Turns out, my landlord is really nice (an older woman named Hind who is a first time owner/renter) but she was basically convinced by this psychotic "real estate agent", who can barely speak or understand anything beyond basic English from Azerbaijan (basically former U.S.S.R. in the middle of the tundra--how did he end up here, right?), to let him market the property. Hind said she pitied him, as he sounded and looked so desperate for the 5% commission, and figured it would be more or less harmless--not exactly.
That would have been fine, except for the obvious language barrier, in addition to the fact that he works for one of the many real estate "agencies" that have popped up in Dubai to help sell the innumerable number of properties that are available. Problem is, these agencies are barely legit. And most of the "agents", like the winner that I was dealing with, have never been trained in real estate practice or law and have never closed a sale.
So, to make a long story short, I'm glad I didn't have a nervous breakdown and I'm ecstatic that I got the keys. The relocation consultant I had been working with, who had been provided by my company, turned out to be my guardian angel, and made sure that everything went well and that neither the landlord nor I was getting screwed, since the superstar from the former U.S.S.R. literally made me want to punch a brick wall--repeatedly.
I will have pictures of the new spot tomorrow, but really had to post a picture of a poster that was on display at the government office where I got my driver license issued. It was a very small office on the upper floor of a "hypermarket", aka a Walmart-esque place that has a large grocery story in addition to lots of other little stores that offer whatever you need: eyeglasses, clothes, electronics, etc.
I gave these guys copies all my official documents (visas and passports and certifications, oh my) and got handed my license. For the record, the USA is one of only a few countries where you can simply show your license from your home country and immediately get a Dubai license--they have just put into effect new laws that make it VERY, VERY difficult for most foreign nationalities to get a license here. Basically, they are combating huge amounts of traffic, and huge amounts of murderous driving. Literally. There is an accident in Dubai every 5 seconds or something. They have the highest auto-accident death rate per capita in the entire world--I will be honest, I see about 50 "almost" accidents a day, so the number of actual accidents must be astronomical.
SO, in addition to revising the laws so that obtaining a license is more difficult, they actively posted some propaganda to aid in their campaign for safer driving:
Yes, according to Islamic law, or Sharia, speeding is a sin. Now, I know you're all thinking that I better be careful, because I can be a bit of a speedy gonzalez, but you should SEE the cars racing down the main highway here at over 100 mph, easily:
Although, with sweet-ass cars like this one literally everywhere, I can't really blame them. I will try to get more pictures of all the hot cars I see everyday--although, a curious phenomenon here is that license plates are sometimes much more coveted than the car itself. I don't know if any of you heard about this, but recently , a custom license plate was auctioned off in Abu Dhabi for around $14 million.
It's all about the number here--you pay more if you want a "better" license plate number (which means as close to the number 1 as possible), phone number (easy to remember, or as many of the same number as possible, i.e. 555-5555), P.O. box number (since Dubai does not have a mail delivery system, you can only receive mail at a P.O. box and go to pick it up--no mailboxes, no home delivery, nothing), etc.
It really is weird that they pay so much money for something that has absolutely no material value or serious purpose in their lives. And, apparently, the guys who have the money to spend $14 million on the license plate get the car, be it a Rolls Royce Phantom, Bentley, or Ferrari, FOR FREE, because just having the license plate attached to the car is enough of a marketing campaign to justify gifting the car away.
And that's enough "things that make you go hmmmm/WTF?" from Dubai for today.
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