Our new car

In early August, I finally took delivery of our new car, a Nissan Altima sedan. I had been driving a rental car originally provided by my employer but this had to go as I was now responsible for getting my own car and after some time, picked out the Altima as our mode of transport here in Dubai.

It is similar to the Nissan Maxima available in Australia, perhaps slightly smaller, but still a good size vehicle and very nicely equipped. It drives very smoothly and despite it only being a 4 cylinder 2.5L engine, has plenty of power and if you didn't know you could be fooled into thinking that it is a small 6 cylinder. For those of you who may be interested, here is a link to the local dealer's website showing details of the vehicle:

http://www.nissan.arabianautomobiles.com/vehicle/altima/index.html

Perhaps it could only happen here, but I picked the car up in the evening and drove approximately 5 kms to a service station to get fuel and purchase a 'Salik' tag, an electronic sticker to go on the windscreen for the toll gates on the main roads. I went inside to purchase the tag and upon returning to the car I found a man leaning over the bonnet with a newspaper opened up and him scrawling on the paper with a pen and a cigarette hanging from his mouth and ash droppings on the bonnet.Of course I did not take this event particularly well... a brand new car literally 10 minutes out of the showroom and this guy was using it as a desk and ashtray. I yelled at him (in English) and whilst I don't think he understood what I was saying, he certainly knew I was not happy and made a shrugging gesture as if to say "What is the problem, I was only reading the paper?"

J and I went for a drive on the weekend to Abu Dhabi and stayed overnight with a friend/colleague from Australia (whom also works in the same group of companies) and his fiance. It made a nice change from Dubai and gave J an opportunity to have a look around Abu Dhabi. It also was an opportunity to find out how the new car would be over distances - I have to drive quite regularly to Abu Dhabi for work and the smaller rental car was very unpleasant to do the journey in. Overall impressions - really nice car, very comfortable and nicely appointed, cruises very smoothly, plenty of power for overtaking and it does not feel like a sardine can on wheels.

Here is a photo J took when we stopped near a mosque on the way to Abu Dhabi....