Brunchity Brunch

I've been saving up all of my blogging energy for a big brunch post today.  If I haven't told you already, brunch in Dubai is absolutely out of control.  It happens every Friday and costs anywhere between $55 and $200 for all you can eat and drink from 12 - 4 pm.  There's not actually any brunch food, but nobody goes for that anyway.  It's a huge party with crazy expats everywhere and by 4:00, everyone is completely wasted.  Sounds awesome, right?  Well, Casey has been dying to have this amazing brunch experience since we moved here, and this was his first weekend off (another Eid celebration) so we were pumped.  About 30 people from my school went today, the biggest group that has gone so far, and we both woke up sick.  What the frick.  I'm NEVER sick, unless of course I have a holiday from school with something awesome planned.  I tried really hard to pretend like I wasn't sick, but 3.5 hours of sleep + stuffy nose + headache + sore throat do not mix well with an all day drinking extravaganza.  When I told Casey I wasn't feeling well, he was relieved because he's not either, and even though we're really disappointed we had to miss it, it was actually kind of nice to have a lazy day together napping and taking it easy.

In other news, we did some apartment shopping this week, and that makes me really happy.  It's finally starting to feel like a home and not just a collection of tiny rooms.  I'll give you a photo tour when everything is done.

In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at our smiling camels...

:)

Rough Seas

Today was one of those days you dread as a teacher.  I was busy from 7:30 until 4:45, didn't have time to eat lunch and still have a mound of work waiting for me tomorrow.  We're on paperwork overload, and every time we think we're catching up, we get more work and more deadlines and it seems like it will never end.  

BUT, there is nothing better after a stressful day than coming home to the beach.  When I got home, the beach bag was already packed and my bathing suit was lying on the couch ready to go.  The sun sets super early here, around 6:15, so we got there just in time to relax a little bit and watch the sun go down.  It's amazing what a little beach can do for your mood!

You can't tell from these pictures, but the waves were crazy big, so big this happened...

Casey's head got slammed into the sand by a megawave, and we didn't think anything was really wrong at first.  Then he said, "I think it ripped out some of my hair." ... umm, yes, yes it did!

Pretty awesome, eh?  

Awesome evening all around.  Beach, sunset, sweet hair injury, salmon and sweet potatoes... Doesn't get much better than that!

Desert Safari

We finally went on a desert safari!  It's one of the things we wanted to do most when we moved here.  I psyched myself up for an AMAZING time, so it was a little underwhelming, but still awesome.  I'm too tired to write anymore, so you can make up your own story to go with our pictures :)

UAE proud, yo!

Daniela, Freya and Kai

 

My desert glamor shot

The sand was so soft and squishy beneath our feet!

 

Dune bashing was my favorite part of the trip.  I always wondered how they drove around the dunes like maniacs without tipping over, and the secret is this: they let air out of their tires so they're almost flat.  It creates a magical tire glue that sticks to the sand, even when you're sideways.  Pretty fancy.

The desert sun is amazing!

 

 

 

One of my favorite pictures ever :)

  

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeey!

 

Freya frolicking through the desert

 

I could totally be a falcon trainer if teaching doesn't work out.

The whirling dervish!  The only thing I could think of while watching him dance was, "She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl."  Oh, Maria...

 

 

 

His dance moves were pretty awesome.

 

Casey taking the photo we see men everywhere taking.  They pose in front of strange things with a non-smile on their face and hold the pose for a ridiculous amount of time until their friend finally takes the picture.  He totally fits in now.

 

The camels we didn't ride.  I felt bad for them.  They didn't seem too pumped to be toting everyone around on their backs.  I will ride a camel someday, just not these guys.  They're pretty cute, though, aren't they?

One thing I learned from this awesomeness is I love the desert!  It was so beautiful and relaxing, and watching the sun set in the desert is one of the best things you can do.   We're planning a desert camping trip when it's not so steamy hot, and that just might the best thing you can do.

A Perfect Morning in Dubai

Living in Dubai is a roller coaster ride, and today was the part of the roller coaster that makes you want to ride it again and again and again.  Nicole's cousins are visiting from London and Australia, so she planned a morning of paddleboarding.  We paddled out to this beauty...

 
Pretty much the best thing you can do ever.  We rented paddle boards from a little surf shop that belonged in Hawaii more than Dubai, paddled out through the gulf from the other side of that bridge and relaxed on our boards as we admired the amazing Burj Al Arab.  The temperature was just right and the whole experience was magical.  I'm definitely doing that again when Casey can join me, and next time I will remember my camera so you can experience this amazingness for yourself!

After paddleboarding, we went to a cute little restaurant called The Lime Tree Cafe, and I totally felt like I was back in Colorado.

 
Isn't it cute?
There was just something about the food, the people and the atmosphere that reminded me of Colorado and I didn't want to leave.  We ate outside because the weather was perfect - sunny, no clouds, a cool breeze, and for the first time I had hope that it won't be hot forever.  Cooler weather is definitely on the horizon.  Maybe I can even whip out a scarf or two :)

Dubai: The Unfluffy Stuff

One of my very best friends emailed me recently to find out what Dubai is really like.  She loves reading about all the fun we're having and all the new things we're experiencing, but she wanted to get the dirt, too.  She said when she blogs, she writes about the fluffy stuff, you know, the things you wouldn't mind complete strangers knowing about you.  It's weird to think of people around the world knowing everything about you, but when we started this blog, I wanted it to be the truest representation of our experience possible.  So, in an attempt to write about all things Dubai, this blog is dedicated to the unfluffy stuff (and Alyssa Lawther). 

