Saturday, August 28, 2010

Part 3: The other fun happenings at night

Ramadan slows the day time. While I appreciate being here and getting to experience this very meaningful month with the locals, let it be known that I will definitely be out of town during Ramadan next year. The whole not eating or drinking in public is very difficult with the fiery sun we experience as soon as we step outside. I'm tired of sneaking water in the bathroom and not being able to buy coffee in the middle of the day. I'm very happy to have gotten here during the beginning of Ramadan this year and as a result, I appreciate Muslims a whole lot more. My hats off to them, they are a very dedicated people.

So due to our limitations in terms of daytime eating, we center most of our fun in the night time. Since I've come here it's very rare that I'm asleep before 2am. At midnight, I'm likely to be going around the Downtown area or hanging out at the mall. Stores are open at least until 1am and the streets are bursting with people at night.

So here's a synopsis of other things I've been up to:

*I experienced getting my eyebrows threaded for the first time. I now have eyebrows! haha, or rather very nicely shaped beautiful eyebrows. Eyebrow threading is a practice that originated in India where your eyebrows are shaped using only thread. It was kinda bothersome but the results were so worth it. I'll be going back in the next few weeks. If you've never seen this procedure done, youtube it. It's fun to watch. I also got a pedicure and chose the color Over Exposed in South Beach by OPI. So appropriate, right? :)
random picture samples
 


*Banana Royale happiness at Baskin Robbins (I can't believe I didn't have one back home, so good!)




The entrance to the Bazaar
*I saw the leaning building on the way to Al Ain.

Abayas Galore
*Went to the Bazaar at the Expo Center, The Bazaar was like a big indoor flea market with goods from around the world. I've never seen so many women it abayas congregated. It was really nice. I bought 2 colorful abayas (they have a different name that I can't think of right now) and two scarves. There was a guy dancing which was really entertaining to watch.

*I met two teachers from last year named Ashley and Steve who were great. We ate at Chamas which is a Brazilian Steakhouse. I knew exactly what to do because a my first steakhouse experience was back home as my last big treat (thanks Brett!) :) It was costly, but delicious.
The group at Chamas


*This past week we had an Iftar dinner buffet on a private yatch for 50 teachers. It was nice to see the city lit up at night from the gulf. The food was delicious. I was so stuffed, I didn't even have dessert (shock!)

*I finally had a beer (Stella's) at one of my hotel's bars. I also visited a popular expet bar called Hemmingways. It was full of people and I definitely liked the atmosphere. There's a huge disproportion of men to women everywhere! ;)  It's lots of fun to watch.

And now I'm off for some pool side relaxation. Yesterday I caught a bus to Dubai with Michelle. That will be my blog for later.

Have a great day everyone!

The real work begins (and other adventures) Part 2: Orientation happenings (including an amazing trip to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque)

So everyday I've been having school orientations at a beautiful girl's MODEL school here in Abu Dhabi City. I won't bore you with the details but let me just say this, the school is gorgeous. I've never seen such a beautiful school back home. While I know my particular placement won't look like this school, it's a model that provides inspiration. Random cool happenings during the meeting don't include many things. There a few notable happenings from Orientation. One was seeing a presentation from Ali from ask-ali.com. He's a local cultural guide here in the UAE that is extremely knowledgeable, funny, and cute too. He studied at UCF back in Florida and was wonderful to listen to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h65h6cJKLNw&feature=related  (an Ask Ali Intro Video)

Here's some trivial knowldege that I've acquired the last few days before I get back to cool happenings during Orientation.

*Men say hello by rubbing noses and I've spotted Asian men holding hands (which is a sign of friendship that my Western mind just can't process. hehe)
*They call the Persian gulf the Arabian gulf (and they really don't like when you call it Persian)
*They absolutely love the founder of their country name Sheikh Zayed and they have really good reason to. I'm incredibly fond of this man too. He's an incredible visionary that brought Abu Dhabi from desert to international city in a matter of 30 years. He was truly for the his people and came from humble roots. I definitely am going to school myself on this amazing man that this country loves so much.
*There's no Daylight Savings Time in AD. :)

Another great thing that happened was a team building exercise. Our team was by far the smallest. We only had 5 people when every other team had 10 or more people. We figured when we were placed in groups, for some odd reason  we were placed with a lot of drop outs. Anyways, we had several tasks to complete which included creating a team flag, answering a questionnaire, a scavenger hunt to answer questions about the MODEL school we were at (such as how many windows? What's the principal's name?), and finally we split up into smaller groups to compete with various projects. Edward (I totally forgot my team members name) and I went on the scavenger hunt while our team created a flag. We answered most of the questions and came back and help put the final touches on our blended UAE, USA and Australian flag, which looked great. Then we split up and our team didn't even have enough members for every station. Three people went to the creativity tent where they performed a great poem that the teacher wanted to keep, one went to create a car to race and was apparently very succesful and two of us (including moi) went off to the building station.

