If you know me well, you’ll know that I am not a night person. At all. I sleep before 10pm and can barely hold myself awake beyond that. I do, however wake up very early at, usually before 6 am. Anyway, the point is, it’s difficult for me to stay up late. If you give me something to do, a writing assignment maybe to be submitted the next day, I WON’T stay up late for it and instead sleep early and wake up at 4 am to do it. I am more effective in the morning.

Ah, I’m a blah machine.

Anyway, last Tuesday night, I had to stay up late to watch the meteor shower. I don’t usually get excited at night, only for stargazing activities. For the record, I stayed up so late to see the Halley’s Comet in 1986. Staying up until 3am was too much for a 10 year old.

I dragged Pristine on the meteor shower quest but she had a long nap in the afternoon and very well can cope up with staying up late unlike me (who’s child is this?). She’s her father’s daughter in this department.

We went out at 11:30 pm and M drove for about an hour far away from the city trying to find a place where it is dark. There’s just too much light pollution in Dubai. Some Dubai residents have been tweeting (yes I do hang around Twitter A LOT) to go see the sky show which made me think, shouldn’t just the city turn off all the bright lights for a while, even during meteor shower nights so we won’t have to go out and drive to far away middle of nowhere lands?

We found ourselves a spot in the desert laid a carpet on the soft sand, to shockingly find:

• The moon shining brightly – Shock level: 1
• the desert stinking with camel poo – Shock level: 2
• it’s still hot and humid even after midnight – Shock level: 0
• a pack of dogs barking at us, ready the extra poundage I have – Shock level: 100

We had to pack up and find another place away from the hysterical dogs and the smell of camel poo but we couldn’t get rid of THE MOON. It was nice to lie down on the soft carpet, with the warm, soft sand underneath, though.

We settled just after 1 am. I instantly slept (highly predictable) while Pristine was busy looking up at the sky, counting the stars and asking her father: “Why does the moon always follow us?”

Annoying, I know. The moon, that is. Someone should cover it with blanket next time.

So, telling it the short and sweet way: we drove for an hour, one way, smelled camel poo and endure a short sprint from dogs only to additionally find out:

• there were NO FALLING STARS – Shock level: unmeasureable

(maybe because of the moon, our location, etc…too busy and sleepy to ponder on our misfortune.)

*might update later today for photos of what we did or how I looked like staying up way beyond midnight..*

So did you see the Perseid meteor shower by any chance?