A Room With a View

I finally moved into my apartment a couple days ago - we'd had the lease for about a week but the utilities (which are notoriously inefficient here) took their time in getting us water and electricity. Internet is yet to come, but that is what turns a house into a home.

I'm splitting a 2-bedroom flat with myself and two of the other Monitor new-hires, Josh and Curtis. Josh just graduated from Columbia and interned at the Monitor office here last summer, and Curtis graduated from Harvard three years ago and spent time studying Arabic in Egypt and at Georgetown.


The Burj Al-Arab Hotel, as seen from our 25th floor window. We were going to live in the Penthouse, but Paris Hilton was in town filming her "Dubai BFF" show, so it was taken.

The apartment complex we live in comes with a gym, pool and 9 hole mini-golf course. All this for much less than you could find in Burleith. Although it did help to come in at the bottom of the property market - rents are 40% what they were this time last year.


Looking out towards Bur Dubai. The gray smudge above the crane that is obstructed by the haze is actually the Burj Dubai. It's only the tallest building in the world, nbd.


Looking out towards the Gulf, you can see the Palm Jumeirah between those Chrysler-building-esque towers. The dollops of land in the distance are the unfinished remnants of the now canceled World Development (citing @shazzer87 with the link).