The Towering Inferno!

After a rather intense night at training college last night, we were finally released at 12.30am after 9 and a half hours of business class practise! (Mind you we get paid for a whole 3 and a half of that!) So I wasn't home and in bed til well after 2am. You can imagine my surprise and confusion when Nicole calls me at 6.45am talking very quickly about a fire! As it turns out, the building directly across the road from us - a half finished high-rise - had caught fire and was billowing flams, black smoke and a LOT of flying debri onto Sheikh Zayed Road below and this was peak hour traffic!

They closed off the road causing what I can only imagine as total traffic chaos in a city where heavy traffic is an excepted way of life. The main strip of Sheikh Zayed Road where Nicole and I live is the main road in Dubai and more or less the ONLY way to get directly from one end of town to the other, so when its completely closed in both directions.... I ran up to Nicole's apartment in my boxers to get a better look at the flames (her apartment faces the road directly and is higher up) and it was quite a spectacle. The falling flaming debris turned signs and bushes below into separate mini fires, and at one point the balcony of a next door building was completely alight.

However I couldn't watch for too long as sleep was beggng me to come back, and as I write this getting ready to go back to college, I am mentally preparing for a big theory and practical exam later in the day... SCARY!

Also my lovely, pseudo sister-in-law, Julie, is having major heart surgery tomorrow (Wednesday) so if you feel you can or want to, prayers for her and brother Ben are appreciated.

Now off to cram more information in my head!


The building on the left is the one that caught fire from the debris although it was extinguished soon after...

No cars... that NEVER happens around here - very surreal!

Dache and Denise got involved in the firewatching too - all of us have our final practical exam today!