Reflections

As my adventure has come to an end, I wanted to do one final post, not about what I did this week, but about the experience as a whole (similar to what I wrote when I went home the first time at xmas!).

8 months…wow. It went by in a flash. I have been home for about 7 weeks now and a part of me feels like I never went which is really strange! People keep asking if I miss it and while I do, the 7 weeks since I've left have been jam packed with vacation, a move, birthdays, bachelorettes, weekends in Maine, etc so I haven't had too much time to really think about it. Anyway…some thoughts on my time overseas.

When the opportunity first came up I was immediately interested, even though most people thought I was out of my mind. I was looking for a change but didn't quite know what I wanted to do next (move, leave my company, etc) and then this fell in my lap. I never got to study abroad in college so this was almost like my study abroad except I was getting paid so I think it was better! I wasn't expecting to love the UAE as much as I did and I certainly wasn't expecting to make the connections I did with people. I figured I would meet people and have fun, but never anticipated the lifelong friendships I made, and the long list of experiences I had. Okay this is silly but I'm actually tearing up right now writing this. People that I talk to now are always surprised when I tell them it was the best 8 months of my life, but there is no doubt in my mind that is the truth. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Let's see, a summary….in my 8 months of ex-pat life I ended a 4 year relationship that I finally realized wasn't right and then fell head over heels, crazy in love unexpectedly with someone I think is right and got my heart broken for the first time. I learned a ton about myself, how to have patience and finally learned how to RELAX and live for the present and not always be in the future. Life is so much more fun when you aren't stressing about things you can't change anyway and this may be one of the biggest gifts I was given. I learned so much at work and enjoyed being challenged on a regular basis as I was completely out of my element in many cases. I was also promoted as soon as I returned to the US so that was exciting! I travelled quite a bit (4 trips to Bahrain, 1 to Qatar, 1 to Oman, 1 to London and countless trips to Dubai) and learned loads about other cultures (I can tell you that pants means underwear and thongs means sandals, a singlet is a tank top and snog is to kiss someone!). I went out a lot, danced til the wee hours of the morning and often came home when the sun was up. I was also introduced to the world of Middle East brunch….truly an amazing Friday afternoon experience!!! I got my butt kicked on the beach at boot camp for 3 months and realized how much I love being pushed to the max and how in shape you can get in a short time with something like this. I decided to call it quits after 4 years in DC and move to Boston to start over once again but completely on my own and hoping that this city sticks! I became a different shade (ie: TAN) and remained that way year round. I spent at least one day of just about every weekend laying poolside, being waited on and just relaxing. After 27 years I realized that manicures are nice to have and became addicted to having long, nicely manicured nails! I've always been into pedicures but manicures made me want to vomit so I think I had only ever had 3 in my life and just said I didn't care about what they looked like. Now I see how that was WAY easier because keeping up with them is a pain, but my friends are all very proud! I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane to celebrate my 28th birthday and will never forget what a rush that was. I also think being so far away brought me closer to a lot of my friends and family as it forced me to set aside time for phone dates and emails where as in the states when they are "close" I never put in as much effort. I saw more concerts in 8 months than I had seen in my whole life combined. Most importantly, I lived. Really lived. I gave up my annoying desire to control everything and just let life come to me and went with whatever I was handed. I left Abu Dhabi exhausted, but it was well worth it, you can sleep when you are dead right?

I will never forget the experience I had and am so thankful to my company for allowing me to go and to all those who made the experience what it was for me. You know who you are.

I'm hoping to make a return in November for Formula 1 (which is a year from when I started the journey!) and excited to see everyone again…plus by then Boston should be freezing and I may not get back on the plane when it's time to leave!

I hope you all have enjoyed the blog even though a lot of it probably wasn't nearly as funny or interesting if you weren't there in the moments. Now on to the next chapter of my life in Boston….coincidentally this weekend will be my first weekend here and I'm sure the adventures are about to begin!!!

A week of goodbyes....

***Okay I had this almost completely written 6 weeks ago but had spotty internet service and it didnt post and I lost the end and then life happened, a move to Boston, no weekends at home, etc etc. So today I'm getting my act in gear. Not sure if anyone is even still following but I started this so I could document my journey and it wouldn't be right without the final week!***

The last blog has been delayed a bit as I was computer less once I left my job and since I've been home just haven't had time. My last week in the UAE was one of the best despite the sadness of saying goodbye to so many people I will miss like crazy. I'm going to do one final post in the next few days, a reflection on the full 8 months but for now.....the rest of the last week!!!

