It's officially outdoor weather...

Let's break it down to the highlights...

• Birthday: Awesome... we went out to Al Hambra, a tapas place I love. Surprisingly, it's a restaurant in a fancy 5 star hotel... great wine, food and people
• Running: Going really well, ran about 34-35 kilometers on Friday morning and felt great, only 7 or 8 kilometers less than a marathon, so I'm feeling not quite so nervous about Lisbon in December (I'm not sure when I made the switch to kilometers, I still spend most of my runs trying to calculate how many miles is that now...)
  
• Soccer: We won 8 to 1, I scored a couple goals and hit the posts, I think all of them, left, right and top at least 43 times...
• Work: Lame, signed up with my old recruiting company and am planning on attending a job fair in Cambridge, but also hoping that some school looks at my resume and hires me via skype interviews...

The weather has finally gotten to the stage that I am willing to be outdoors for activities other than exercise. We went to Barasti last night, it was really fun. It was a friend's birthday and we tried to get our soccer team out. I wore a super short, turquisy/bluish flapper dress for some reason, it was kind of like being in costume and I was cracking up because a friend of mine said something like, his mom has a lampshade that has tassels just like that... and the same night another friend said I only got a 6 of 10 on entertainment value that evening, yet one more person thought wheelie shoes, which I CANNOT stand would be cool and get girls.... who are these people and why do I love being around them so much? I'm anxiously waiting my check to my recruiting company to clear so I can reach active status and start searching for a new job. A friend of mine who works at another school here in Dubai keeps sending me openings for next year and I end up spending hours researching what it would be like to live in all the places that have openings, they have varied from Pakistan, to Colombia, to Syria, to Italy... when I was talking to someone the other day, I was saying how nice it would be to live in Europe because it would be closer and less expensive to fly home. What I'm wondering, is when did a ten hour flight and $1000 seem close and cheap?

Random update...

I thought work would seem really long now that Ramadan hours are over and we are working full weeks for a while, but not to worry time is still flying by! I started tutoring about 8 hours a week, soccer games have started, had a fall party and ran a 10k in the last week or so. It's been busy, but good. As per usual, had a bad week at work. I love kids, love being a school counselor yet somehow it just never works out the way it should here. 

Soccer, we've had two games and won them both. I scored a few goals which was fun, but also missed a penalty kick, I really did pretty much kick it directly at the keeper. Annoying. It is ridiculously hot and humid some days and then cool other days. Of course, cool now means in the 90's. It's great fun, but our practices switched to Saturday night, which is fine, but annoying because it means every day of the week I have something I have to do. Once I get there, it's always great, but Saturdays are just tough!

The weather has cooled off enough to lay by the pool, but not enough to be at the beach, the water is still HOT, not warm, uncomfortably hot. I didn't even realize that was possible until I moved here. We did lay by the pool last weekend. We were going to do that in the morning and then run some errands and go to this art show in the afternoon, instead we ended up drinking all day and then heading over to our friends birthday party and then out to a dance club, definitely not what I typically do, but it was fun! I have some great pictures I'll try to post. Later that week, a few of us went to an art gallery thing with champagne and snacks, it was a different side of Dubai, and fun!

The fall party was great. We had really good soups (thanks to cooking light), fondue, mulled wine, hot spiced cider, delicious breads and pies. Our apartments are not set up for large groups, but we managed. Witches, bats, tombstones and other Halloween items were deemed "culturally insensitive" so a friend of mine gave me a bunch of things that were going to be used in her classroom to decorate with, so that was fun. 

Running, let's see, it's been going pretty well. A group of us are still going to Safa Park three or four times a week in the mornings before work and my long runs are pretty long, I did 20+ miles last weekend, and did a 6 mile run before the 10k race this morning, but I'll have to be back up at 20+ next weekend. The race was really fun. Four of us did it and then went to breakfast afterwards. We went to JBR, this area where there are these tall apartment buildings and they are in process (just like everything in Dubai) of opening restaurants, coffee shops and retail stores. We found a great place and it was even cool enough to sit outside and eat our breakfast, although we were basically being attacked by flies. I was cracking up because I never go out on Thursdays because of running and last night it was a 5:00 girls night/happy hour. I thought, perfect! I'll just go for a bit and get home early. Right. I think we got in a cab around 11:45. Oh well, I guess it was fine because I had a great race. 

