During the afternoon of New Year’s eve, the gang and I spent our time forging fake dates on our passports and obtaining false ID’s in preparation for the party. What a bloody waste of time and money. No ID’s were required even to get alcohol.We got lost on the way there, but found it in the end: past a green wired gate straight into the middle of the desert. It was about 9:30 PM when we arrived and we got our 250 dirham tickets at the door. Bit of a waste, but it was New Year’s Eve!

While walking to the food and drinks tents, I heard laughter coupled with a few drunken shouts. I turned around to discover someone slinging his arm over my shoulder and introducing himself. Sure enough, it was a group of Englishman already totally smashed before the party had even begun. That’s the spirit, lads!

The chap who had his hand around me was called Christophe. He seemed like an amiable character and I struck a conversation with him and his mates. They were from the Dubai American Academy (DAA). There were also people from Sharjah and Dubai Choueifat, AUS, and ASD that I met there.

Anyway, on to the more important details - the booze. There wasn’t much of an interesting selection, just the common spirits Absolut Vodka, Gordon’s Dry Gin, Jack Daniel’s Whiskey, god knows what tequila, and Heineken and Bacardi Breezers on the beer side. At least that’s all I saw - the guys who wasted there money (you’ll see why in the next paragraph) on the 500 dhs tickets might have had a better selection.

Spirits were 30 dirhams each, beers 20. I managed to spend about 150 dirhams before the booze tent was raided by an army of drunken adolescents (see attached picture) and so ended the selling of alcohol that night. Alas, I wasn’t fortunate enough to have been there to join them. One of those drunkards, though, was an Englishman who was happy to partake in the sharing of his fine bottle of alcohol (can’t even remember what it was) with a fellow countrymen.

That kept me going on and off the dance floor until about 2:00 AM when I took a well-deserved rest on a freezing slab of concrete outside one of the dance areas.

Towards the end of the party at 3:00 AM, we wound up in a tent shouting utter rubbish at the passers-by.

On the way out, I truly felt how bloody cold it was. I was wearing a shirt, and I was FREEZING. It was 12 degrees celsius out there, but we were having too much damn fun to notice.