Our task was to make a model of a famous building using only 5 rolls of aluminum foil. We were allowed to use the boxes that stored the aluminum foil, the foil itself and carton roll inside and nothing more. We chose to build the Burj Khalifa because of it's linear architecture and impressive height, the tallest building would win after all so we figured we'd model the best of the best. :)

This task was sooooo what I'm into. I like delegating. Quickly, I created a strategy. Begin with a heavy base of three containers, with two containers, and then the one container on top. We rolled this base tightly and then added the three carton rolls to our base followed by one carton roll. Past this point we just added height with the additional foil. I told my partner to work on creating a heavy and steady base and gave myself the task of creating height by rolling up aluminum foil creating a large roll that became progressively lighter as it went up. Time began running out and having only two people on our team instead of 5 made us work extra hard. Two minutes before time was up we had added my height piece to the building but it was wobbly and would not stand with our base. I looked down and saw that the base did not seem to be leveled after we had tugged at it so much to add our height piece. I told my partner to hold our building (he was standing on a table) and I pressed on the base with all my might. We chanted "3,2,1...let go" and voila, the building stood. We walked cautiously around it because we couldn't believe it. People started coming around and commenting how impressed they were. Of course, we ended up winning because our building towered over all the others. There was no humble pie for us. We were ecstatic!

Group six ended up winning overall for our session. woot woot!

Moving on, the most amazing thing that happened during Orientation was getting to visit the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque. It is bee-you-ti-ful. The mosque is jaw dropping. It's one of the largest mosques in the world and the most ornate place I've ever been to. In order to enter the mosque you must put on a hijab (hair cover) and abaya (black national dress cover).

In addition to wearing the traditional attire, you remove your shoes before entering because it is entirely carpeted. There's an area outside the holds thousand of worshippers that is made of marble. Here's the cool thing (literally)- they selected marbles that stay cool in the desert heat. We walked around the marble flooring exposed to direct sunlight and except for a few pieces, they really were cool.  The mosque has the biggest carpet in the world. It's windows are grand and have etching and colored flowers. There are marble flowers throughout the walls. There are beautiful chandeliers and gold details everywhere. It was simply divine. I hope everyone gets to visit this awe inspiring location at some point. At the end of our tour there was a Q&A session that I was too ansty to really listen to. The ADD really kicked in and I just looked around the beautiful men's prayer room and tried to ignore the dumb questions that people asked.

I hate to sound judgmental but here's the deal: the Americans in our group are the most guilty of asking inappropriate/justplaindumb questions. They make us look bad!

Lately I've been told by a few locals that I look like I'm Middle Eastern, specifically Lebanese. They are always shocked to hear that I'm American. I guess they picture blonde hair and blue eyes. I explain my heritage and they still are amazed that I'm not Lebanese.I find it interesting. It's the first time that people label my looks particular to a specific country. Most of the time people are just confused.
I'm getting better at haggling down prices and chatting people up for better deals. ;) The trick is to make sure they know you are local and not some tourist. A little chit chatting goes a long way in this country.

There's so much more to tell about the last few days but I'll save it for the next post.
Heading to the mosque in my new colorful dress and fun scarf :)

Stay safe everyone!



 

 
This picture doesn't capture how immense this mosque is.

The carpeting was beautiful and the shapes depicted on the carpet were perfectly reflected on the roof of the mosque. The most interesting thing is that the two parts of the mosque were made in entirely different countries.

Friday, August 27, 2010

The real work begins (with blasts of fun at night) Part 1: My school placement

I've been on a hiatus for a couple of days. Why? I've been really busy with school orientation and random adventuring at night.

