HOME!

It's been a really busy week! My last day in Dubai was spent rushing around and then doing a bunch of last minute packing and cleaning. We did manage to go out for dinner and relax a little before I caught my 3:00am flight to SFO, stopping in Beijing along the way. I managed to sleep almost the entire way, I woke up long enough to get some smoggy pictures of the Beijing airport and worry that they would quarantine me because of the swine flu, I don't have it, but I was sure I had a high temperature because fortunately the chronic bronchitis is back. 

I landed in SF and Erin picked me up, we had the perfect CA day, we went out to lunch, did a little shopping, played with the kids in the backyard and had a great BBQ when Ricardo got home. Of course we had some wine too. It was the PERFECT first day back. The next day was nice too, I went for an awesome run, walked into town for some coffee, had some time to walk around and talk and then I went back to the airport to meet up with some college friends to fly down to San Diego for Jen's bachelorette party. It was amazing! There was about 15 of us, we stayed at the Hard Rock in the Gas lamp district, went out for great meals, fun outdoor night clubish places, laid by the pool, went to this pool party called Intervention, where I was called a "prude" by one of the guys we met because I was sitting there reading my book, he clearly didn't understand how important the Vampire books are... It was so nice to be able to drink good wine, be outside, not be dressed up and hanging out in 5 star hotels. The pool was actually perfect too because it has been so hot in Dubai that we haven't been able to do much outside. It was funny though, I thought I wasn't doing too bad with jet lag and staying awake and all that, but then on Monday, when we were laying by the pool, all of a sudden I sort of just woke up and realized where I was and finally felt normal...

I flew up to Portland and my mom picked me up, I finally got my luggage that had been lost the whole 5 days, when I arrived that night. I was lucky I had packed a pretty random assortment of clothes that somehow managed to last me through the weekend. I did actually have to buy a new swimsuit, but I needed one anyways. Mom and I went out for mexican food and the next morning Katie picked me up and she drove me up to my sister's house. We arrived around 2:00 and I was SO happy to see them! We have had such a great couple of days, running has been awesome, the kids have been so fun to be around and seeing Eric and Kristin has been great! We went to a farmers market and an outdoor concert at the apple orchard last night, it was perfect! My friend Shane came over bearing NW wine, so I was thrilled to sit around drinking that! It was cute, well, probably a bad choice of words, but Ella and Gavin were so excited about having someone here, they just kept running down the stairs, claiming they were having bad dreams, on and on, but they were so cute I could hardly contain myself. Part of me just wanted to let them stay up, but I didn't. When Kristin and Eric got home, they were still up though. Oops. Then Shane and I went out to some bar and got some bar food and drinks, it was exactly the type of place that doesn't exist in Dubai, so I loved it! 

Now, I'm sitting here and waiting for my friends to pick me up and we are heading down to Portland for a birthday celebration and apparently there is some organic beerfest thing. How Portland. I'm hoping they'll be serving some wine too!

I love being home! But, I do miss my friends and life in Dubai too...

Last day!

The last week has flown by! Last minute errands ended in hysterical crying, I'm not sure why it continues to surprise me how poorly organized some things are here and that everything will take about 10 times longer than I think it will and not end in the desired result. I sold my car and before we took it in to pass inspection and transfer the registration, the fuel pump conveniently broke. Of course, I just cried about that too. Let's see what else made me cry, I guess the list is probably too long to type in. Today I have to finish packing and then clean my apartment, then I think we'll go to dinner and have one more night in Dubai before I leave at 3:00am for my flight to SF. Last night I went to one of my favorite wine bars with a girlfriend of mine and it was ladies night, and hilarious. If any guy in Dubai is looking for trashy dressed British girls, I'm pretty sure they are all at Oeno on Tuesday nights. I exaggerate a little... we had so much fun though drinking awesome wine and eating delicious cheese, my two favorite things. I can't believe I'll be in the US of A in about 37 hours...

Is it really over?

