Dragon Boat Race

This past weekend we finally participated in the Dragon Boat Race. Hopefully in the next week before taking off for Eid break I'll be able to post a lot of pictures - in between the race and the post-race barbecue/Halloween party I took over a hundred pictures. Now, first off, it was a lot of fun. It some ways it was a typically odd Emirati event in that we spent the time shuttling between posh hotels (which made it different than most Emirati events wherein you're shuttling in between posh hotels and posh malls), which always makes everything feel pretty artificial. This is especially so when I read about my good friend Trish's amazing adventures this weekend in Wadi Rum in Jordan (and let me throw in my usual pitch for folks to read Trish's blog, which can be accessed from my blog list at the lower right).

Now, that said, the folks who made up the Zayed teams were great and we had a blast, even if it did drag on for hours. We had to report at 9:30 on Friday morning, and our first race wasn't until 12:00 and the semi-final was at 4:00. My suspicion is that everything was set up this way so that you were trapped there all day and forced to buy food and drink (and towels for 75 dirhams and robes for 100 dirhams) from the venders. Luckily we found a great shady spot under some palm trees and it made for a pleasant day, interrupted by swimming, napping, eating and sneaking inside the hotel to grab cool drinks at Starbucks. Everything went off without any problems, although there was some initial concern that our start time was too close to afternoon prayers, especially a big deal on Friday, but we made it work. Now, our team, after a couple great practices, rowed horribly in the first heat, leading to the appearance of the famous/infamous/epic Scudder teamper. I don't mind losing (much), but I hate being incompetent and we just were. We were much better in the second heat, but still finished well back of the pack. That evening there a fun barbecue behind Traders Hotel, which is maybe a hundred hards down the road from the Shangri-La Hotel where the race was run. Fantastic food, and some interesting costumes. Around half the costumes were devils, and I'm not certain of what to make of that.

Here are a few quick pictures to get things started. At the top I have one of those odd pictures which seems to capture the ridiculous and the sublime, which is an essential part of life in the UAE. In the foreground is one of the corporate teams heading towards the starting line while in the background is the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Then I've posted a picture of myself, which is something that I normally never do, but since it is apparently snowing back in Vermont I figured I had to post it if for no other reason that to tweak (or as my British friends here say, wind up) my friends back home in VT. Then there is a picture of my good friend Laura posing with the dragon, at a happier moment before they had a big falling out later that ended in accusations and threats/counter-threats (which she normallyu reserves for her running argument with the female voice of her GPS machine). Finally there is a fun picture of Liane and Tanja engaged in a very animated discussion. Definitely a great time, although it's left me moving pretty slow today.