First things first, I found out my school placement. I'll be working in Baniyas in the UAE at a girl's government school. Baniyas is a semi rural town that is about 45 minutes away from Abu Dhabi City (or so I'm told). I can't comment too much about the place because I've yet to visit. When I asked a local about it, he told me that it was "desert and concrete";  from another  person I heard "it's a rural community that is very family oriented." I am going to shop around for a rental car Saturday and look around the city myself.

What I do know is that because it is a government school, it will most likely be very low on resources. I'm not going to lie, I was a little sad at first about the placement. To begin with, I've never been a commuter. Then we had a pep speech that just made me want to cry. The man kept stating "the government schools really really need you." The in between lines to me read as "you are being sent to a school in the middle of nowhere that really needs your help because they have close to nothing." There's a huge disparity in schools in the UAE. Currently there are three types of schools which are MODEL, PPP and government schools. My friend in Al Ain is in a MODEL school which has the best resources and selects it's students, a PPP school is a Private-Public partnership which also has more supplies but has another company with it's own set of rules for teachers, and then there are government schools which may have little to no help from the government. 

This is a picture from somewhere in Bani Yas. I'm sure it's not all like this but even searching the location in google has proved difficult. (I took this pic from this blog http://auhgal.blogspot.com/)

While at first this placement seemed like somewhat of a burden, I've really come around to loving the idea. Here's the thing, all my teaching career I've been catering to children that live in good communities and schools that have a lot of support monetarily. I've been spoiled with the best resources and taught some of the brightest students. Was I happy? Somewhat. I didn't enter my profession with the idea of teaching the "best" students, I entered it to have a positive influence on students that need these influences the most. I am finally getting an opportunity to really teach, to really have the creative license and freedom that I was lacking at home. I won't have the stress of FCAT or the politics of a PPP school. I will finally really teach what I feel my students really need. I'm incredibly excited about this opportunity.

Other factors that have factored (that sounds funny, heh) into a paradigm shift include teaching at an all girls school, really integrating myself into the local culture, and getting an opportunity to quicken the acquisition of my Arabic. While I'm still a little scared and nervous about my teaching adventure I'm going to embrace it open heartedly and put my everything into it. I know I'll shed a lot of tears, and have my moments of doubt, but in the end everything works out. I'm going to see such incredible growth from my group of girls and look forward to making a positive impact in their lives.

Knowledge is power and I'm starting to feel more and more powerful each day of this new world. I've already changed my view on so many things. My eyes are really seeing the world now and not everything is rosy colored. The good news is that love is universal and teachers mold the future, no matter what society you're in. I truly love my job and not a lot of people can say this, Alhamdulillah.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Nostalgia and the pastry that tasted like perfume

So finally yesterday I got to skype with my two best friends in the whole wide world. I was quite a happy camper and am still cheery as a result. Unfortunately, my friend skyped from the hospital but despite being in pain and a bit shaken up she seemed to be in a good mood. These girls are my lifeline so I was quite distressed when I heard about the car accident that one was involved in. I feel very relieved to have finally spoken to her and can now proceed with living the fabulous life. hehe.

Yesterday I woke up still stressed about my serious communication issues. I lingered about the hotel room and moped around a bit. For the first time in the last week in this wonderful city, I felt on the verge of a mini breakdown. I'm a firm believer that a monthly breakdown is good for you. haha. With my friend's accident, it was hard to focus on anything else. I started feeling nostalgic and missing all my usual surroundings. I've established a wonderful support group here of people that I've come to really like but they are all moving to the neighboring city of Al Ain. This morning they went away to check out their new city and I was left behind to think (which is indeed a very dangerous past time). I started longing for my usual adventuring with my best friends, my grandma's warm smile and delicious food, and the quirky humor of my boyfriend (amongst a million other things). Call me delusional but I just can't bring myself to think of him as an ex. It's a relationship that at the time of my departure I felt had not run it's course. Sometimes I just want to hide in the summer of 2005. My first boyfriend was supposed to be my travel buddy along with my best friends and I feel somewhat lonely while I'm experiencing so many new wonderful things. I'm quick to make friends so it's not a real loneliness, just more of a feeling that I'm incomplete without the people I love. I feel blessed to be experiencing this new adventure and want to share my excitement with them.

