May God bless your Veriest Newest Year 2016 with all His Mightiest, Most Glorious, Bountiful Blessings!
Truly, the New Year is a new chance on life, opportunities, failed relationships and lost or unprofitable business! It is a veritable new chapter in our lives, our being enabled to turn over a new leaf, a new day and a new year that is dawning for us in spite of it all! And since we all need this to the extreme as all too often, things do not go the way we had planned or hoped for, we love to embrace the New Year with a full-fledged bear hug - eager to begin anew, with fresh vigor, full of our very own hopes and dreams, ready to start yet again, and extremely eager to do so! This is a Celebration of Life, and Dubai showed that in full measure this year as only Dubai knows how! I celebrated the New Year at the exquisite Address Hotel Dubai Mall across from the famous Burj Khalifa and world-famous Burj fireworks.. but this year, it was off the charts amazing, unbelievable, shocking and amazing again!

Tickets at the Cabana poolside terrace restaurant were a whopping 2,350 DHS per person, and everyone had to have their tickets in hand by 4 pm or they would simply not be allowed to enter the premises. My dear friend Khalid Ahli and I made it with about 5 minutes to spare by the hair of our chinney-chin chin! Right after receiving our tickets, I noticed they were blocking even rich locals and familiar regulars from entering the hotel even via the mall entrance. Security was extremely tight all around. They wanted the night to go off without a hitch, and were not taking any chances of anything even remotely going wrong!

Only thing is: an unbelievable sight emerged only 4 hours later that no one could believe! The road to Burj Khalifa closed down 2 hours earlier at 6 pm, and cars that did not make it to their destinations (kilometers and kilometers worth) would still be in queue at 2 am with no end in sight, as we saw driving home from the most amazing party ever! They were going to be there for some hours more, it was very clear, as there was fire above and beyond the fireworks!

An unimaginable fire of epic proportions emerged, which would exacerbate the traffic situation even more that was already the case The 67-Story Address Downtown Hotel across the street from us caught on fire from the middle of the tower, and started to make its way down and up the lofty tower, shooting out its own fireworks already by 8 pm as the guests were entering the party. Floor after floor began to catch on fire, and would spread laterally across the floors as we watched stunned, shocked, and stricken with disbelief! Terrorists tried to destroy a rebirth of love, goodwill, virtue, peace and joy to program the masses and stun them into a paralysis of fear! But that we would defy, and that, we did!

With prayers that everyone was alright from our twin tower, we soon became pacified with the wonderful news that people were being successfully evacuated from the hotel Praise God Almighty! It was a big question whether or not the fireworks would even take place.. the fireworks the whole world knows about and talks about and would be watching in that they are literally unprecedented and most awesome! I noticed, though, with all the guests and wonderful staff that everyone was only relieved that the guests and employees at the corollary Address Downtown across the street were safe and sound! This was our only concern amongst everyone! The fireworks were not at all as important to everyone I spoke to (as expensive as our tickets were for these veritable front row seats); it was life that was most valuable to everyone a veritable show of humanity and genuine compassion, love and goodwill amongst everyone present God bless their souls!

So what to our wondering eyes did appear 5 minutes before midnight, but a hint that the fireworks would actually go off! What merriment and what joy; what a surprise and what a treat! What fun and what valour! How glorious and how beautiful, mesmerizing and fantastical! And yes. why not? . . .
This was a Celebration of Life! People are safe and sound, alive and well, victorious and have transcended above what could have been and yet was not! Yes! We very much need to celebrate Life above it all! Life is the greatest gift we all have! Life must be valued above and beyond it all, and celebrated without flinching or apology! The life which God gave us, and our overcoming all manner of evil, all threats, attacks, accidents, trials and tribulations to supercede and win ultimately, to live and to bask in all that He gave us is, indeed, is the utmost cause for ultimate celebration, and ultimately celebrate, we did!

Toasting with table after table, I celebrated with all the wonderful guests and beautiful people present from all over the world that came to celebrate in style Dubai style! Not only did I say it, but others did as well: This was the best New Years ever! I realized then and there: Life we should always celebrate; our victory and the new chances given us! We celebrated just that as one. For verily, verily, that is what we all are, when it comes right down to it! No matter the creed, the nation, religion; the race, the colour, the notions and beliefs!

God made us all; He loves us all; we are in this life together on earth in the very same world, with similar struggles and travails, hopes and dreams! We very much need to wish each other well, and good will to come upon us, and each other, and good will be our experience! I was happy, relieved and honoured to be a part of this most festive Dubai Celebration of Life, and experience the feeling that everyone cared more for others than selfishly celebrating their very own lives! As a result of the victory of other peoples lives being spared and saved, it gave us license to celebrate our own as never before! Praise be to God Almighty! Hosanna in the Utmost Highest of High!

Yes, the huge hotel tower across the street from us would come to virtually naught, a stunning 5-Star amazing luxe hotel. . But not a one considered that was anything close to as important as the valuable lives inside of it, whose precious lives were saved by the Grace of God with minimal damage, minimal grief, minimal travail, and minimal death! I must say: my spirit rejoiced, and my faith in humanity was verily renewed to see and to experience this! The executive decision by no one else save the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid made a powerful and very right decision to carry on with the celebration to the full measure of their magnanimous festivities; and I rejoiced at that, as well! I understood he did so because all lives were saved; thus, there was nothing to be gloomy about! We would not give victory to the terrorists; we would choose life and embrace Gods victory over and in our lives! Money is only money; but life is so much more! . . .

Dubai is a generous emirate of the friendliest people, the finest customs, and an all-out best-of-this and best-of-that! Why would we cry over spilt milk or fret about. well, yes, billions, it is true. But lives our lives, please remember, and never forget: are worth so very much more! And Dubai knows it only too well!

All in all, our real address, My Friends, is in heaven, not across from the Burj Khalifa, trying in vain to reach the heavens (and, actually almost succeeding). The real value is in each and every one of us, and as such, we need to glorify the life we were given, to cherish and to treasure it ultimately; and what better way than by celebrating it with all Burj-fervour, basking in that glory - as make no mistake: those fireworks last night did celebrate Life to the fullest, to the max and to the n-th degree!
From the finest address at the fateful time in history,
When Glorious Life was victorious over the greatest tragedy.

Unto all the world,
Allow me, Dearest Friends of Dubai & All the World,
To Celebrate Life: Yours & Mine
In Burj-bursting explosive festive love, peace and goodwill!

CONGRATULATIONS on being ALIVE, My Friends!
Do with it all that you can!
Show the world how explosive, festive and beautiful is your greatness!
~ The greatness God Himself bestowed upon you!

GO NOW!
- DO WITH IT WHAT YOU WILL!

Best & God Bless!

Angelina Lazar