Foreign Perspectives

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Dubai is one of those places that you generally hear about when the travel agent mentions that you need to change planes there on your way to the Far East or Australia but you’ll miss a lot if you just stay long enough to see the airport between your flights.

Although it’s a fairly small country, the tourist authorities there have been making a point of building up just about every possible tourist attraction that you can imagine. It’s in the desert so you’ll get the camel rides and desert dining that you might expect from that but there’s a great deal more that you wouldn’t expect.

Most of us have our image of Arabic countries from what we’ve seen of Egypt but Dubai isn’t like that at all. Yes, it has the cute souks (markets) that you get in the various Arabic countries but in addition it has super-modern shopping centres and a very modern business centre that would put many western countries to shame. It’s on the coast so you’ll get all the watersports that you would expect and then some.

Dubai hotels abound, of course, but in addition there are hotel apartments in Dubai and if you want to do your own thing there’s also self catering in Dubai. If you’ve not been to an Arabic country before or if you’re only going for a short break, it’s probably best to look towards hotel apartments rather than all-out self-catering as it’ll help you settle in that much quicker.

Although the majority of Arabic destinations are relatively cheap, here too Dubai is quite different and most accommodation is aimed towards the luxury end of the market so, for example, there are furnished apartments in Dubai which is an accommodation option usually considered to be confined to major western countries. In fact, the sheer range of accommodation on offer is quite staggering given the relatively small size of the place with every type from hotels through to holiday rentals in Dubai and everything in between. Dubai apartments includes a nice range on the site which lets you select amongst the various types and locations available; prices start from around $250 per place per day.

Incidently, don’t think that going down the self-catering route means that you actually have to do all (or even any) of the cooking as there are lots of restraurants available to suit every taste. The big advantage of going for a self-catering place is that you get a good deal more room than you do in a comparable hotel room. This applies to the hotel-apartment option too where you can pretty much live hotel-style yet with a larger room. 

If you’re going to be passing through Dubai anyway, it’s very much worthwhile taking the opportunity to experience a taste of a fascinating country. 

Photo courtesy of Dubai Department of Tourism.

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One thing that’s very noticeable in Valencia is that everywhere you see employment vacancy signs which implies quite a strong local economy.

As in other places in Spain there’s building work going on just about everywhere but it doesn’t seem so intrusive as it does in some cities (notably Madrid) with many quiet areas around the city. There’s more of a laid-back feel about the city too: everyone is certainly going somewhere yet they’re not going at the hectic pace you often see in Barcelona.

With the building work, there’s certainly money to be made in property speculation of course and the apartment we rented was owned by a relatively young Spaniard.

And the banks? It seemed like almost wall to wall banks in most of the central area of the city. Both more branches and a much wider variety of banks that I’ve seen anywhere outside London. They’re all competing for business too with many offers available on loans, credit cards and so on.

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If you’re looking for an accident lawyer you want the best and this is particularly important when it’s you against a trucking firm.

Why? Well, simply because the firm will have lots of resources to mobilise the best legal team on their side and you need to be able to match the experienced team that they’ll use. It’s no use using a general purpose lawyer in these cases as you’re only handing the advantage to the people responsible for causing the accident if you do.

For an austin texas truck accident lawyer, you’ll find that O’Hanlon, McCollom & Demerath have the wealth of experience that you need.

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