Again, let me apologize for the lack of posts in the last couple of weeks. For those of you that do not know, I have moved into my apartment. The downside is that the building is not yet equipped for Internet access. Hence, no posts.
I am currently watching The Wire and enjoying some hommus, so I thought I’d catch you up on my life.
We moved into the apartments the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I am living with another woman from work. Our apartment is furnished, but quite sparse at the moment. Other than spending WAY too much money at IKEA to furnish my room, my other “big” purchase for the apartment has been a juicer. I have been enjoying all the fresh juices here, and thus loving the new juicer (although it is very messy).
After moving into the apartments, we had a shortened week due to National Day. The UAE celebrated its 37th year as a nation last week, December 2nd. The ENTIRE city was and still is decorated in twinkle lights that say “UAE” and “37”. Entire buildings are decorated to look like the Emirati flag and other complex designs.
Since National day is a national holiday, we did not have work last Tuesday. Starting Monday evening on the way back from work, everyone seemed to be driving a little crazier than normal. Perhaps it was just excitement for the upcoming holiday, but perhaps it was the fact that all of the cars were completely covered in UAE paraphernalia. I mean so much decoration that people could not see out of their windows. I saw some cars draped in the Emirati flag with a hole in the flag so the license plate could be seen. We even saw an accident caused when 3 teenagers were on the hood of a car and the driver tried to change lanes and clipped the bumper of the car in the other lane. It was a crazy place.
There were tons of fireworks, but I mostly used the day to rest. I did some great people watching at a café near our apartments on the Corniche (essentially the Boardwalk). It was quite an exciting experience.
As for this week…
We also have several days off this week for Eid (pronounced Ede, like Eden without the ‘n’). So I have Sunday through Tuesday off during this week. I wanted to travel during this time, but it didn’t really work out. I’ve been hanging around here.
I went to Dubai on Sunday. We went to the Gold Souk and the Spice Souk. I bought some fun spices, which will be very useful when we are able to cook in our apartment. We had lunch at a Pakistani restaurant that was a VERY local place. The food was good though. Very different, but I liked it. We also went to the Mall of the Emirates and saw the indoor ski slope. We did not however try it out.
Finally we saw the Burj Dubai again, the Burj Al Arab (which is the iconic sailboat-looking hotel), and we drove onto the Palm Jumierah and drove to the Atlantis hotel. It was very cool. It’s crazy to think that I was on what many are calling the 8th Wonder of the World.
Mind-blowing.
Anyways, I hope that all is well with all of you. I have enjoyed the updates to all of your lives ☺. And hopefully I’ll get some more pictures posted soon. Miss you all!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
A Thanksgiving Abroad...
Happy Thanksgiving!
I apologize for not posting sooner, but several events transpired over the weekend that prevented me from fully explaining to you the wonder that was … “A Thanksgiving Abroad”.
To start, I’d like to give you some very well know, but easily forgotten (and without a doubt, crucial to the story) facts about Thanksgiving:
1. It is a completely American holiday. (That means no one else remembers or celebrates the “day” that pilgrims brought diseases from the old world into the new world and then slaughtered some Native Americans, or you know, we all sat around the table and gave Thanks for the new world.)
2. It is a holiday devoted ENTIRELY to eating. Now it may not have originally started as an eating holiday, but now it most certainly is. (Meaning that it is a marathon, not a sprint, as some non-Americans quickly learned.)
3. Finally, it is the ONLY holiday in the entire year where every American (unless they opt otherwise) regardless of religion, gender, race, etc. observes a family oriented holiday (because the 4th isn’t an entirely family oriented holiday– which I will get to in a later post – and New Year’s isn’t either).
Now perhaps from the fact reminders that I have just laid forth you can guess certain parts of the coming story…
I started Thanksgiving this year by…going to work! It was definitely a weird experience to be far away from the U.S. for such a fundamental holiday. But unlike Election Day where everyone around the world was so enthralled by the election and there was still an intimate connection with the U.S. on that day, Thanksgiving seemed MILES away. Fortunately, as Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, it was the beginning of the weekend here.
As a large office group, we went to the Beach Rotunda Hotel for a Thanksgiving buffet. The U.S. Embassy had reserved several tables for the meal and we attempted to turn an original reservation in the Embassy section of 8 people into a reservation for 18 (we had an additional reservation for the buffet but not in the Embassy section). We were not successful.
However! Through some skillful haggling and yelling by one of my co-workers, we all received the Thanksgiving special that the U.S. Embassy group had (it included a free glass of sub-par wine).
As this is a holiday devoted to eating, the buffet was a lovely spread filled with typical Thanksgiving food. As a group of Americans, what item do you think we went for first? Turkey? Stuffing? Cranberries? Wrong!
SUSHI! But that statement by itself is what made it Thanksgiving. We indulged our completely American pleasures and went for sushi first, as the buffet also had non-typical Thanksgiving food like sushi, Arabic Traditional, as well as an extensive seafood buffet (which consequently allowed me to try caviar for the first time – not bad…).
