Beds, Couches, & little pod cars! Oh my!!!

It's taken me a whole week to recover, but our sea shipment finally arrived! Woohoo!!!

The kids have beds, I have a full-sized couch, Lindsey has a desk (upstairs), & everyone has a spot at the eating table.... at the SAME time! 

It's the little things...

I'm slowly hanging photos & art, but the larger pieces need a "wait-and-see" day as I've had a few things fall off the walls in the middle of the night. (Super scary, by the way, to hear a huge crash in the still of the night...) So I've perfected this setup to prevent scratches & dings:

The trick seems to be making sure the walls are extremely clean before using those Command Strips. So far, so good. 

This past week also had me busy working at the school! I've been officially hired! Well, I'm an official sub, but hey, it's a paying job!! I even have a badge!

As if unpacking & starting a new job aren't enough, I also volunteered at the school for Anti-bullying week. Virgin Radio 104.4 (out of Dubai) came out to talk to the kids about the importance of NOT being a bully ... & wearing your seat belt. (Odd combo, I know.... But the lack of properly belted kids & adults on the roads, combined with the crazy driving, is a real issue in these parts!)

Brent Black (American), BIG Rossi (British), Kris Fade (Australian), & Priti Malik (Indian) were all on hand to speak with the kids, do a little karaoke with the teachers, & challenge the kids. Olivia's teacher, Mr. Macdonald, was chosen to sing "Let It Go". Olivia was yelling like crazy with her class. 

As a reminder to be a friend to everyone & stand up against bullying, the kids (& the Virgin radio crew) took the "Pinky Pledge" & had their pinky nail painted blue. 

Of course, October is also Breast Cancer awareness month, so the school also hosted a talk by a Gems parent & radiologist for the 10th, 11th, & 12th grade girls, their moms, grandmoms, female family members, & women of the community about breast cancer. The UAE has a higher than normal incidence of breast cancer among it's native population, apparently, so it's good to be proactive with information. 

I brought a friend.... & actually learned a bit too. The speaker was fabulous & since it was women/girls only, there were some great questions from the students. 

We've only just started the weekend, but Devin has already had his first ADYFC soccer game...

... They won. Yea!!! They played at the Yas Kicks facility which is literally an AstroTurf field dropped in the middle of the desert sand next to Ferrari World...

The girls spent more time playing in the sand than watching their brother's game.

(Sigh.) 

We also found a really good Mexican food place. Seriously, it's on par with Chipotle or Chiloso's... It's that good. The owner, Jesus, is from Mexico & moved here to serve authentic food... God bless him! 

Masdar City is Abu Dhabi's venture into living a "green" life. The buildings are all made from natural, renewable resources & powered by solar or wind energy. The development is still a long way from complete, but a few businesses & a university is currently located there. Watch the infomercial here: 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FyghLnbp20U

A lot of what the video shows is already in place. I've walked the narrow streets & ridden in the pod cars. It really is pretty amazing... 

Of course, most of Abu Dhabi still looks like this...

So it's not THAT much different than Texas. The stores are even putting out Christmas decorations already! (Gotta love ACE Hardware! LOL!) 

And it's still possible to find evidence of the upcoming Fall Festivals too...

Just be prepared to pay top dollar as these babies are all imported speciality veggies! 

So, as I hear my washing machine spinning up to jet propulsion levels (last spin cycle), I'll end this note & attempt to pry myself off this nice long cushy couch. But I'm planning more quality time with this baby... Maybe a little AppleTV movie?

"Impossible" is actually possible here....

The last week was soooo long & yet it passed quickly too. We were able to enjoy a four day weekend, therefore leaving us a three day school week. 

As awesome as THAT is, some schools had a 5 day weekend so my kids were pretty bummed to return on Tuesday. See, schools here set their calendars before the school year starts (duh, right?). But, a good number of the holidays here are based on the moon.... something that cannot be predicted quite so accurately months in advance. Therefore, you must keep in mind that the "officially printed school calendar" is really just a guideline. 

This is what happened for the Eid holiday. Most schools anticipated that the first 3 days of the week would be within the moon phase associated with Eid (ours included). When the official report came out, the Ministry of Education had removed one of the days. Our school sent out a mass email (on Tuesday or Wednesday of the previous week) & everyone made the adjustment. Other schools said, "Screw it, we'll stay with our printed calendar." So they did... 

It's very different here. Oh well, when in Rome....

