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 :)

Pumpkin Spice Latte Fail

It's fall in Colorado, and I'm missing it terribly.  The trees are changing, snow is on the horizon, and as Jessica described it, it's perfect scarf weather.  Fall is my favorite time of year, like everyone else in the world, and I'm missing all the fall favorites like boots and cardigans, cool mountain breezes and delicious fall food, but I'm also finding myself missing things like college football that I never cared about before.  What I miss most of all, though, is pumpkin.  Pumpkin everything.  Pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin soup, Pumpkin Spice Lattes... And even though it's still in the 90s here (a tolerable 90s with a slight breeze just cool enough to keep you from sweating), I wanted to pretend like it was fall, so I ventured down to the neighborhood Starbucks this morning to get myself a Pumpkin Spice Latte.  It's the most gorgeous sunny day, and I was pumping myself up for a taste of pumpkin deliciousness all the way there only to find out Dubai doesn't have Pumpkin Spice Lattes, now or ever.  Say whaaaaaaaaaaat?  What kind of crazy place doesn't have Pumpkin Spice Lattes?  I thought I was misunderstanding the man's accent at first so I asked twice, and then just to make sure I heard him right, I asked a third time.  According to the Starbucks website, Pumpkin Spice Lattes are fall's favorite drink so I could only assume they would be available everywhere.  I'm pretty sure they are available everywhere, everywhere but Dubai.  If my fall cravings don't subside, I'll have to buy an espresso machine and learn how to make them myself.  Until then I'll just have to pretend I'm sipping this bad boy on a patio somewhere overlooking the Rocky Mountains, while wearing my favorite boots, cardigan and scarf, of course.

Ladies' Night

One of the best things about Dubai is Ladies' Night.  On any given day, we can relax at our venue of choice with three free drinks after work (and if you're Nicole, you get six because you're sneaky enough to drink your free drinks, change your outfit in the bathroom and come back for more).  It's pretty amazing, really.  When we moved here, we had so many misconceptions - women having to cover their knees and shoulders, no holding hands or kissing in public, limited access to western products and food, and strict restrictions on alcohol consumption.  We could easily turn into alcoholics in this city, and we could do it very cheaply, too.  We've only been to two Ladies' Nights so far, both at a hotel across the Sheikh Zayed.  The bar is outside on a terrace surrounded by the lights of the city, and it's the perfect place to relax on a Wednesday night.

Kelly and I in the lobby of our apartment.  Casey came downstairs with the big camera, and I think my expression says it all...

Kai, Freya and their lovely friends

Nicole's friend, Majid, from Saudi Arabia.  He's really interesting and knows EVERYTHING about Dubai.

Look, Casey's not at work!

The whole group minus Kelly, Nicole, Sam and his cousins.  

Doesn't this look like a nice place to relax?

The hotel where Kai and Freya live.  50 cent's staying here in a couple weeks.  How great would it be to run into him in the lobby?

Next week we're trying a new spot under the Burj Al Arab.  Living in the city is proving to be an  exciting adventure!

On a side note, I want you to know that I'm watching Good Morning America right now, and I watched the Today Show live yesterday after I got home from work.  Dubai really is the easiest foreign city to live in (after you find a place to live :)).  

Running the Marina Walk

Ah, the Marina Walk... it's the reason we took the housing allowance and went through hell to live in Bay Central.  It's fabulous - 7 km of restaurants and bars, boats floating by and peaceful water views, and one of the most beautiful places in Dubai.  Welp, after three long weeks of living here, Casey and I finally checked it out.  A few girls at my school are doing some races next month - a 5k, 10k and possibly a half marathon in the winter - and I blindly agreed to run with them before assessing my running skills... they're bad... so bad that I ran for the first time since the half in June (a measly 3k), and my entire body, including weird muscles in my arms and shoulders, hurt for three days.  BUT we ran the Marina Walk tonight, and I felt GREAT!  I didn't feel as wimpy as I did on the treadmill, and I didn't have time to think about hating running because there were so many new things to look at!  And, best of all, Casey was with me, so it was kind of like a mini date. :)

We obviously didn't take these pictures because we were running, but here's the Marina Walk.

It was voted one of the best places in Dubai to get fit.  Maybe someone will spot us running by and want to take our pictures because we look so fit!

 

Don't you want to visit us now so you can run here, too? :)