The last couple weeks have flown by... the highlights, parties were fun, goodbyes are awful, fractured a few ribs, cried a little, or a lot, whatever, packed some boxes, had a few days off work, drank some wine... figured some things out, didn't figure some other things out. Just another high/low life in Dubai kind of deal. I cannot believe I'm actually moving. I have both loved and hated this place, highlights would include the people I've met, places I've traveled, soccer team and running club and just living like I'm on vacation. Two years was too fast and too slow all at once. I'm happy that I came and sad to be leaving. I can't wait to have a new job. I definitely lost all motivation to work and hardly even recognize myself professionally. Fortunatley I get to start again in a couple months. Huh, I'll have to work again, interesting. I have one week left in Dubai, a spa day, soccer game, who knows what else. I didn't know it was possible to be so happy and so sad about the exact same thing. Life. Crazy.

It's about time...

So, last night I just got so sad. Sad about leaving, sad about packing, sad about trying to figure it all out. But, this morning, I just sort of decided there's no time for that. Today I have, arranged for my transcripts to be sent to Vienna, sent off a copy of my teaching license, figured out most of my shipping stuff, or at least figured out what I need to do, I have boxes on the way and really just finally gotten it in my head that whether or not I want to move, it's happening 3 weeks from tomorrow. Crazy.

The last week or so has been really busy. We went to a rooftop bar on Sunday for Kim's birthday and a different one on Wednesday for Mark's birthday and a different one on Thursday for our Elementary School end of year party. It was a pretty busy week. The weekend was nice, we spent some time relaxing during the days, I went to Lime Tree and sat by the pool all day on Friday, Saturday just sort of lounged around and then drove around the Palm near Atlantis. Sunday was great too, a few of us met and had a spa/pool/lunch day. It was amazing and so relaxing. This week I'm heading to this all you can Sushi/Sake night, then a brunchish thing on Friday afternoon, then our "Sophomore Dinner" on Friday evening. It should be interesting if nothing else!

Now, it's back to work and sorting out life. Not that fun.

Just another day in paradise...

Last week flew by, as usual. I can't remember what all I did, probably spent half the time thinking about all the things I "should" be doing. Like maybe packing, figuring out shipping, maybe buying plane tickets to get home, to Vienna, selling my car, all the other random things I have... maybe figuring out my banking crisis. I am seriously living my life in denial that I have 31 days to figure it all out. All of my things are going to end up in boxes and in some apartment with the hope that someone will ship it all to me once I get to Vienna... whatever. For some reason I can't be bothered to figure anything out about it. This weekend was fun, went out with some friends for happy hour and laughed while this British girl did a photo shoot, it wasn't a real photo shoot just her randomly posing while her friends took pictures, no we weren't at some cool bar, we were at this smoky, random pub like place filled with 40 year old British guys. Fun. Friday was a pretty lazy day until I went to this bachelorette party that I was worried about, but if you took a way a few games and things that totally made me freak out and get all weird and embarrassed, it was great. We were at these beach apartments that the school has, somehow I'd never seen them before and they are awesome, and then we were picked up by a hummer thing and then went to a few different places. It was fun, but completely embarrassing to be those girls, you've all seen them, dressed up, wearing random tiaras and coming out of a limoish thing, everyone is staring, blah, blah, blah. I did "forget" my princess tiara, and by princess I mean Disney characters... The bachelorette had to do random tasks and it was my job to get photos and now need to put together a scrapbook thing. We'll see how that goes. This week is a busy one, two birthdays, a work end of year happy hour and... then a three day weekend. YEAH! It's so annoying, work plans things and it's like I don't even want to go because I think it's so awful here and you never know if something weird will happen and I don't know, this place has made me crazy. I'm always just waiting for the next worst thing to happen. Yet, even when I'm waiting for it, it surprises me. 31 more days...

The art of relaxation...

So, I've never been one to take naps, sleep in past 7:00, or spend more than one second doing nothing. Instead, I want to be doing something, or at least planning what I'm doing next. Apparently not anymore. And, I've skipped running club for the past two weeks. What is going on?

