Cuteness

 

Check out my cute hand heart!  I totally copied this from Pinterest (because who thinks of these things without Pinterest?) and I'm in love!  This class has been one of my absolute favorites and I will miss them terribly next year.  One of the negatives of working in an international school is that people move more than neighborhood schools.  I'm usually happy to welcome a new set of kids each year because I see my old kids every day in the hallway.  This year, about half of my kids are leaving.  Boo to that.

 

Just in case you were looking for another comparison between international schools and neighborhood schools, here's a list of where the 3rd graders are going for summer vacation:

 

Thailand

England

India

Seychelles

America

Saudi Arabia

Denmark

Korea

Algeria

Egypt

Lebanon

Iran

Canada

Turkey

Switzerland

Czech Republic

Germany

Austria

Paris

Hong Kong

Australia

Morocco

Spain

Sudan

Sweden

Singapore

Malaysia

Brunei

 

Umm...what?!  These kids have amazing lives.  Their parents do a great job of teaching them about the places they visit, too.  One of my girls who's going to Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and Germany has a whole study book to read in the next two weeks before she goes.  Their passports are going to be stacked by the time they're 18.

 

5 more days of school, 1.5 workdays, and then it's time for summer awesomeness!



Weird Things in Dubai, Part 3

Escalators for grocery carts.

Which brings me to another weird thing in Dubai - supermarkets in malls (which brings me to yet another weird thing - me saying supermarket instead of grocery store).  Every mall has at least one supermarket, and many have more than one. To avoid traffic jams at the elevators, Dubai has installed grocery cart escalators.  The escalators are ridiculously long (so they're not too steep), and the grocery carts have special wheels that stick to the rotating escalator treadmill thingies.  Even if you tried with all of your might to push a cart down the escalator, you couldn't. 

This may be weird thing #3, but I think it's pretty genius.  It definitely makes grocery shopping in Dubai a little bit easier.

Weird Things in Dubai, Part 2

License plates.

License plates are a status symbol in this country.  Like different states in the US, each emirate has its own license plate.  Usually, plate number 1 belongs to the ruler of each emirate.  Sheikh Mohammed, ruler of Dubai, has the number 1, followed by the numbers 2, 3, 4, etc. for chauffeur-driven cars for the wives or children. The double-digit numbers 11, 12, 13, 14, etc. often belong to brothers or uncles of the ruler or employees of the ruler's court in high governmental positions.

Here's an actual quote from the newspaper from an Emirati from Abu Dhabi -"It is not about the car, but the numbers on the license plates; the fewer the digits, the more important the person, and the more he gets noticed."  License plating is definitely a sport here.  There's even a big license plate auction every year and people will spend millions of dollars a single plate.  This year they raised 7 million US dollars at the auction.  SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS!  The idea is to get a really low number or a plate with some sort of number pattern.  License plate 16 went for $517,370, and license plate 55555 went for $307,699.  The biggest sale ever went to a business man in Abu Dhabi who bought plate number 1 for $14,500,000.  Doesn't this make you wonder what he does with his other money if he can spend $14,500,000 on a dinky license plate?  Maybe if we work hard enough, Casey and I can afford plate number 79382...

Casey and Kai are having a contest to see who can find the lowest plate.  Right now Kai's winning because he found number 8.  The trick is you have to take a picture.  I saw plate 7 at the mall, but didn't have a camera or phone with me to prove it.  It's kind of exciting to see a low plate, like being in the presence of royalty.

Okay, enough about that.  

Bonus weird thing as observed by Lyndsey - "Green Skittles are NOT lime in this country. They are green apple and they are butt in a candy form. True statement."

She's right.  There's really no point in eating Skittles anymore since the limies are my favorite.  Green apple Skittles = worst idea ever.

Hidden Gems from Casey's Phone

We found a few goodies on Casey's phone last night and thought we'd share.

This beauty was drawn by one of Casey's students.  Fancy, eh?

Al Boom Gas Distributing, Casey's favorite.

Dinner with my dad at Bu Qtair and the B-E-S-T bread ever.

Our favorite beach camel :)

School buses in Dubai have the school name on them.  Dubai Police Kindergarten... we're wondering if this means police officers are chosen and groomed from a young age.  We have no idea.

Desert safari fun.  I'm still waiting for my chance to camp in the desert!

Casey in shell heaven.

