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.