After lingering in my room until mid afternoon, I decided that enough was enough, and I needed to make myself happy. I turned on my ipod, grabbed my book and went off to go the the ugly beach. As I was passing the lobby to go outside, I saw Donna, Tandy and Michelle coming back from Al Ain. I was so happy to see them and of course side tracked my adventure. I asked them all about Al Ain and for the most part they seemed a bit dissapointed.

I came back to the room and played on the internet and avoided going back to sleep to avoid continuing my vampire hours. Come 5:30, I thought it was safe to sleep and set an alarm because I could only have an hour and a half nap before dinner. At 7:30 I got a call from Donna asking me where I was. I was so deep in my slumber that I was wondering why Donna was calling me at 7:30am only to realize that it was the same day and she was calling for dinner. That was quite embarassing, haha. I left downstairs to the lobby in a haze, as usual. I pulled up my Abu Dhabi top ten book and found the address for the Lebanese Flower and off we went in two taxis (because the limit in a taxi is four and they stick to it).

The address in my book said Hamdan Street and 4th near the Chom-something supermarket. Donna's taxi was nowhere to be seen. Tandy and I got off where the restaurant was supposed to be and it was nowhere in sight. Luckily, Donna and I have phones so she called me to ask me where we were. We waited for a good five minutes and they were still nowhere in sight. They said they were near rock gym and I spotted it in the distance and told them to stay put. Poor Tandy was hurting because she had injured her foot before she came to AD and didn't wear her brace. We entered a store that sold eyeglasses (the name escapes me now) and the girl told us that the Lebanese Flower was in Khalidya. I was perfectly content skipping out on the Lebanese Flower for the day and just eating at a random location in Downtown. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a place called Southern Fried Chicken which sounded really good. I wanted to see if they made Southern fired chicken how it's supposed to be or just some cheap imitation. Tandy looked sad though that after her leg abuse we weren't going to get to go to the restaurant so we hopped on our two taxis (that this time were folllowing one another) and I told the taxi driver Khalidya and prayed we made it there.

Khalidya ended up not being a street name but a whole neighborhood. I thought great, now how exactly are we going to find this place. As I was talking to Donna to tell her that we were pulling over because we didn't know where we were going, I spotted a sign on the block behind where we were that said Lebanese Flower Bakery. I crossed my fingers and led the troop in the direction where I had spotted the sign. I started thinking it might be a hallucination because I never should be trusted with directions! It took a good 5 minutes to get there but there it was, The Lebanese Flower. I wiped a fake tear from my eye. We also spotted a store that said Chocolatier. We were excited.

Outside of the Lebanese Flower I saw shwarma! I was thrilled and knew exactly what I wanted - chicken shwarma, my new favorite thing. At the restaurant the waiters kept brnging us things that we didn't even order, it was so nice. I got to try the most delicious falafel I had ever tasted. I followed suit with Michelle and made myself a falafel sandwish using pita, falafel(obviously) and some garlic Hummus. It was awesome and a great little appetizer. They also give us some salad. I picked at a random tomato that was very tasty and ignored everything else including olives. My first boyfriend would have had a field day. I wonder if I'll ever come around to liking it...hmm. Donna and I ordered the chicken shwarma sandwich, Michelle had shrimp (which came with the head attached, lol) and Carmela and Tandy had some other yummy looking chicken platters with french fries. Everyone was happy and at the end they even gave us complimentary pastries and tea. The total for my meal was 9 Dirhams which is $2.44. I gave 20 Dirhams to include a tip for the awesome service and the waiters walked away with a great overall tip because the meal was so cheap. I will definitely visit this place again, it gets my seal of approval. :o)

This guy approves too! :D
coffee yum yum

Oh, and a special note about one of the pastries. I ate it and it tasted like perfume. Michelle thought it was delicious and I thought it was rather gross because on top of attacking my mouth, it attacked my nose. We asked the waiter what it was and he said violets. No wonder it tasted like perfume! I decided to avoid such pastries in the future.
We walked into the Chocolatier store and it was really really fancy. They had chocolates arranged in the most spectacular gift baskets and had giant bags of coffee beans of all types that smelled delicious. This was definitely a high end shop and the prices reflected it.  The ladies gave us a candy and said "you can't leave the store without something sweet on Ramadan." It was so nice of her. I looked down and the sweet had rose petals. My stomach turned a little. I said thank you so much and shoved it in my purse sneakily. We of course lingered, and then were offered a chocolate. This chocolate had caramel inside and was simply divine. We chatted with the ladies and they told us that they were going to build a coffee bar inside in the next month. Sweeeeet. Donna picked up a mini chocolate arrangement for Mary for being such a wonderful guide and we all chipped in.

