24-03-17 Central Park Swimmies

Friday 24th March 2017

For a Dubai spring day the weather is unusually wild and wet. Storms all night, rain all morning, flooded roads and wind swept trees keep us indoors but on our balcony because its actually delightful and refreshing to finally experience weather here. Kingsley is all about watching the storm clouds roll is. He asks JiaJia Dora where the clouds are, since its raining and he cannot see them. ‘The entire sky is a rain cloud today’ she answers. He stays on the balcony to feel the cool breeze; a rare treat for him.

At some point during lunchtime the rain eases and soon stops, and before long the sun is out. So at 1:45 PM we are out the door and for something new, I decide to take us up to the Podium Level of the fabulous Central Park Towers, directly across the road from us. The view across the entire DIFC, Financial Center and across to Zabeel, then to Dubai Mall is breathtaking, if only for the architecture at eye level. And if one looks up, well, that’s another level of engineering Dubai has achieved, and aimed at dazzling locals and visitors alike.

However its not the architecture that Kingsley cares for; its the pools he gets to swim in today and the open space he gets to run through that excites him. In fact Kingsley makes a little friend – Melodie from Iran, here on holidays – and the two of them literally run after each other for an hour while her dad and I chat. Melodie is an only child growing up in a 45 square meter apartment (hence runs like a spring filly when in the outdoors, such as here). She speaks Persian. Kingsley speaks Greek. Yet both father and I hear them communicating in their perfect imperfect English. Staggered by these two toddlers managing their three combined languages if only to play together better, which they did!