Another beautiful display of art.

My creepiest face in Paris.

Casey and the awesome hat maker in London.  Doesn't he look like he could be on The Burbs?

 

Picture time in Paris while we wait for coffee.

In other news, we had date night last night.  It was one of the best best meals we've had in a long time.  We went to an Indian restaurant and let our waiter order for us because we figured he knew more about Indian food than we did.  Holy shizz, everything we ate was ah-mazing and we couldn't get enough.  We loved it so much we took a picture.

Chicken Biryani - best Indian food I've ever tasted.  It was cooked in a copper pot with crusty deliciousness over the top (like chicken pot pie).  So, so good.

And here's a pic of my coffee and milk.  It's not just any milk; it's soy milk that they bought especially for me.  No, I haven't turned into a demanding diva like many other restaurant goers we see in Dubai.  The restaurant was just that awesome.  

In the beginning of our meal, the waiter asked if we had any food allergies.  I've never confirmed it with a doctor, but I was having stomach issues a couple years ago and did my own experiment.  My conclusion was that I have a dairy allergy, so I told the waiter and he had the chef make special things for me all night.  Then we ordered coffee.  I asked for coffee with soy milk or just plain black coffee if they didn't have soy.  Welp, they didn't have soy so they sent a runner to get it for me!  Talk about primo service.  That's one major perk about Dubai - the service in restaurants is the best.

And finally, I leave you with our daily juice picture.  This one's a beauty.

(Just for the record, I know beetroot is one word.)

I need to take my juicing obsession down a notch.  I get anxious if I don't have time to juice in the morning and feel like I'm giving cancer an open invitation to take over my body.  I'm pretty sure that's not how it works, but that's still how I feel.  I think this is a sign that I need a new hobby, one that's not juicing.

Dubai Pretties

The marina is GORGEOUS at night.  It's one of my favorite things about Dubai, and I'm so glad we waited out the horrendous apartment rental process so we could live in this neighborhood.  There's construction everywhere and enough honking cars to drown out a Megadeth concert, but once you're down in the marina, all of that fades away.

The purplish building in the middle is the tallest residential building in the world.  Another superlative for Dubai.

I love the way the lights reflect off the water.

This almost takes away my desire to frolic barefoot through a mountain farm with goats and chickens and piglets and sheep and a donkey.  Almost.

Weird Things in Dubai, Part 1

There are a lot of weird things in Dubai, but every time I see the first weird thing in this new series, I'm surprised all over again.

Meet Weird Thing in Dubai #1:

Gum.  It's no ordinary Extra gum with 5 minty sticks inside.  

 Nope, it's weird Dubai gum.  See for yourself.

Since when do tiny Extra packets come with 10 mini chiclets?  Never.  Only in Dubai.

This is by far not the weirdest thing in Dubai; it just happens to be on my mind today as I chew my confused supposed-to-be-a-stick Extra chiclet.

I wonder if this seems weird to other people too.  Did Extra change all of its sticks to chiclets?

Friday Night

Meet Jessie.

She's a PE teacher at my school.

She's from Belgium.

She's also a former professional tennis player.

Meet Ian, Jessie's boyfriend.

(Excuse the blurriness. There was wine involved last night, a very rare thing in Dubai.)

He's also a teacher moving his way up to administration.

He's English.

And he's also a former professional athlete.  

He played soccer for Hull City in the EPL.

To say that Casey and I felt a little athletically challenged last night at dinner is an understatement.  I mean, Ian played against Roy Keane and David Beckham and Jessie grew up with Kim Clijsters.  They are the most athletic couple we know, and they can also cook a mean salmon dinner.

Here are a few pics from our walk home last night.

 

Crazy interchange, eh?

Driving in Dubai can be really confusing sometimes!

Jessie and Ian's marina/ocean view.  Not too shabby.

My favorite bridge in the marina.  This is how we walk home from the gym every night.  It's a little piece of our Dubai happiness.

Having dinner at a friend's apartment feels like something we'd do in Denver on a Friday night.  We need to make a mental note to plan more of these.

Next weekend is a 3 day weekend, then Casey goes home for a couple weeks and then school's out and we escape to the Austrian mountains to try out our best Sound of Music moves.  EEK! IN 25 DAYS I'LL BE TWIRLING ON A MOUNTAINTOP LIKE MARIA!!