All the ladies except Michelle and I wanted to head back to the hotel. We parted ways and Michelle and I caught a taxi back to Hamdan Street to visit a store called Home Center. Home Center > Ikea. I'm glad we went in.

We came back to hotel, I skyped and finally enjoyed sleeping at night instead of all afternoon.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Dealing with bad news

So something came up yesterday that I hadn't really thought about; something bad happening back at home in Miami and being helpless here in Abu Dhabi. Yesterday I received bad news. I won't get too specific but it really hit me hard because there's absolutely nothing I can do. Add to that the frustration of not being able to even call. I still haven't managed to hook up my magic jack, which I tested back at home. I was told that it would only take 10-15 minutes to load up minutes on my etisalat phone and now it's been at least 6 hours and I got a message saying I had no credits. While I'm still awed by this city and discover something new everyday I can't help but feel so completely disconnected.

Yes, I've been facebooking and making sporadic calls but it's just not enough. The eight hour difference also makes it very diffuclt to communicate with loved ones. Despite being in such a luxurious hotel setting, I feel more than ever the need to establish my home. I need to know that things are ok with everyone and be able to hear their voices. I am going to resolve my minutes issues today and load up my phone with a whole lot more minutes. I found out it's only 1.27 Dirhams a minute to call back home. That's way less than what I was quoted by at&t (who ridiculously wanted to charge over 2 dollars a minute) . For now my cell phone will have to do.

Well yesterday was a weird day of sorts. I stayed up all night because I had slept all afternoon and after being frustrated with magic jack for an hour at 5am or so, got upset and called home. I got bad news about a friend (whom is ok-ish right now) and decided to get about my day because the worst idea would be to sit around my hotel room just torturing myself about it.

The deceiving picture online
So I went off the the gym (and managed to lock myself out of my room because my head was in a fog), worked out for half an hour (while watching Arabic music videos that were very well directed), ate the buffet breakfast (got fed up with my banana diet and went all out and prayed that my stomach would survive), and went to the pool for a bit. I was hanging out poolside with Donna and early in the morning the weather was quite pleasant. There was a breeze yesterday, which was a very nice change. When the sun started kicking up a bit, we decided to go check out the beach. The beach was quite a dissapointment. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the beautiful beaches back home but this "beach" at the Intercontinental looked like an inlet instead of a beach. There was what looked like a construction site in the distance of what should have been unobstructed water view. I've seen pictures of the beach of the corniche and they looked more beach-like. I really hope so. The only positives were the water temperature which was cool but not cold, and the beautiful color to the water and how clear it was.
A sample of what I saw in the distance.
I've been trying for the last few minutes to search for a picture of what it actually looks like and I've been very unsuccesful. I'm definitely venturing off to the Corniche today to make sure the beach isn't so ugly.

I heard someone say they were salt flats in the distance. A quick google search did not make it look this way. Either way I'll ask one of the nice lobby people and make sure to take a picture today to show what I'm talking about.


As much as I wanted to avoid doing this, I ended up going back to the room and completely passing out all the afternoon. I was suddenly awaken by Donna at 7:30pm asking me where I was. I was in such a deep slumber that it took a couple hours to get my head out of the haze it was in. Donna, Carmela, Michelle and I went to the Meridien Hotel to get to a Thai restaurant that Michelle had heard was good. The name of the restaurant was Talay. While some of the prices were a bit steeper than what I've been paying for meals lately, it ended up being an ok price because of the meal selections we made. I ate chicken pad thai and drank a sprite (which I hoped would counterbalance the attack on my stomach, hehe), which was quite delicious. I ate very little and filled up which was a shame because they didn't allow us to take the left overs. :(  I would definitely go back though. I found that the pad thai had a little kick to it even though it was not labeled as spicy at all. I'm thinking this level of spiciness is probably a whole more authentic than the mild stuff we get back home.
My Chicken Pad Thai :)

After leaving the reastaurant we went to Marina Mall so I could load up my phone with minutes (all phones here are prepaid) and to roam the mall a bit before heading back to the hotel. We end up at the Marina Mall quite often because of the proximity to the hotel. The ride back to the hotel costs 6.50 Dirhams which is less than 2 dollars. We usually give 10 Dirhams and split the cost. It's very cheap to get a taxi here.
The mall was completely full of people. It was the most packed I'd ever seen it. We spotted a lady wearing what would be appropriate to wear at a club at South Beach and she seemed not to be getting any dirty stares. I've been wearing jeans and t-shirts to the mall and sticking to my long skirts and long sleeves for anything related to school.