Today I'm just hanging out and waiting for Kristin and Hans, I work with their parents and they were on my flight over last year when I arrived, to make cookies. It will be fun, they are some of the cutest kids ever! A bunch of us are going to the Irish Village tonight to watch a bunch of bands, including Arrested Development. Seriously? Oh well, it should be fun. I'm hoping the weather isn't horrific. I think I'm getting sick too, how does one get a cold with weather like this?

Eid Al Fitr Holiday 2008

So, you all know what that is, right? Don't worry, I really don't either. What it meant to me was a last minute trip to Oktoberfest in Munich and a long weekend in Salalah, Oman. The last couple of weeks I was seriously thinking that it would be my last year in Dubai, I love it here, but, as you all know from my endless complaining, my job leaves a lot to be desired. It's making me crazy. Supposedly next week, or sometime soon, or... we'll get some news on what, if anything, they are going to do about our office space, or I guess, lack there of. But, after this trip I'm wondering where else I could live where I could book a ticket to Oktoberfest for some freezing cold fall weather and then head on out to a deserted beach for a weekend of relaxing...

I hope to add some pictures, but I couldn't get it to work. I'll keep trying to add them, but for now, they are on the my picasa website and should be doing a slideshow on the screen, but who knows!

Anyways, back to the important stuff... Thursday, September 25th around 9ish in the morning, they confirmed that we would, in fact, have off work until Sunday, October 5th, something to do with lunar sightings and the Ministry of Education. I walked over to Mark's room and he mentioned that Jesse was considering Oktoberfest... for about three seconds I thought that sounded like a great idea. She walked by, we decided it was too crazy and that was that. Or not, about a half an hour later she called and next thing you know four of us had booked our ticket to Munich. In less than 24 hours we were on the plane; fortunately, we would had an overnight flight on Wednesday and would get back in time for Jesse and I to catch our flight to Salalah and Luke and Heather to drive to their diving weekend in Muscat. Seriously?

Munich was amazing! Jesse's host family was gracious enough to allow us to stay with them for the week at the last minute. Luke, Heather, Jesse and I arrived into Munich and made our way to the train station closest to them and Klause picked us up. The first night we stayed up late, drank some wine and ate some potato salad and pork products, what else would we do in Germany? The next morning Klause took me on a trail run through a forest, I have never been so excited to be freezing cold and outside in all my life! We rode our bikes there and then ran, the whole time I was trying to figure out how I could make that my life, not my vacation... After our run, we rode our bikes to the local, and apparently very well known, bakery for some fresh bread. It was for our delicious breakfast of breads, cheeses, meats, freshly picked apples, coffee, tea... After breakfast the four of us headed off to explore the town, or drink lots of German beer (wine for me...)... We started with a walk around the famous clock tower, hit H & M for some winter clothing and then wandered through an outdoor market, ate some lunch and had a few drinks at the HB House, which was crazy busy and then toured around town for a bit and made our way to the English Garden. The weather was awesome! I was wearing a wool hat and gloves and thrilled! We walked, watched these river surfing guys and then ended up at this place in the middle of the garden drinking again. It was hilarious, I was asking Jesse if it was normal to have 8 zillion people just sitting and drinking huge beers, or if it was because of Oktoberfest. She said it was the norm, what I want to know, is where are all the ladies? It seemed like an excess of older men just hanging out with their friends for hours, what are their wives doing? At this point, we went and sat in some grass, we don't see much of that in Dubai until it was time for us to head to drinks and dinner while Jesse met up with her host sister for her hen party (aka bachelorette party). Luke, Heather and I sat at a random pub for hours then went to this place for dinner that was delicious and then meet up with Jesse and all the girls. The party was hilarious, it is a bunch of girls running around the streets and asking men to buy those little mini alcohol bottles from them and then take the shots right there. Then, apparently, the money is used to help the girls have a good time the rest of the night. I think that would be illegal in the good ole US of A. But, it was great to watch it all happen. There was also some singing, this crazy guy named Tim and many other entertaining aspects of the night. We swung through Oktoberfest that night, but believe it or not, we were just too with it to be ok with the randomness of the whole place. There were people just laying on the ground and it was, well, Oktoberfest on a Saturday night. I just realized I am giving way too much detail here...

