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UAE’s 2013 Goes Out with a Bang

December 31st, 2013 · No Comments · Abu Dhabi, Dubai, UAE

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I was never really a fan of 2013, the year.

Not that 2013 did anything to harm me, far as I know.

The number was awkward. That was the main thing. It might have helped if a number that awkward were a prime; that would give it some cachet. But no. It is divisible by 3, 11 and 61.

And as a sports person you know immediately that no World Cup or Olympics will be held in that year, which leads to bit of a sense that it would never really be important, either.

So, I suppose those complaints are more about the label the previous 365 days fell under, more than anything else.

OK, yes, several fun things happened, and the stock market climbed, and chunks of the world seemed to climb out of recession. That’s all good.

And, closer to home:

No one in my immediate family died or was seriously ill.

A daughter was married.

We remain employed in our chosen field, print journalism.

Those are all big, important things.

We saw a few new (to us) bits of the world — Kenya and the game reserve near Lake Victoria, and a bit of Thailand. We also returned to Italy, as well as the U.S.

All good.

Right here at the end, in the final hours of 2013, we had a few people over to the apartment for some champagne and and a really nice spread of canapes: smoked salmon with cream cheese and capers; five varieties of cheese; mozzarella balls with basil; shrimp with cocktail sauce; three kinds of dark chocolate; raisin oatmeal cookies.

We sat on the balcony and looked at the lights across the city, while wearing (yes!) coats or sweaters. (It was, like, 68. Nearly freezing.)

A bit before midnight, we took the elevator up to the roof, the plan being to watch fireworks from around Abu Dhabi Island from a high vantage point, but we forgot that the door to the pool/roof area is locked at 10. (Kinda lame.)

That sent us back down to the apartment, where at midnight we saw, via TV, the Burj Khalifa do its annual exploding act — with fireworks blasting out and away from the world’s tallest tower.

We then stepped outside and could see the fireworks over on Saadiyat Island, about five miles away, and perhaps Maryah Island, and if we leaned over the balcony railing we could see what was going on at Emirates Palace, too. All Abu Dhabi stuff, as what was set off at a hotel near us, which had the Sheikh Zayed Mosque as its background.

The serious show was, however, in Dubai, where thousands and thousands of people gathered (and created gridlock, en route, apparently). The fireworks there were televised.

Officials in Dubai were aiming to put on the biggest fireworks show ever, and they may have done it. (The UAE is nuts about world records.)

After the Burj Khalifa stuff, we saw at least 10 minutes of explosions in and around the Burj Al Arab … and when it looked as if things might be done, the actual main event began, around 12:25 a.m. — massive amounts of fireworks blasting off from The Palm (above) and The World — developments off the coast of Dubai, the former inhabited and noted by the Atlantis hotel, the latter on hold since 2008.

But the fireworks … I have never seen anything like it, for sheer volume and length of show. On and on and on. Blasts in green, red, white, blue, the fronds of The Palm lighting up in sequence as blasts went off.

When it was over, I believe I heard a claim that more than 500,000 individual fireworks were set off. I am prepared to believe that. The people from the Guinness Book were there to verify, and we may know tomorrow.

Technically, all those explosions were the dawn of 2014. But 2013 is likely to get the credit for it, won’t it. “What happened on New Year’s Eve 2013?” “Oh, yeah, that massive fireworks show we saw with our friends from Turkey.”

At the least, 2013 has that going for it.

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