At the mall we also saw Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street dancing and singing. It was awesome to see the little kids shouting back in Arabic. So so so cute. I recorded their cute dance and had the tune stuck in my head even though I couldn't sing a word in the song. haha.

Check it out:

 

I went to Etisalat to get my minutes and transfer the SIM and it ended up costing 50 Dirhams, which isn't a lot but could have been avoided if the people at Carrefoure would have been competent. Too much to ask for. haha. I ran by Carrefoure and bought some instant noodle soup and picked up some pain meds at the pharmacy. We went back to the hotel and picked up an itinerary for the upcoming week of training.

We'll be heading to Al Ain next week to check out a school and will get to go to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque which looks really beautiful. :)

a very packed Carrefoure

The crossing sign here-hehe

  
<------The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. I can't wait to visit!


Well that's that. It's 7:43am and I'm off to start a new day. I hope everything back home is well. I worry. Please stay safe everyone.
To all my friends in the Miami I wish you a good night.







Thursday, August 19, 2010

I want some gold bars!

So Wednesday we were free to roam because our police clearance wasn't until 10pm. The day before we were subjected to blood tests and a chest xray. It made me wonder if the US has these practices in place. I hope so. The UAE is checking for major communicable diseases (like HIV, Hepatitis, Tuberculosis) and particular for this region- pregnancy (I mentioned it in the last post). In the morning I started feeling like I had an upset stomach. I figured it was because I had eaten way too many different foods for a short period of time and to top it all off I had eaten way too much of it. Turns out I just have a case of traveler's diarrhea. :'(  I know that's in the TMI category but if you're reading this blog chances are that you're really into TMI. lol. jk.

I went with a girl named Michelle, who happens to be pretty awesome, to the Marina Mall to grab some food. After the mall we decided that it would be a great idea to visit the Emirates Palace which I was told had two free museums. I like free a lot so off we went. We took a taxi and luckily the EP is visible from our hotel.
Entrance to the Emirates Palace - forgot to take a pic, stock photo

The Emirates Palace is the second most expensive hotel ever built.  Our cab driver was a bit confused and tried to take us to the back of the hotel but a security guard stopped us and told us to explain to the cab driver that he couldn't. Of course the cab driver barely spoke English so we were back to hand gesturing U turn. We finally got in the lobby and a worker opened the door for us. We asked where the museums were and were directed towards the back. The best word to describe what we saw was pure opulence. I was told that within the Emirates Palace they have a gold dispensing atm. I didn't see this atm but a quick google search showed it. If we go back next week with the teacher group I'll make sure to look for it. I wonder how much a tiny gold bar costs. hmmm...

(I can hear the first call to prayer in the background- this is a bad bad sign)
so pretty!

A shot using the panoramic view on my camera which doesn't look quite right uploaded

Model of Guggenheim Musuem
The first exhibit that we visited focused on Cultural District of Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. This project is going to include the building of a branch of the Lourve, Guggenheim Museum and a Maritime Museum. This is definitely something that will someday bring me back to Abu Dhabi. A quick Wikipedia search says that the completed project will cost 27 billion dollars.


The models looked amazing. The Maritime museum showed a walkway through the ocean. I'm sure this completed project will look amazing.

Inside the Emirates Palace
The next exhibit we saw was a textiles exhibit that consisted of the most beautiful embroidery I've ever seen. Unfortunately, cameras weren't allowed. I'll search for some pictures online.

The next day Thursday I viewed my new apartment and slept all afternoon (which is why I'm still up at 5:13am). I posted previously how awesome my new apartment is. After waking from my peaceful slumber I met up with a girl named Cassandra that is also living in Abu Dhabi. I shopped for some food, got some immodium at the pharmacy and ate some Sbarro. I came back to the hotel and decided to catch up on my blog. Now I think I'm just going to stay up until 6am and catch Cassandra and her group at the gym in an hour.
Model of The Lourve

I'm off to brew some coffee and put on my gym clothes.

