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Abu Dhabi

  • Life in the Desert

    Written by

    (Stein) Runar Bergheim
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    Life in the desert is inspiring. The sort of things that live here are focussed; they seize every chance—act on every opportunity. That behaviour stands in sharp contrast to my own life since I became a smartphone owner nearly twenty years ago. Desert-dwellers do not hear a beep, read a message, follow a link and…

  • Don’t They Know it’s Friday?

    Written by

    (Stein) Runar Bergheim
    , ,

    One of the first issues I came to face when I started working in Arabia was that something was fundamentally wrong with the working week. It ended on Thursday—which was good. But then it started on Sunday—which was less so. Until then, I cannot in good conscience say that I knew what a Sunday morning…

  • How an Oasis Looks for Real

    Written by

    (Stein) Runar Bergheim
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    I knew how an Oasis looked. I knew because I had seen one in a Donald Duck comic when I was little. And, back then, I didn’t yet suspect the Disney corporation of wilfully distorting children’s minds. An oasis was a small pond of pure, immaculate water in the desert, surrounded by a small number…

  • The Empty Mountain

    Written by

    (Stein) Runar Bergheim
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    The United Arab Emirates have mountains, too—not merely sand-dunes. These are mostly in the north and the east—but there is one in Abu Dhabi Emirate too. One. That ‘one’, is Jebel Hafeet—the ’empty’ mountain—located on the border between Oman and the United Arab Emirates near Al Ain. Jebel Hafeet, with its 1 249 m.a.s.l, towers…

  • Cities Growing out of Deserts

    Written by

    (Stein) Runar Bergheim
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    While it is always nature that fascinates me, it would be wrong to forego the cities when talking about the United Arab Emirates. The Emiratis are proud of their cities and with good reason. The impressive cityscape in this photo simply wasn’t there fifty years before. Abu Dhabi was nought but a sandbank with a…

  • The Eco-Questionable Delights of Dune Bashing

    Written by

    (Stein) Runar Bergheim
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    When I arrived in the Emirates, I saw the giant desert dunes as surrogates for my beloved Norwegian mountains and was happy. Here I could walk to my heart’s content and enjoy the silence and tranquillity unique to the desert. The Emiratis were also happy about their dunes, but for a different reason; one that…