The turkey was ok, a little dry. The mashed potatoes were delicious and there was even a garnish of crispy garlic pieces on top (several of my favorite foods rolled into one). I also had some delicious cold potato soup from the seafood bar. The wild rice wasn’t great (I definitely missed my mom’s wild rice as well as her broccoli puree thing…yum!). Finally, the cornbread was apparently horrible. And the stuffing looked like an uncooked Tollhouse roll of cookie dough.
As for dessert, the pumpkin pie looked remarkably similar to some sort of tart. I went for the flourless chocolate cake with small currant berries. It was just as good as it sounds.
To finish off, we had a couple additional glasses of sub-par wine. All in all, it was no Thanksgiving in the States, but I got my mashed potatoes and wine, so I was a pretty happy camper.
We did have a couple Brits join us for dinner who upon completion of the meal, realized that they had not paced themselves enough and felt slightly ill (rookies).
I hope that everyone’s Thanksgiving was as wonderful as they hoped it would be. But please know that I missed all of you immensely!
I apologize for not posting sooner, but several events transpired over the weekend that prevented me from fully explaining to you the wonder that was … “A Thanksgiving Abroad”.
To start, I’d like to give you some very well know, but easily forgotten (and without a doubt, crucial to the story) facts about Thanksgiving:
1. It is a completely American holiday. (That means no one else remembers or celebrates the “day” that pilgrims brought diseases from the old world into the new world and then slaughtered some Native Americans, or you know, we all sat around the table and gave Thanks for the new world.)
2. It is a holiday devoted ENTIRELY to eating. Now it may not have originally started as an eating holiday, but now it most certainly is. (Meaning that it is a marathon, not a sprint, as some non-Americans quickly learned.)
3. Finally, it is the ONLY holiday in the entire year where every American (unless they opt otherwise) regardless of religion, gender, race, etc. observes a family oriented holiday (because the 4th isn’t an entirely family oriented holiday– which I will get to in a later post – and New Year’s isn’t either).
Now perhaps from the fact reminders that I have just laid forth you can guess certain parts of the coming story…
I started Thanksgiving this year by…going to work! It was definitely a weird experience to be far away from the U.S. for such a fundamental holiday. But unlike Election Day where everyone around the world was so enthralled by the election and there was still an intimate connection with the U.S. on that day, Thanksgiving seemed MILES away. Fortunately, as Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, it was the beginning of the weekend here.
As a large office group, we went to the Beach Rotunda Hotel for a Thanksgiving buffet. The U.S. Embassy had reserved several tables for the meal and we attempted to turn an original reservation in the Embassy section of 8 people into a reservation for 18 (we had an additional reservation for the buffet but not in the Embassy section). We were not successful.
However! Through some skillful haggling and yelling by one of my co-workers, we all received the Thanksgiving special that the U.S. Embassy group had (it included a free glass of sub-par wine).
As this is a holiday devoted to eating, the buffet was a lovely spread filled with typical Thanksgiving food. As a group of Americans, what item do you think we went for first? Turkey? Stuffing? Cranberries? Wrong!
SUSHI! But that statement by itself is what made it Thanksgiving. We indulged our completely American pleasures and went for sushi first, as the buffet also had non-typical Thanksgiving food like sushi, Arabic Traditional, as well as an extensive seafood buffet (which consequently allowed me to try caviar for the first time – not bad…).
The turkey was ok, a little dry. The mashed potatoes were delicious and there was even a garnish of crispy garlic pieces on top (several of my favorite foods rolled into one). I also had some delicious cold potato soup from the seafood bar. The wild rice wasn’t great (I definitely missed my mom’s wild rice as well as her broccoli puree thing…yum!). Finally, the cornbread was apparently horrible. And the stuffing looked like an uncooked Tollhouse roll of cookie dough.
As for dessert, the pumpkin pie looked remarkably similar to some sort of tart. I went for the flourless chocolate cake with small currant berries. It was just as good as it sounds.
To finish off, we had a couple additional glasses of sub-par wine. All in all, it was no Thanksgiving in the States, but I got my mashed potatoes and wine, so I was a pretty happy camper.
We did have a couple Brits join us for dinner who upon completion of the meal, realized that they had not paced themselves enough and felt slightly ill (rookies).
I hope that everyone’s Thanksgiving was as wonderful as they hoped it would be. But please know that I missed all of you immensely!
The Remainder of my Thanksgiving abroad
I know that most American Thanksgivings involve football (American football…not the fake kind that they play here ☺) whether it be watching or playing. Unfortunately, the Emirates do not have any sort of American football. Never fear! I did go to a rugby tournament!
Never having seen a complete rugby match, it was quite an enlightening experience. We spent the day in Dubai sitting in the sun, watching match after match. I did see the U.S. play…and then lose to England, but it was still enjoyable.
I picked up a Scottish jersey, but other than that it was fairly uneventful. I would choose an American football game over rugby any day. The crowds are a lot more lively and intense.
Never having seen a complete rugby match, it was quite an enlightening experience. We spent the day in Dubai sitting in the sun, watching match after match. I did see the U.S. play…and then lose to England, but it was still enjoyable.
I picked up a Scottish jersey, but other than that it was fairly uneventful. I would choose an American football game over rugby any day. The crowds are a lot more lively and intense.
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