Inshallah, my hours reverse before Sunday when our school orientation starts.

No married, no baby, no problem

It's 2:30 am and I'm still up. I've managed to reverse my sleeping hours. I sleep all day and stay up all night. I look like a zombie to boot! I will force myself to stay up tomorrow.

::end rant::

Fridays are holy days in the UAE. Our weekend consists of Friday and Saturday and the workweek starts Sunday. Most things are closed on Fridays so I'm going to enjoy my fancy hotel setting today. I'm praying that I can manage to convince some people to go to Dubai with me on Saturday (next week would work too). I might be headed to Al Ain (which I mistakenly called Ai Lin in my previous post, oops) because the ladies are going to live there and wanted to check it out. Maybe I'll save the Dubai trip for when Erica, Colleen, and Jessica get here. We'll see.

So back tracking a bit... on Tuesday we found out really late that we had appointments at 6am for our health screenings. Finding out things last minute is the norm here. I will either leave this country completely chilled out about life or ready to kill someone. I hope for my sanity it's the first option. Since my sleeping hours have been reversed I only slept a couple hours at night and woke up at 4:30am with the first call to prayer. I had scheduled a 5am wake up call that still managed to scare me. Breakfast buffet opens at 6:30am so I was SOL. I was so hungry and ate the banana I smuggled out of the breakfast buffet the day before (shhh)

I know, I should have majored in art. hehe
They bused the first group of teachers to the health screening location. We were handed copies of our temporary work visas and our passports and given numbers to wait in line. I was number 23. It took a really long time and before you knew it the lobby was completely full of teachers. I felt like a sardine trapped in a little metal box. Add to that anxiety because I absolutely detest getting blood work done. I usually cry.

The highlight of my visit was when I had a questionnaire with a doctor. I'm not sure where he was from but his accent was particularly difficult to decipher. I heard him say "jewarri" and asked him to please repeat it which made me feel horrible and still didn't understand. Luckily Donna was nearby and told me that he had said "Are you married?" to which I laughed and answered no. He then said "I ask because xray, can't be pregnant, you no married, no pregnant, no problem", I held in the laughter. What a cute old man. On a more serious note, the fact that the assumption is made that without marriage there couldn't possibly be a pregnancy is a big deal here. If you find out you're pregnant and aren't married you better catch the next plane ride back to your home country. Luckily I was "no married, no pregnant." :)

the view
I ended up catching a cab ride with Donna back to the hotel and sleeping the afternoon away (which has become quite habitual unfortunately). We decided to meet at 6 to go to our favorite haunt, Carrefoure. I woke up a little early so I headed down to the lobby to wait. I was reading my Abu Dhabi Explorer book and jamming with my ipod when I saw a group of teachers gathered in the piano lounge. Being the nosy person that I am, I went to investigate what was happening. It turns out there were two locals meeting up with some of the teachers to show them around. Sweet. I of course tagged along. I ended up getting in the car of a girl whose name I think was Karen. She took a group of us (all girls) to the restaurant formerly known as the Marina Mall Cafe. It was right next to the water and had an Iftar buffet going on. I'll probably end up going back there to smoke some shisha which is like hookah. The buffet was awesome and I ended up heading to the mall after with a really animated girl named Carlene and a girl that's currently living here named Jen, and a person I recognized from facebook named Pearl. Jenny was very helpful and answered all our questions. We agreed to meet the following day to walk around the Corniche and find some abayas to wear (this never happened because I tried calling and there was no response :'( ) Pearl very kindly let me use her internet and I updated this blog and actually got to call my grandma. I'm so thankful for this because I know my grandmother was worried. I tried calling Tex and Yaiza but they didn't respond. That night I decided that I was tired of being such a cheap a-- and would get the $200 unlimited internet at my hotel because we didn't know how long we'd be staying. I still feel guilty but it sure does feel great to be connected once again. If any of my peeps decides to stay at an intercontinental, holiday inn, or any other hotel that's part of that chain, I'll hook you up with some wifi within the next year. ;)
yummy desserts :D
The Marina Cafe

For now this only leaves me one day behind. The news on Dubai One channel is saying that Blackberry talks are in the works. ::fingers crossed:: I just had some horrible cheesecake from Carrefoure, I hope it's a fluke or I better learn to make cheesecake the way I like it. :P I'll be right back with my last update, it's now 4:06am. I guess that means that today will be another day of sleeping the whole afternoon and staying awake all night. grr.                                                      