The only really downside to the change in the calendar is how the schools manage the change. Our school didn't want to shift the whole 8 day schedule to now accommodate the extra day, so they told the kids we'd have two Day 8's in a row. So Tuesday followed the Day 8 class schedule, but so did Wednesday. Then we were back on schedule with Thursday being Day 1. Very confusing & not really productive from a teaching standpoint. 

As it turns out, it didn't really master. Attendance was WAY down anyway. A lot of people just took the whole week to vacation (Eid is celebrated on par with our Christmas). A friend of mine who teaches in Al Ain said they had 22 kids (total 7th grade!) on Tuesday, 11 on Wednesday, & NONE on Thursday. LOL! She has a really easy week! Our school was no where near that bad, but all 3 kids said they had lots of friends missing in each class....

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's flash back to the official weekend, Saturday (still part of the holiday): 

Lindsey had to work most of the long weekend (deadlines don't care about holidays), but we were still able to squeeze in a visit to a few new places & catch lunch with some friends. 

We've heard about this local sport complex/club that offers horseback riding, water sports, paintball, skeet shooting, rifle ranges, & motor sports in addition to swimming pools, exercise facilities, club house, & 3 different dining experiences.  We decided to get a day pass just to check it out...

We had a quick dinner in the cafe, then walked (some) of the complex. It's a HUGE place. From the outside, it looks like a prison as it's completely surrounded by tall solid tan walls. But inside, you drive past various complexes divided into the general sport activities. The resturaunts mostly overlook the motor sports & water sports areas so you always have something interesting to watch & these are the two sports we really investigated. 

The kids were begging to drive the GoCarts, but the wait was over an hour. 

Perhaps another time. The next day we had plans to meet friends for a little swimming... at their hotel: Ethiad Towers. 

The kids had a great time... It's a pretty awesome pool with a nice view. But our visit did not end with just swimming... Our friends had invited us to stay for lunch, so we headed upstairs to try some Filipino food. 

Both our friends have Filipino roots & they had stumbled across a local delivery placed that had awesome takeout. We agree. The food was fabulous! The kids agreed too... 

But, all good things must come to an end, & we had school the next day... 

We said our goodbyes knowing that this might be the last time we see our friends for many months; they are returning stateside later this month. 

The first two days of school passed quickly with no real homework for the kids. 

I found the fixings to make burritos (& even had one left over for lunch the next day)...

Watched the blood moon via streaming video (since it was broad daylight here)... 

I tried my hand at homemade BBQ sauce from scratch (it was pretty good, if I do day so myself!)

And, I noticed that it's starting to cool off a few degrees (& I do mean only a FEW)... But the humidity is down too. So sudden we have "Fall" in the UAE....  which looks a lot like everyone else's Spring: 

There are suddenly flowers everywhere! 

It's a nice change from the sand & palm trees... 

Since we had a shortened school week, all afterschool activities were cancelled. It actually was kinda nice... & it turned out to be a good thing. Here's why:

We are selling our house on Heather Glen & it's scheduled to close very soon (like today). Our agent called to say that we'd need to get some papers notarized & then overnight them back. 

Well, easier said than done. 

First, the papers emailed to us needed to be printed on legal-sized paper. Although we do finally have a printer in house, there is no such sized paper sold here in the UAE. We have A4, A3, A2... none of which is "legal-sized". So after several back & forth conversations with the title people, someone was finally able to reduce it down to something that would fit on letter (we can use A4 size... It's a fairly close match). 

On to the next hurtle! 

Notary services. 

No one really offers notary services here. As a matter of fact, I think "notary" is an American concept. It's not offered here at a bank, not at Lindsey's office, not at the local police station. Nada. But the title company insisted that the papers must be notarized... No exceptions. 

Sigh. Ok.

After some searching (thank goodness for google & Facebook), we found that we could get notary services at the US Embassy.... But you must have an appointment. Lindsey called. The ONLY appointment left this week was Thurdsay at 1:30 pm. 

We'll take it!!!

They confiscated our purse/bag & all electronic devices, then we passed through 3 (I kid you not, THREE) separate checkpoints only to enter a waiting room where we were given a number & told to have a seat. Lindsey was a bit pissed; why have an appointment if you're just going to be given a cattle number anyway? Whatever.... 

The title document had 5 pages that needed a notary stamp. Damn if the embassy doesn't charge PER STAMP! We had to push the packet under the glass screen where a guy looked through it, took our IDs, & told us to go pay at the cashier.  $250 later, we were given a receipt & told to have a seat to wait again. A few minutes later, a lady called us up, took the receipt, had us swear we were us, we signed each page as she watched, & we were done. We reversed our previous security checkpoints & went to lunch!

