Friday around town

scraping bubbly cheese onto my plate

Did a little exploring this weekend. First up was the Ripe Market at Zabeel Park. While it's advertised as an organic farmers market, after visiting, I'd describe it more as a single veggie stand surrounded by a lot of craft and food booths. That said, it had a nice vibe- a big mix of nationalities all out enjoying lovely weather and a nice park and some really yummy food choices. I sampled homemade honey nougat, a cheese I can't pronounce, a dark chocolate and banana snack food that may be the thing that brings me back, houmous, olive oil, pickles... And then, I settled on raclette for breakfast. It's a Swiss delight, kind of in the fondue family if you're not familiar. They heat a hunk of cheese using a clever device until it gets brown and bubbly and then scrape that cheese off and on top of something like crusty bread and salty meat. I paired it with a Pakistani mango lassi (yogurt shake) from the Moti Roti booth- and learned that Moti means fat and Roti is a flatbread, they make their flatbreads fat by wrapping them around some sort of spicy filling. I could have selected grilled sausages from my favorite Australian butcher, poutine or crepes from the Maple Leaf, the Canadian place, all manner of Lebanese street food, burgers, and I can't actually remember what other choices. All in all, produce-wise, it's not going to hold a candle to say, picking blueberries in Michigan or getting the first, perfectly ripe Brigham City peaches at the SLC Downtown Farmers' Market, but once I let go of my hopes for abundant fruit/veggie options, I enjoyed people watching, sampling and eating on a bench in a pretty park quite a bit.

my weak sketch of the bit of my daily drive between 2 palaces

On my way home, still fairly early on a Friday morning, the perfect time to take a "Sunday drive" as it were, I cut through some back streets surrounding the royal palaces, stables, and a whole neighborhood (Zabeel 2) that I can only guess is full of people with some "wasta" (aka clout/ connections/ prestige). There were signs indicating that photographs are not allowed which is a shame, it's a lovely neighborhood and the palaces are awesome looking- the one has a horse drawn chariot rising from the roof, looking rather like Il Vittoriano in Rome and behind/ beside the other there is a large and elegant mosque. My daily drive to work takes me past an exit marked "Private Access" and then under a roundabout that shoots off to giant palaces- residences for the extended family of His Royal Highness, VP of the nation and ruler of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid, on either side of the road- clearly off limits for me. I can see them down long, landscaped entry roads, however. And in driving around the neighborhood that is semi in the shadow of the palaces, I spotted a peacock and a random pen of well groomed long-haired sheep or goats in amongst the lovely homes, most flying the UAE flags high and proud.

In the afternoon, I took my new foldable bike to the nearby former camel racecourse turned cycle

track. I chose a fold up bike in part for easy transport since I think it's likely that I'll often drive to the places I ride to avoid trying to navigate the street traffic. there are rumored to be several tracks set aside for cycling and I'll be checking them all out in time. This one, Nad al Sheba, has the grandstands left over from camel racing days at 2 different places along the path. The first near where you park, also features changing rooms and a small park and a tiny kids track. I was a little unclear of where to

skyline view from abandoned grandstand

ride and so at first followed some pavement out into an area where there were about a dozen cricket matches in full swing. I realized I was not on the main tracks at that point and veered toward another biker until I spotted the purpose-built paved path with solar lights and painted kilometer markers.There are a couple of loops of various lengths- 4, 6 and 8km, I think. It feels a bit random, cycling a loop in a flat expanse of desert. There's some nice views of the city skyline in one direction and of the fancy new horse racing complex in the other direction, some very ugly power lines, some temporary walls blocking a construction site (and the wind, handily enough), and the second empty grandstand which I stopped to checkout. I think if I start riding the loops with any regularity I'm going to wind up coming up with some sort of "grandstand passing moves", I'll ride like the stands are full and cheering me on!

solar lights, ugly power lines, nice track

new horse racing track view