Shway shway (slowly)

One of the things I was told before coming into the UAE was to pack a whole lot of patience. Things get done when they get done and time schedules are non existent. This couldn't be more true. I find that if I'm told an hour, it will take a day (like with my cell phone). If they say half an hour, it might actually be closer to four hours (like my police clearance). Things just run at their own pace. This is completely unaligned with the life I'm used to living in the United States. Luckily for me, I'm a rather patient person. I was glad to have been warned and keep thinking that this is PAID time. How wonderful to know that while I'm relaxing at the pool at the Intercontinental, I'm being paid. I'm more than willing to put up with all the wait time, uncertainty of schedules and general disorganization I'm experiencing currently knowing that the cash keeps flowing. :)

So I took a few days of a hiatus because I've caught some kind of something. I hear it's common to get a little sick when coming to a foreign country and have been laying somewhat low for the past two days. Low for me isn't too low though so I'll update about what has happened starting from the end.

Today, I got up bright and early to get to the breakfast buffet. Since my stomach has been acting up, I bypassed my usual bacon filled breakfast and opted for some yogurt, croissants, and some Coco Pops. It was sad to pass up on all the wonderful fattening things that I love but it was definitely for the better. At 8:30am a bus was set to head out to see our possible future accomodations.  I looked on the list to see where we would be touring and it turned out that singles only had one choice. I thought that was a bit of a bummer but soon starting hearing really positive things about the locale. We kept hearing that someone told someone who told someone that the apartments assigned to us were some of the best hotel apartments in the city. Then Keith pulled up the apartments on his computer and the ohhhss and ahhs began. It was funny to see and hear Keith just blabbing on about how nice they looked. The day before he had a pouty face and was really upset that he hadn't been assigned to the city of Ai Lin. He was skipping about saying "I don't want to be in Ai Lin anymore", very entertaining to watch.

There were two large buses and a small bus that were assigned to take us to look at the locale. After being prompted to get on a small bus, off the small bus and on to the big bus, off the big bus to squeeze into the other big bus only to realize it was too full and being sent back to the small bus, we finally were off. That's what I mean by poor organization. There was only one family with 2 or more kids, and four familes with one child, the rest of us were singles. We needed to wait while the familes saw their accomodations in our small bus that smelled like stale beer. I kept thinking....paid time and it made the wait much better. People started to talk too much and I tuned them out with my ipod.

So on to the apartment... I was beyond impressed. I will definitely be living at the Abu Dhabi Plaza Hotel Apartments. The apartments are located on Electra avenue which apparently gets it's nickname because it's the street where you can find whatever electronics you need. It's right in the city, surrounded by buildings, shops, restaurants, and very near the Corniche. I couldn't ask for more.                                                                                     
The entrance to the lobby of my new home :)
There were two styles of aparments that we viewed. The first apartment was lighter wood and had a smaller kitchen.
The restaurant inside
This is what the internet had to say about my building: With 144 one bedroom &72 two bedroom elegantly furnished apartments we want you to feel at home, each room has a remote control colored T.V, cable programming & air conditioning. The Kitchen is equipped with a refrigerator, washer/dryer, cooker, glassware, silverware, cooking utensils. Catering for both Corporate &Families guests, ADPHA is equipped with a Health Club that includes a gymnasium, sauna, jacuzzi & massage chair. We have a first class Restaurant, Coffee Shop, provide Housekeeping, 24 Hour Security, Wireless Internet, Safety Deposit Box & a Limousine Service.


Apt2 living room - The style I'm requesting
Other buildings around my building. I love the city feel!
You read that right - my building comes with housekeeping. yay!

One of the things that I'm most excited about is that my building has valet parking for 800 Dirhams a year. I am so happy about this because parking in Downtown can be a real hassle. It's an all inclusive building which means that besides parking I won't have to pay a dime. I'm looking forward to enjoying the gym and sauna. :)

I'm still trying to master the whole formatting on this blog and am incredibly frustrated right now. I'm going to try to connect my magic jack (with my new UAE friendly phone that isn't fried) and I'll get back to posting what else I've been up to.

For now, Ma as-salaamah from the Middle East!