I had read about this place called Shakespeare & Company. It got good reviews & we were close. Plus, we needed a place to reorganize the title paper package. Between the guy & the lady, everything was a jumble. 

The food was good & the decor was cute. Very "girlie" & Victorian with plush chairs & frilly table cloths. But there were plenty of business men in suits sprinkled around. It speaks to how good the food was; the guys were willing to tolerate all the pink, rose, & beige for the sake of their stomach! LOL!

But, our quest was not over yet! We still needed to get the notarized papers back to the title company. 

Now, you might remember from a previous post that mailing anything isn't exactly easy. It's not that it can't be done, it's just not simple. 

The title company wanted us to overnight the packet back. They have no idea. Their request is actually impossible. Seriously. Impossible. 

There are no overnight services offered from Abu Dhabi. Period. Not via the regular mail (whatever that means), not via DHL, not via FedEx. It cannot be done. 

After several phone calls back & forth with the title company (& a 3-way call with FedEx) earlier in the week, I think we finally got the message through. The best we can do is two-day. So, the title company emailed us a mailing label. All we had to do was physically carry the packet to a FedEx location. 

Turns out, in all of Abu Dhabi, there are only 3 places we could drop the package. After several attempts with two different GPS services, we decided to go with the one at the airport. We felt like we'd have the best odds at finding it. Remember, nothing has an actual address here... It's all done by landmarks. The address for the FedEx drop was literally "FedEx Services at ADAC Logistics". 

That's it. You had to already know that ADAC was at the airport... You also had to know that there is a separate airport entry used for the "logistics" area. I'd been to the airport a few times now & had noticed something to this effect. 

Between Lindsey & myself, we knew just enough to get us to the general area. After that, we had to rely on luck & wits as the signage around here is just plain awful! Luckily, we were successful.  But I will say this, the FedEx building is located in a kind of warehouse facility, past a guarded security gate, & a dirt road. There is no cell service. No wonder it's practically impossible to find & wouldn't show up in our searches.  Luck was definitely on our side that day!

Whew!

The week ended with Olivia getting an award at school:

... A little time playing card games (Zombie Fluxx with me)....

... then Killer Bunnies with some neighbor kids the next day). 

But for me, the highlight of the weekend was our dinner out to Amerigos. It's a Mexican resturaunt located inside the Raddison Hotel chain. The food was really good, but their margarita was awesome!

It's been over two months.... Ahhhh... Absence does make the heart grow fonder.... Yummy! LOL!

Life in the fast lane....

So the kids are officially on a 4 day weekend ... & Lindsey (supposedly) has a 3 day weekend... all thanks to the Eid Mubarak holiday. 

Most of the city seems to have taken off to greener pastures... for Mecca ... or a beach somewhere... or even a desert oasis. We, however, are staying put. 

So, in the true spirit of a "staycation", we let the kids stay up WAAAAY later than usual then sleep in as long as they wanted. I honestly have no idea when they went to bed as I can't seem to make it past 10 pm these days. But the girls tell me they pulled their beds down the stairs sometime near 1 am (they think) to watch videos in bed...

This is how I found them this morning... in the living room!  Needless to say, it was every bit of 11 am before I even started making breakfast. 

Lindsey & I decided today would be our one "touristy" day & we had heard that Ferrari World was running some new rides starting this month. We haven't been to the theme park yet & the kids seemed interested. So, breakfast, baths, shoes.... & off we went!

You gotta love Abu Dhabi & their total lack of proper signage. Although we've driven past Ferrari World almost daily since we arrived here, neither Lindsey nor I had any idea how to actually GET there. In the end, we followed our gut & somehow found ourselves in the taxi queue.... going the wrong way... 

No matter. If you just switch on your emergency flashers, no one gets upset & you can pretty much drive across medians, down the wrong way, against traffic, & whatever else you need to get yourself back on track. Everyone does it. As it turns out, I did not have to resort to such tricks... 

The lack of proper signage combined with my awesome luck led us directly to  the front of the theme park & the Valet Parking queue. Score! 

Valet parking it is!!! 

We handed over the keys & headed inside. To get into the actual park, you must go up an escalator, pass through a security check, then queue up for tickets. But, before you can reach the escalotors, there is some strategically placed food vendors: Starbucks & a frozen yogurt stand. You know neither Lindsey nor the kids could pass it up.

After everyone "fueled up", we were ready. Bring on the speed!!!!