Thursday was my last day of work and since I was pretty much done with all of my projects the day before, I didn't do much. We had a treasury lunch to say goodbye and my co-worker Matt gave a really sweet speech..he was even tearing up!!!! Saying goodbye to everyone that I've worked with the past 8 months was harder than I thought but I made it out with no tears so that was a plus. They let me go at 4 cuz lets get real, I was doing absolutely nothing except warming my seat! I went back to the hotel to pack for the weekend away and then Maria and I went over to Yas island to check into our hotel. Because we are awesome they gave us a free upgrade and we had a fab room with great views of the F1 track and the Marina. I tried to take a nap since I didn't think I was going to survive the weekend in the condition I was in but that was a no go. Maria went and toured the hotel while I laid there frustrated and then started getting ready. We went to Pearls & Caviar for dinner and I had a lobster which was delicious but I think we drank a bit too much. Maria and I split a bottle of bubbly at the hotel before we left and then 4 of us had 3 bottles of wine at dinner. Liana drove down from Dubai and Alice showed up way late to say hi on her way to the airport. It was nice for Maria to get to meet my best AD girls. By the end of dinner I was pretty drunk and was at the bar looking over at the table of everyone talking and laughing and started crying thinking about how much I was going to miss that. Booze and goodbyes are never a good combo!!! Alice had to head out for Ibiza so we did our final goodbye which was super sad but I know I'll see her again so its not forever. We went back to Yas and started the night at Allure. It was a bit different to be indoors (the patio is where we normally party but its closed as its too hot) and the music wasn't great so we stayed for a little while with the crew that was there and then left for Rush where everyone else I knew was. It plays hip hop on Thursdays and was in our hotel so much better. I don't recall a lot of this as I was wasted but at least I remember being in all locations. Maria doesn't remember going to Rush. HA! We stayed til about 4am and then retired to the room where Liana and I had a heart to heart on the balcony and I cried some more!!!

We had to get up fairly early to get ready for brunch and Liana was in the best shape but the rest of us were hurting. The last thing I wanted to do was get dressed up and go drink some more but we all rallied. Drove to Dubai and picked up Oliver who was also in horrible shape from his night out. I actually woke him up when we were 5 minutes out...at least he got to sleep a ton more than us. Rolling up to brunch was a riot as Anwar met us there (he had been with us the night before) and at least 4 of us wanted to die at brunch. The other 5 were in pretty good shape though, they were much smarter to not party the night before brunch. My first ever UAE brunch was at Yalumba so it was only fitting that my last was as well. It was by far the most fun day I've had during the day. Once we walked in they gave us our first glass of champagne and we all forgot how crappy we felt and started over! Everyone was in a great mood and there were lots of laughs and champagne fueled nonsense. I had plenty of candy again....and not much actual food! Brunch ended at 3:30pm but we all stayed til about 6pm (happy hour starts as soon as brunch ends) and then I decided I had to go lay down for awhile before I passed out from exhaustion! Got back to Olivers and passed out fully clothed on the couch and left him and Maria to go frollick/get in trouble in the pool ;). I woke up about 2 hours later and felt like absolute death. I think the nap was a bad idea. They came back soon after I woke up and were like...what do you want to do? Honestly...I wanted to sleep for 24 hours but I had to be a good host and go out again for Maria's sake. I also wanted to spend time with Oliver before leaving so put my big girl pants on and went out. We were all starving since none of us ate much at brunch so went to Barasti which is a pretty chill beach bar that also served food at around 11pm. The music and atmosphere were great, perfect for a chill night out and we did lots of chair dancing. I didn't have the energy to get up and dance but they kept playing great songs...Maria said "I love this song" to no joke, every single song that came on. I finally told her she was only allowed one more because it was starting to lose its meaning, she was not happy with this. HA. The table next to us ended up being a bunch of ppl that work for my firm who are also seconded to the AD client...the UAE is far too small sometimes! We stayed til about 2:30am and then I said I had to go sleep!

Saturday I was competing in the Shape/Men's Fitness UAE fitness challenge (I told my boot camp instructor who chose the teams from boot camp that he shouldn't have picked a team full of drunks as most of us showed up in pretty rough shape!). I hit the pool for about an hour and then went and spent the rest of the afternoon over there. Liana, Maria and Oliver came to cheer me on...and Liana loved it cuz she could perv on all the buff men there!! There were four events and you could compete as an individual and do all 4 or as a team and do 1 each. We were entered as a team so thankfully I only had to do one event, burpees and it was last of the day. Having some recovery time was good. Matt was the male burpee guy and he was still drunk I think. Jill did a great job on the beep test..she went first and was also not feeling 100% so all things considering, she rocked. Keren did push ups and Nina squats. So I was talking to my judge before, he wanted to make sure I knew the rules...I told him I trained with Corey and he was like oh then you are good. Maria thought I was buttering him up to go easier on me...always thinking the worst!! The guy before me had done 35 and most of the guys in the first round were only in the high 30, low 40 range which surprised me and I figured I was gonna end somewhere in the 20's. 36 perfect form burpees baby!!!! Everyone said that my form was the best and I was one of the few not "cheating". I wish the judges were harder on the ones that were clearly not following the rules but oh well. The only slight issue was that my pants started falling down! I wear them all the time to bootcamp and they are fine so not sure what happened but it was super distracting and I had to stop and pull them up every few to make sure I wasn't flashing the entire ballroom my a**. It was also on carpet which was awful on my wrists...I prefer the sand even though they are harder. They never told us what the top scores were for each event which was annoying but I talked to my lane judge after (what else would you do after a fitness challenge than go to an open bar event?!?!) and he said I beat everyone that he was scoring so I felt good about that. I also beat the girl from the Dubai bootcamp team and thats all I really wanted to do.

