Hello All

It is Friday afternoon and I am getting ready to go to the beach. The winds are nice and steady I may rent a small sailboat at the hotel beach club, and watch the sunset. Clear skies and a nice breeze. 88 degrees and it feels cool in the shade. 30% humidity, the next few months are going to be nice. Woke up this morning and decided to work on my short game, the practice facility at the club is 1st class. Driving range, chipping green, putting green, and sand traps. All this is included in my membership. Finally figured what I am doing and feel more confident after hitting over 300 shots. I plan to play Sunday afternoon, two tournaments, one Wednesday and one Saturday.


Friday is the holy day here and mostly everything is closed. Everything at the resort and the big grocery and big stores are open however. I live about one half mile from the beach and it is quite nice, you are supposed to pay an entrance fee but I just walk in. Nobody questions me.

Got a new rental car, Mazda 6, bigger and better than my previous, cost me 60 dirhams to fill it up. About $16 dollars, They are turning the mountains here into islands, a lot of stone dust in the air and because of that you need to have your car washed every other day. The drivers here a crazy! They all think they are Formula one racers.

I have three days off this weekend and on Sunday I have to get a National identity card. New rule...without one you can do nothing here, buy a car, open a bank account, nothing. I am living in an apartment with several RAK Airline pilots and found out yesterday that a controller from America that works at Dubai lives down the hall from me. Small world!

Saturday I delivered a resume for a friend and then went to the the club to practice my short game. After practicing for a couple of hours I went home and went to the beach for a couple of hours. A bit breezy but nice and warm. Watched TV, over 800 channels! This place isn't bad!

Today I went to get my National identity card. Something we should think about in the States. The real estate market is starting to show weakness, people who bought earlier in the year are realizing losses in their investment. There seems to mirror what happened in the States two years ago. People were flipping homes here making enormous profits. That is not the case now. I played golf in a outing that was sponsored by a real estate company. www.alfaraaproperties.com The real estate market here is going south. The problem here is they keep changing the rules. In the past if you bought a property you automatically received a resident visa, no longer the case, hypothetically you could own property and be unable to reside there. Go figure. Getting ready to watch NFL live Bengals vs Eagles.


I will toss some photos on the post. Enjoy!

Take Care
Mike