. What about a general idea of where you are so I can look for your place on satellite? And what direction is your apartment facing? And what floor are you on?"

We're right in the middle of this map. (If the link works properly.)

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=25.2707,55.321162&spn=0.006171,0.010461&z=17

See? Just a bit to the left [West] of being across the street from the Reef Mall on Salahuddin Road. (Although I'm pretty sure that mentioning the street name to a taxi driver would not be of any use at all. They only seem to shrug when I mention the street that a destination is on.)

Below I'll include a copy of the map with some additional notes on it.

I'm having trouble getting the sattelite images to load here, but if you do manage it, ours is the only building with a swimming pool on its roof on our block. It's sort of a kidney shaped thing in the NorthEast-ish part of the roof. I'm including an image below from Google Earth that shows it. (If you don't have Google Earth, it's worth downloading and it's free. Sort of like Google Maps on steroids!) See that nice broad, tree-lined thoroughfare in front of our building? It's all dug up right now while they install the metro light rail system. They are working on it 24 hours a day, so we are sometimes lulled to sleep by the gentle trill of the Arabian Jackhammer. But the noise isn't too bad for us since we're on an higher floor. There's a major upside to it as well: A station is being installed underground right in front of us, so much of the city will be just a quick train ride away when it is finish next year.

Our apartment faces South, which- being on the north end of town- will give us a nice view of the expanse of Dubai when the Summer dust clears. We're on the 6th floor. The roof is two stories up and offers a slightly better view. We won't be high up enough to see everything beyond the tall buildings downtown, but we will be able to see to top floors of Al Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world. I doubt that we'll be able to see Al Burj Arab, the fancy sail-shaped hotel, or any of the artificial islands- except maybe Palm Deira when it is finished since it's pretty close as well as huge- but still, for a cityscape it's a pretty nice view. There's not an equally tall apartment building directly across from us so we have much more interesting things to look at than our neighbors looking at us!

Directly across from us is a Toys'R'Us and a Marks and Spencer clothing store, and then the Reef Mall across the side street from them. There are many smaller storefronts along the street as well, so we're not at a loss for shopping without even having to flag down a taxi. Some very good prices at the neighborhood stores as well, so that makes it doubly nice. There seem to be plenty of local restaurants to try in the weeks ahead as well. The Reef Mall is pretty decent size mall, but small by local standards. As if that weren't enough, just a couple blocks further away is the Al Ghurair Mall Which is a good bit larger, though still not 'big'.

It's been too hot to check out our neighborhood freely just yet, but the Summer weather seems to be easing already so it won't be long before we can explore the city in earnest. The temperatures have been very high- generally well over 100º F- but naturally the humidity has been the most oppressive factor. Pleasingly, the last few days there has been little humidity, and it is fairly tolerable to be outside in that case, for brief periods anyway.

So there ya' go.

Here's the map with some additions:














Here's the Google satellite image, again with notes:

















If you search with Google Maps or Google Earth you can easily find Karla's place of employment, Dubai Women's College. It not terribly far away.

Illal liqaa'

Paul

P.S. Also, here's an interactive map of Dubai that is maintained by the tourism department. (Be aware that it includes several unfinished, under construction and not-yet-started projects, including several new man-made islands.) Enjoy!

http://www.dubaitourism.ae/DubaiMap/tabid/189/language/en-US/default.aspx