Time is moving way too fast, I've been busy doing everything and nothing all at once. Last weekend I had a little dorm life flashback, had some friends over for wine, went down to another friend's for more wine, came home, spent half the next day lounging around. I was planning on staying in that night, but somehow ended up drinking martinis at 1897, this smoky, overpriced bar at the mall that for some reason I really like and then going over to a different friend's dorm, I mean apartment, to have a few bottles of wine and some Arz. The next day I went to the mall to help someone find some black shoes, I think we went to 187 different stores and eventually found a pair, it was hard not to laugh, but I'm not sure he found it that funny. It's that thing that when you're looking for something specific, you can't find it, but when you're not looking for anything you somehow find everything you didn't even know you were looking for. The next week flew by, went to a friend's for dinner, I think we ate at 5:30, the early bird special, which I love, the teacher schedule is great! Another night I went to Old Town, which was really nice, we were in one of the apartments and it was just so Dubai, from one window you could see a view of the apartments, the lights, the fancy water fountain and all that, then if you turned and looked in the other direction there was this huge construction site and cranes and just two opposite worlds. I really like the area though. I think if I were staying I'd want to live there, or JBR, just because of the access to the beach, but anyways, we ended up staying up way too late and I had to drag myself to work the next day. A bunch of us did a Friday Brunch at this place Yalumba, and everything about it was great. They, Friday Brunches, are really the most random thing ever and you really can't explain them. We were greeted with a glass of champagne, served food, or you could go up to the buffet and there was anything you could ask for. Then somehow dancing at 3:45 seems like the best idea ever. By the end of the night I was drinking beer. That's not what I do, or well, I guess it is. I think we were home and asleep before 10. The other exciting news for the weekend was that I borrowed Stealing Home from a friend, I LOVE that movie! Yesterday I, once again, did nothing until maybe 3:00, well, I did manage to eat some breakfast watch part of an AFL game, I could even tell you a few of the rules..., went out to lunch, back to the mall for more shopping, then, just because I'm reliving college, I had to get a juice club like drink. Then I went to soccer, which just about killed me, I'm not sure what our coach was doing to us, our "warm up/conditioning" was exhausting.

Now, it's back to work. I am determined to have a good day at work. We'll see if it happens. This week is more of the same, dinner at a friend's, soccer game, then Charlie's Angel's shooting club night on Thursday and "Hen Party" on Friday. It really never ends.

Austria, well, my German is awesome. I'm just picking it up so quickly. Whatever, I think I am just refusing to even try because admitting to myself that I need to learn German is kind of an indication that I am soon going to be living in Austria, which honestly almost causes me to hyperventilate. But, as I learned years ago, if you do hyperventilate and pass out, your breathing does actually return to normal and you don't die. Unless of course you're driving a car or in some other dangerous place when you pass out...

Slow down? Speed up?

My visit with Katie was amazing! I was so happy to be around someone who knows me so well, and loves me anyways... and brought me my favorite NW wine. We did tons of different Dubaish things, we did a few all you cans, the souks, I sent her out on a ladies night, desert safari and we went and stayed at this great beach resort in Fujairah. We ate at Lime Tree a few times, she went to the beach and she even convinced me to do Ski Dubai. It was so fun! And, I loved that she met my friends here and saw this place. I was cracking up when I got home from work yesterday, my apartment was filled with the top 10 things to buy in Dubai... there were spices, pashminas, perfume and not just in small quantities, I was wondering it she'd make it through customs. It's a bit crazy here, but I love it. I"ll post some pictures, or at least I'll try.

We won our soccer game this week, which was awesome. I'm so glad most of the team showed up and we all worked hard, and look at that, we had a win...

It's getting so close to the end of my Dubai life, and I really like my Dubai life. I'm hoping the Vienna life is just as good, maybe even better? Who knows... I do know that I am completely unable to commit to a ticket home at this point, I wonder if that's because I don't know if I'll ever come back. Who knew that would make me sad? Weird. Basically, as per usual, I want what I can't have, time to slow down so I can enjoy my last bit of time here and then I want it to speed up so I can start my new job.