Being as this is a holiday weekend, it could have been totally packed... But, surprisingly, it wasn't. 

We didn't even have to wait in line for tickets. The tickets are priced by height. Yeah, height. Olivia was the only one short enough for the cheaper ticket. Everyone else had to pay the same price. A little over a 1000 AED & we were in! (That's around $350 for the 5 of us!) The ticket booth attendant said everything inside the park is included in the ticket (rides, shows, attractions) except food & souvenirs. Nice! 

Did I mention that this is an INDOOR amusement park?! Air conditioning!!!! The only rides outside the huge dome are the 2 roller coasters! Score!! Olivia's height kept her from qualifying to ride those 2 coasters but she didn't feel slighted in the least. 

The park is laid out with a center lattice column (you can see from anywhere) surrounded by various rides & attractions. The "front" is where you enter, the "back" is the stage for shows, & the roller coasters are on either side. 

We decided to work the park in the counter clockwise direction. 

The first ride we came to was the "Speed of Magic" where you race a character called "Nello" for the keys to a Ferrari (of course!!!) The ride seats 8 at a time in a kind of box car on a track. Through the use of movie projectors, slanted seating, a killer sound system, and some well placed bumps & spins, your inner ear is tricked into believing you are actually hurling through various locations (a desert, underwater, a rainforest, racetrack, etc) at impressive speeds with some equally impressive falls. 

We were all a little car sick by the end of the ride & I know we probably never topped 5 miles per hour!! LOL! 

As we wobbled on to the next ride, we found a penny smasher machine & the kids immediately thought of Joe Pool, our preacher back home. 

It was a bit more than $.50 & a penny to gain this little gem (more like $3.50), but well worth it. We will be ready for Smashed Penny Sunday next summer. I'm sure Pastor Pool has never had a penny from Abu Dhabi! We were all just so surprised to actually find a penny smashing machine! 

Since it is called "Ferrari World", it should not be a surprise that all the rides have a car or Formula 1 Racing theme. Even the "kiddie" rides are based on cars or car parts..  

Junior GT (bumper cars) ...

Devin & Madeline didn't want to ride the "kiddie" stuff, so they played on their phones. One of the staff came over to give them a hard time. 

This is the ONLY picture I have of Devin smiling! 

Tyre Twist ..

To be honest, all the rides seem to be a variation on a ride we remember from Disney World. There's even a "little Italy" ride where you sit in a miniature of one of the various models of Ferrari's car line while you "cruise" past famous Italian landmarks ("It's a Small World" w/o the annoying song...???) .... & now we are ALL humming... Sorry...

By this time, we needed to refuel. There are actually 3 sit down resturaunts (all serving Italian, of course) inside the park. There is also a cafe, a coffee shop, a counter service resturaunt, & a consession stand. We chose the counter service. 

Notice the linen napkins... real metal cutlery, .... & on the table mood lighting?! (& Devin on his phone... It's a theme, these days....)

Seriously, Abu Dhabi just doesn't do anything halfway. Even at their theme parks we had waiters, cloth napkins, & personal service.... at the counter service spot!!!

It was an amazingly tasty lunch & actually rather affordable (for theme park fare). But no time to linger; the kids had spotted the gift shop. 

Ug. I personally have a love/hate relationship with gift shops. It's great fun to see what is offered, but my kids seem to think no vacation destination is complete without an overpriced, never-to-be-used-again, trinket. So it was with great trepidation that I agreed to pass through the doors. 

As it turns out, the kids are getting better with the word "no". The shop offered everything from candy & toys to coffee cups & t-shirts. Lindsey & I browsed the lithographs & replica full-sized cars while the kids played on the RC racetrack. (Yes! Devin is actually NOT on his phone!)

We left after it was determined that the winner was always the yellow car, regardless of driver. So, if you're in the market for a fast Ferrari, order the yellow one. 

We caught both shows - a magic show & a variety show with hints of Cirque du Soleil - then wrapped up the visit with the ride "Viaggio in Italia". 

Have you ridden Disney's "Soarin'" at Epcot? This is the same ride.... but with Italty's landscape instead of California's. It's impressive; No doubt. It makes you want to get on a plane to Italy & drive the countryside ... preferably in a little red Ferrari two seater.... 

But, alas, the fun finally caught up with everyone & the kids were begging to just go home... 

Look at those poor pitiful exhausted faces!!!  LOL!

Ok. No more pictures... It's time to go get the car... Where did I put that valet ticket?