Total (well, almost) Eclipse of the Sun

Tomorrow is a big day in Mauritius. There's going to be an annular solar eclipse, the likes of which haven't been seen since 1901. It will be visible across southern Africa, Madagascar, Réunion, and Mauritius, and scientific type people, including Merv, have known about it for some time.

We should get a pretty good view!

Even though appromiately 90% of the sun will be covered, it's obviously very dangerous to look at it. Most people only found out about the event this week when the media started covering it, and there's been a mad rush to try and find the special glasses you need to be able to view the eclipse. There's a Facebook page that completely sold out, re-ordered, and promptly sold the new stock in a couple of hours. There's a scientific centre advertising glasses for sale, but numerous people have gone there, only to find they don't have any left either. Importing stuff takes a while, and since the eclipse is happening tomorrow, there are a lot of disappointed people.

Can anyone get a pair of these to me by tomorrow lunchtime??

The science centre has some filtered telescopes for people to go along and view the eclipse, and they are setting up some telescopes on the beach at Flic-en-FLac as well. I dread to think how long you might have to wait to actually be able to look through one!

The biggest problem this week though hasn't been the availability of glasses; schools are panicking about what to do with all the children as the eclipse will be happening right around the time they get let out of school. Some schools are using it as a great educational opportunity and are equipped with glasses and a large enough room to keep all the children in, so they can take turns to go and view the show outside. Others are just keeping the children inside all day - the eclipse is between 12h20-15h44 - and watching live on the internet, and others, including my school, are letting the children go home at lunchtime.  Sadly, they're not letting the teachers go though, so I won't be able to test any of the alternative viewing methods that have been floating around on the internet for the past few days. :-(

Summer travels part I.

I somehow made it through my first six months of teaching - well enough that they've given me a permanent contract and my own classes from next year - so we decided to celebrate by doing some travelling over the summer. 

Since we moved to Mauritius, I've spent a lot of time in Dubai airport, usually in the middle of the night. I took a non-stop flight once from Paris and hated every second of it, so now I try to always travel with Emirates and have a stop in Dubai to break up the flight a bit. I'm definitely in the minority amongst my ex-pat friends, but for me the chance to stretch my legs, brush my teeth, and have a quick wander round the duty free shops makes all the difference. The only problem is that you never have time to actually leave the airport and see the city. As Merv and I were travelling together for once, we thought we would change that.

We had already planned a trip to England with Emirates so we just created a break of 3 days between the flights and booked ourselves a nice hotel. We stayed on the banks of the Dubai Creek, in an area which is pretty much still a building site, but was close to everything. 

View from our room on the 22nd floor

My absolute favourite thing about the hotel was the bath. I couldn't work out how to fill it at first because there were no taps, but I eventually found a button with a picture of a bath, and when I pressed it, this happened:

Yes, that's the water pouring down from the ceiling!

The other cool thing was the swimming pool balcony. I'd packed for a holiday in England so didn't have my swimming costume, and just had to admire it from a distance.

Because we had limited time to visit, we went for the super touristy option of a sightseeing bus which did routes around the old and new quarters, as well as the marina and the artificial palm islands, which we'd seen so many times on Emirates in-flight adverts. It was extremely hot, but fortunately the bus had a covered, air-conditioned part at the front and we had a great view.

To get to the bus, we had to cross the creek, which we did in a traditional little boat. Everybody sits on the raised part in the middle and it felt a little wobbly, especially as we navigated our way through the hundreds of other boats on the creek. I'm sure they knew what they were doing though, and we didn't fall in!

First stop on the bus was the Gold Souk; passages of jewellery shops with more gold than you can imagine - over 25 tons at any given time. Most of it was a bit bling bling for me, but it was definitely worth seeing.

Dubai, we were told through our sightseeing bus headphones, is always trying to set records: the biggest, tallest, longest, most expensive, most luxurious, and this is certainly shown by the skyline. There are literally hundreds of skyscrapers, each one taller than the last.  It's kind of cool though, as a lot of them keep some elements of islamic design which I really like. It's all those interesting shapes and never-ending patterns. 

The tower that breaks all records is the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building at almost 830m. We didn't visit because the queues were huge (we should have booked online in advance!) but we took some pretty photos from the outside. After all, if you're at the top of the tower, you can't get a good photo of it, can you?!

We weren't the only ones taking pictures!

By night, from a taxi, could be better.

 

 

 

 

 

The malls in Dubai are amazing. They are full of shops from around the world, including lots of French, English, and American stores I hadn't seen for a long time. Sadly Merv isn't the best shopping companion, so we only had a quick look around before moving on.

One mall had a giant aquarium:

 

There's even a ski slope complete with fake chalets and crazy inflatable bubbles that you can roll down the mountain in.

 

In the evening we went on a dinner cruise down the Dubai Creek on a dhow, another traditional Arab boat. There were lots of them and some had very pretty lights, like this one. There was a buffet dinner, drinks and entertainment. We saw some sword dancing and a crazy spinning man who I later found out was a whirling dervish. It was fascinating but made me feel a little sick watching him for too long!

  

We only stayed in Dubai for 3 days and although we did see quite a lot of the city, I didn't realise how much there actually was to do there. We could have taken trips to the mountains, to the sand dunes, the racecourse, and many more places. We also didn't go at the best time of year as some tourist attractions like the Miracle Gardens and Global Village were closed because of the heat. While it still wouldn't be my first choice of holiday destination, I'm really glad we had the chance to visit and would definitely recommend it for anyone who likes shopping!!