The next day we rode our bikes to the old airport to go on a run, they converted it to a park with a lake. It was beautiful! After another delicious breakfast, we headed out to their friends house near a lake. There was hiking, beautiful views, wonderful food and an all around perfect day! By the time we got back to their house it was a bit late, Luke and Heather were back from meeting Luke's parents and the Jesse's host sister and her fiance came over and we all sat around and talked. It was really fun to meet the people that Jesse stayed and get to know more about them.

We decided to take a day trip to Salzburg and had another awesome day, each one seemed to be a bit better than the last. We met up with Luke's parents again, then they went on the hop on, hop off bus and Jesse and I walked all over town, I learned that she can't stand public buses and then we wandered over to meet the rest of them at this brewery, it took us about a zillion years to find the main entrance, we eventually did, and had a lunch of cheese and bread with wine, shocking. We split a bottle of Prosecco and chatted the whole way back to Munich, it was great fun! We met up with her host family for dinner at a German place where I shared two traditional German foods, both were wonderful. Although, at this point, I was wondering if I may get scurvy, I hadn't eaten anything but meat and potatoes with a little fruit from the wine, that counts, right?

The next day we went to Oktoberfest, it was great! We also found a Starbucks that day, which as usual, makes me happy when I can get my soy latte... We met up with Luke's parents and all of their friends, so there was about 20 of us and we managed to get a few tables at one of the tents and then the day just got a bit crazy from there! I'll let the pictures explain the day... It was AWESOME to meet up with some friends from home, Shelly and Jessica, who happened to be at Oktoberfest too!!! It was hilarious, we kept trying to leave the wine tent and head to the crazy tents, but the free bottles of champagne kept coming... what were we to do?

We eventually made it home that night and the next day was our last, sad! We got up and headed into Munich to hang out and then we meet Klause for lunch and then walked all over town and had coffee and cake at this cool outdoor cafe place and did some more walking. By the time we got back to the house it was about time to head to the airport for our overnight flight home. I was so sad to be leaving! It really made me want to move to a Western European country, not sure which one, but Germany is now high on my list! Klause says I can come back and visit anytime, he'll be surprised when I show up on his doorstep!

So, we arrived back to Dubai around 7am and caught a flight to Salalah, Oman at 1:20 that afternoon, by 5:00pm we were laying on the beach, relaxing and eventually watching the sunset. We walked around to the souqs, somehow ended up crammed into this car because one of the girls just waved over this guy and we decided the best possible option was to get in and let him drive us around. That is so something I would NEVER do, but I fell to peer pressure and there were 7 of us and only one of him... He dropped us off in the old souq and we eventually split into two groups, the shoppers and the eaters... so I headed off to this random local place to eat with a few other people where we ordered everything you can imagine for next to nothing. Fun!

The next morning Katie and I got up and went on a long run on the beach, which was really hard! Then sat on the beach reading a book till everyone else was up and then we had a lazy breakfast while we thought about what we should do that day. We ended up piling into Mark's car, sure glad he drove the 16+ hours... and went North to try to find some ruins or something and then south to find a great beach and some other cool things. Long story short, too late I know, we ended up laying at the beach, swimming and relaxing. It was perfect! When we got back to out hotel, we found out someone had drowned and there was all this commotion, well, not really that much, but the helicopter was searching the water and it was just all freaky. It was hard to watch, but you couldn't help but stare. That night we went down the beach to the Crown Plaza where we ate dinner and then sat around at the bar there. It was the perfect way to end the Eid Al Fitr Holiday...

