Liquid Gold

Its official – I love beer. I love the different flavours and I love how some marketing guru at Grolsch created one for each season and the best of course is the blond beer with a slice of lemon, drank while sitting on a terrace in Europe somewhere.

I love it when people (me included) have no idea about a place and then jump to conclusions. “You won’t be able to drink in Dubai�. Yes you can drink in Dubai. You can drink in a licensed venue, ie restaurants, bars, band venues and in your own home. Drunk and disorderly is not tolerated here, you’ll most likely go to prison. Drink driving has a zero tolerance, if you’re picked up drink driving then you automatically lose your licence, go to jail and face deportation. It’s apparently becoming more common amongst the expat community, as the numbers swell the number of laws broken increases.

There are loads of bars here. The majority being linked to hotels. It’s a really weird concept, I wouldn’t imagine going to the Park Hyatt for drinks in Melbourne, but here if you want to head out you go to a ritzy hotel that’s filled with glam girls and bad cover bands. On Wednesday night (think of it as a Friday night) I went to a bar to see a “jazz band�. The jazz band in question played “Take me to the river� and other numbers that the crowd could croon to. The bar itself was packed with mainly blokes who all looked like engineers who were there for one thing – to get smashed.

To give you an idea of cost – I had a glass of Grolsch, it turned out to be a pint and was 30 dirhams ($15 AUD). P had a pint of some Belgian amber liquid that cost 40 dirhams. Pretty expensive night out huh?