With all big moves and especially internationally, things are not always perfect.  I even experienced this when moving from Texas to Colorado.  The adjustment period is rough.  Your friends and family are too far away, all the things you know and love are far away, everything's different, and you can't rely on old comforts to get you through because they're not there anymore. 

When I moved to Colorado, I was instantly in love.  It's an incredibly beautiful state with so much to explore.  I loved every second of being in the mountains, but I missed the familiarity of Arlington, watching my nieces grow up, and being able to get dinner with friends, work out at my favorite gym or even drive down a familiar street.  Given the choice, I would never move back to Arlington because Denver has so much to offer, but I still missed everything I had known for 29 years.

This move has been the same times ten.  

Dubai has so many amazing things to offer.  There's always something going on.  The people here are super friendly.  The beach is right across the street.  We live in one of the coolest locations ever.  I have a whopping 12 students in my class.  Ladies' Night is available every night of the week.  The service is incredible.  The food is delicious.  I'm learning so many things I never would have learned if we hadn't moved here.  We have incredible opportunities to travel.  We're saving for our future home in the Rocky Mountains.  We're gaining amazing experience for our careers.  I could go on forever.  

What's not amazing is this:  Casey's schedule.   

Casey works Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and he's gone from about 8:00 am to 7:00ish pm.  I work Sunday through Thursday (the weekend is Friday and Saturday) and get home around 4.   Doesn't sound like that big of a problem, but it is. We never get a day off together.  We never get to explore the best things about this city - the desert, brunch, concerts, days at the beach... We get a measly two hours at night and maybe 5ish hours on days that he's off, and honestly the two hours at night don't really count because we're both so tired we're basically zombies.

In Denver, we had the best weekend schedule ever.  We slept in, stayed in bed as long as possible, cuddled with the kitties, made banana nut pancakes, walked to Starbucks, and then explored the mountains or made plans for the rest of the day.  Even a day with no plans was amazing compared to what we have now.  

Now we never get to sleep in.  When I'm working, we wake up at 6:15.  When Casey's working and I'm off, we wake up at 7.  Our apartment is so small that we can't sleep while the other one is getting ready, so we both just wake up for the day.  (I know... no biggie for all you moms out there, but I'm cherishing my years with no kids and trying to get all the sleep I can get!)

On the weekends, I can either go to brunch, which is getting kind of old, hang out at the apartment organizing and cleaning, or go to the beach with someone if they're not at brunch.  There aren't many fun things to do on Casey's days off, so he's pretty much just recouping from working so much.

We've been trying to be super couple who celebrates each others' days off by doing something fun, but that's just making us tired and cranky because one of us always has to work the next day.  I'm trying to keep things in perspective and tell myself this is his schedule for only one semester, things could change next semester, and if this is the worst thing about my life, it's pretty amazing.  But moving halfway around the world is stressful enough, and we didn't expect his work to be an added stress.  We moved here to experience new things together, and there doesn't seem to be enough time for that.  Things that aren't a big deal suddenly seem like a big deal because we never see each other.  I'm finding myself becoming possessive of our time together and trying to make it as perfect as possible, which never works and probably actually backfires because nothing's ever perfect.  The thing that was really getting me through was the promise of an amazing summer together.  We're planning a trip to Austria (Finally - eeeeeeeeeeeeee!  I've been dying to go there since I saw the Sound of Music when I was four!), Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Italy, and we were supposed to spend a month back home visiting North Carolina, Texas and Colorado, BUT he will most likely have to work... of course... so we'll only be able to do one of those trips.  Lame.

Like all things that suck, I know this will pass.  He could get a different schedule next semester, or this schedule could become our new normal.  The most important thing is that we're in this together and we're going to make it through the rough patches of this move so we can experience all the amazing things Dubai has to offer.

Thank you for reading my rant.  On to more exciting things now!

Alyssa, you're welcome. :)

BEACH!

I don't know if you know this, but WE LIVE AT THE BEACH!  I've dreamed of this day my entire life, yet we've lived across the street from the beach for almost a month and we've only been once.  There's a weird barrier blocking the beach from the road, so it took us a while to figure out how to actually get to the beach.  Now that we've found it, I can't believe we waited so long.  It's so close that we could literally go every day after work, and since Kelly lives in our building, we can have our team meetings at the beach, too!  That beats the classroom any day.

This is Jumeirah Beach Residence, an awesome place to live except this is what it looks like on the weekends...

Not the awesomest way to come home...

 

Our building is on the street behind these beauties :)

 

The Arabian Gulf.  

It's as warm as you'd expect it to be.

 

Sunsets in the desert are incredible.  The sun melts into the sandy sky and creates a ball of sunny hazy amazingness.  It's absolutely beautiful.

The tiny black specks in this picture are skydivers.  An airplane goes up every hour, and skydivers put on a show for the beach goers.  Maybe that'll be us someday :)

If you don't see more beach pictures soon, I'd like you to harass us so we get our lazy bums out there again :)