Now, I'm back to work.

Mars and Coke? Doritos and Wine? Running, Dubai style...

The heat and humidity it torturous... I took some photos of my windows, it really was so humid in that morning that it looked like it was pouring down rain... By the way, it was over 100 degrees out too...












I had a pretty crazy weekend, kind of like being back in college crazy and very unnecessary, but extremely fun. Enough adjectives? Thursday I went over to a friend's house to bake a birthday cake for our friend, I had brought a bottle of NW wine, he had a bottle of good wine too, we HAD to make sure we drank them before everyone else showed up, who wants to share? So, after two bottles of wine, Doritos for dinner and breaking a few things, I was home and in bed by 9:30 and up and running by 5:00. Surprisingly the run was awesome! It was beyond hot and somehow I ended up running around 16 - 17 miles at a minute and a half faster per mile than what I had been doing. When I first joined the running club I was shocked by the Mars bars and coke and water stops, I'm pretty sure they would think I was crazy if I carried around wine and ate Doritos, but whatever works. After the run all the counselors were all invited over to Diana's house for a Champagne Brunch. It turned into quite a day. We had a great time talking, drinking and just relaxing. A few of us went over to one of the apartments and went swimming, dancing and eating till late at night, very fun!

So, I'll take a quick break here... the other night, after not sleeping the night before and missing a day of work, I decided to write in my blog, take an ambien and go to sleep. I think it made me a bit crazy, the keyboard started swimming and I hardly made it to my bed. I vaguely remember it; the next morning it was all kind of coming back to me, then I went to check my e-mail and saw my blog, I was cracking up. Misspelled words, it didn't make any sense and then a long string of dddddd's....

Anyways, the rest of the weekend and the beginning of the week were ok. For whatever reason, I have stopped sleeping, I used to not sleep at home, but I was never tired, this week, I've been exhausted, and annoyed. I tried nothing and didn't sleep, ambien, and lost it, a different drug that didn't work and last night Benedryl, which just made me ridiculously tired and edgy all at once. I did eventually fall asleep around 2:30. Hopefully tonight will be different.

I'm trying to figure out what I should do next year. It's pretty much all I think about. I still cannot stand my job, I wish it would get better, because I like Dubai; it is a great place to travel from and there are tons of places I still want to see in the Middle East and I know that I won't have time to this year, I've already planned all my vacations. But... work is horrible. I keep thinking it can't get worse and then one more thing will happen. There is a job fair in Cambridge in February that I'm thinking about attending. I'd have to decide soon and I have no idea how I would pay for it and get the time off, but, I may try to work something out. I'd like to go to South America. Who knows...

HOT!!!

Well, the weather had been hot, and miserable, and humid... but nothing compared to last year. Just like most things, the second time around seemed much better. We'd had a zillion hot days and a bunch of humid days, but only a few hot and humid days. Looks like that's all going to change. This morning before 6 a.m., we were driving home from Safa, and Jess just said something along the lines of, I may be being overly dramatic, but I think this is the most humidity I've ever run in. I noticed that the running track was slippery, I didn't even realize that was possible! I got home and it looked as if it was raining because of all the condensation on the windows... apparently there is some 48 degree Celcius thing happening this weekend and still humid, that should be fun!

Weekend away...

Can you see us? Oh, no, you can't, you have to love the humidity! I'm sitting at home, watching the first season of Alias (I know, I'm just about 10 years behind) thinking about how nice it is to have NOTHING to do at times. Ramadan hours are great for work and tutoring, it leaves the whole afternoon and evening to relax. A group of us went to Fujairah, an emirate on the E. Coast, this weekend. We left Friday morning and came back Saturday night, just in time for Kim, Caroline and I to rush to the last half of soccer practice.

I was reminded of a bunch of different things about myself this weekend. Here's a few things, I'm not the best at group travel, I get overly annoyed at certain situations, people who get bothered by what kids may potentially do make me a bit crazy, even if they are my closest friends here and Dubai Lisa just can't get over it. I, of course, set some rules for myself to deal with the situation and ended up worked up anyways. I did not, however, decide not to go, which was an option earlier in the week. Cryptic enough? It has to go on the list of things that I just can't be annoyed about, yet, I'm still annoyed.

The weekend was AWESOME! It started off with a great Friday morning run, then we loaded up the car and left by 10:00. I rode out with Kate, one of the new counselor's and her family. It was a quick and easy drive out, at any given moment the roads and/or road signs change, so it's nice that we made it out there! We met everyone else out there, ate some lunch, lounged around on the beach and by the pool. We spent the evening out at the hotel restaurants (welcome to life in the UAE) having a completely relaxing time. The next day we I spent the whole day by/in the pool while other people did some snorkeling. Could not have asked for a better weekend!









View from our hotel room









Humidity at it's best...










Enjoying the Iftar tent










Becky and I at dinner










Does Mark have enough drinks? And what a creepy smile...











Patrick and Becky

Oh what a night... being in Dubai is at times the worst possible outcome, but this weekend, that wasn't how it felt at all... just another day in paradise...

Here we go again...

Almost time to start another week... I had a great weekend. Thursday was wine and snacks at a friends house, Friday was a 5 a.m. run, Lime Tree and errands, followed by wine and snacks at my place, then dinner out at this Italian place, Saturday, Lime Tree again, Nike store, hung photos, put together this kitchen thing I bought on Friday, cooked meals for the week, skype date with my sister, booked a long weekend trip... yes, another eventful weekend.

Let's see, what were the highlights... I drank NW wine two times... that may not seem like a big deal, but finding 14 Hands and Erath Vineyards in MMI was more exciting than winning the lottery. Oh, so the run was horrific. We started out at 5ish, went for a fast 10K, met up with the rest of the group a little before 6:00, and by 6:15 I was completely soaked with sweat, it looked like I had jumped in a lake or something, and it was really cool, my socks were completely brown because of the sand and dirt blowing up and combining with sweat to make a muddy disaster on my socks. Disgusting. We ran about 23km, I'm not sure how I'll manage the next couple of weeks, well six more apparently, before the weather becomes a bit more reasonable. So, I took one of the new teachers out to run errands, they (new teachers) probably think I'm crazy, constantly offering them rides, or trying to answer their questions, I could not have been more miserable if I tried at the beginning of last year. Not being able to do the normal everyday things, like drive to the grocery store, or buy a rug, etc is AWFUL! Ramadan is making life interesting. Work hours are great, but traffic and malls and everything is super busy at random times and not eating/drinking in public is bizarre.

We went out to dinner and used our coupon book, the buy one get one free deal is awesome... I made Jesse sit down with me because I hadn't taken any pictures in Dubai yet... so there we are looking so cute. That was right before we walked out to a wall of humidity.









Lime Tree was once again delicious... it's one of the few places we can go out to eat this month. We were planning on going out to IKEA to get a few things, but we stopped at the Nike store (where I had to pay nearly $200 for a new pair of running shoes...) and also to this jewelry store and by the time we left we didn't have the energy or patience necessary to deal with the traffic to get to IKEA or the store itself. I spent the rest of the day at my house trying to get it all organized and stuff up on the walls. It's really taking forever to get this place together...

I took a few pictures of my "office" at work. Otherwise know as the Counseling Cubes...












This is what you see when you walk in the door, Diana is a saint and she took the "front cube", basically you act as a secretary. People are scared to walk in, and when they do, you have to call out from your corner to see who's there and if you need to get up... it is humiliating and makes a mockery of our jobs.













This is my "cube". I'm in the back corner, so I have to go through two different cubes before I can get to mine. A far cry from my office last year...










I never thought I'd say that there was something good about last year at work, but I did have a door... It was particularly embarrassing last week when we had an assessment in one cube, a crying parent in one and then I was having a parent meeting in another. Awesome. I'm pretty sure if I was working in the states my counseling license would get revoked, here it's "just" unethical.