We hung out for free drinks for a bit and then raced home as we were super late for yet another farewell dinner. Went to The Gramercy at the DIFC and the food was amazing. Bushy and his fiance came as they couldn't make brunch so was nice to say goodbye to them. After dinner Maria, Liana, Steve and I went to Prive in the Burj Khalifa for a final night of partying in Dubai. Maria really wanted to see it so I figured hey, why not party in it as well? Prive was really nice and the music was fabulous. Liana left pretty early as it was a school night and we had to say our final goodbye there. I will miss that girl so much but again, its not the end for us! Steve was a great sport putting up with us the rest of the night as we drank vodka, champagne and shot tequilla and danced our a**es off. It was probably the best night out I've ever had in Dubai (they usually end up bad for one reason or another!). The lights came on before we realized it was 3am and closing time. Sad.

Sunday we got up and Oliver gave us a lift back to Abu Dhabi since he was going to the office which worked out nicely for us. We had a full day planned for her last day which started off with 2 hours at the pool! It was the first day we actually got to chill at the pool together and I think she was happy to have company since the rest of the time I had to leave her solo and go to work. I was also losing my tan as the last few weekends were full of things other than laying by the pool and I didn't want to come home pale (and by pale I mean really dark but not as dark as I can be!!). Neither of us wanted to leave the pool but we had to get on with the day. We got ready, did our eye make up really nice as we were planning on wearing the full local garb at the Mosque so all you see is the eyes and then got in a cab. The first sign that it was not meant to be should have been when the cabbie didn't know where the Grand Mosque was. What? We were all..you know..the mosque...3rd largest in the world....you don't know where that is? Nope. So we got out and into the next one as I was in no mood to give him directions when he barely understood a word we were saying. The next guy did know where it was so we roll up and get out of the cab and were trying to figure out where the "Entrance" while the security guard gave us very disapproving looks. We were both in dresses (shoulders covered) but they were a bit short. I didn't think it mattered what we showed up in as they were going to make us wear local dress anyway. Well the security guard claims that on THAT DAY, a new rule was in force that girls in short dresses were not even allowed on the premises. I have no idea if that was bs or not but there went our chance to see the Mosque from the inside. We were like, can't you bring the abayas out here?? No go. It was all quite comical as it just figured we got ourselves banned from somewhere while Maria was there. Next up was shooting at the Officers Club which conveniently was right near the Mosque so it wasn't a wasted ride out there at least. They had no issue with the length of our dresses and got us ready to go. We sat through the safety briefing and then started shooting. I've never shot anything other than a bb gun (how do you spell that anyway) so it was quite an experience. I wasn't nearly as nervous as I thought..poor Maria was sweating! I went first and was more nervous about them all looking at me when I did it than anything. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to pull the trigger and I did quite well for my first time I think! Out of the first 10 rounds only 2 missed the target and a decent amount were in the black. He let us switch to better guns half way through and even though I liked the second better, I shot way better with the first. Maria shot better with the second and got 2 bulls eye. I conceded the win to her as she deserved it! We were planning on only shooting 50 rounds but ended up doing 100 as it was too much fun to stop. By the end we had a whole viewing room full of on lookers, although mostly 12 year old boys. HA! From here we hit the Souk so Maria could get souveniers for her family and I had never been so was nice to see it. It was nothing like the Souk in Doha...this one was like fancy souk...all indoors and more like a mall than anything. We finished right on time to get back so she could pack and we could do one last dinner before she left for the airport. Oliver came and met us at Rodeo grill and we all ordered the exact same thing (hey, when its good its good right?!) and then Oliver took her to the airport. It was really sad to say goodbye to her as we had such an amazing week. We haven't spent that much time together in 10 years and it was a much needed week for us and def. strengthened our friendship. I'll see her again very soon for her bday in NYC, then Miami, then Boston so I guess not all that sad...but still it was great having company for my last week.

I was supposed to go out in Abu Dhabi with some other girls that night but once she left around 10pm I just couldn't function. I went 8 straight days of go go go with very little sleep and just couldn't do it anymore. Plus Monday was my last day and I wanted to be in decent shape. I had a great night of sleep and then got up and started packing. I really didn't think everything was going to fit into my suitcases but after throwing away some shoes/clothes and giving away some stuff, it all fit. When I pulled out all my shoes there were 22 pairs and I thought I was in big trouble! I had to go by the office to have my visa cancelled and the girl took one look at it and goes uh oh. My visa was issued out of DIFC (a Dubai free zone) and she was like, you have to go to Dubai. Hmmm....how about NO. I said I asked you guys on Thursday morning what I needed to do before I left the country and you said just bring it by the office so thats what I did. She was like..can I ask why you can't go to Dubai right now? I was thinking well...I have to go to the pool, the gym, get my nails done and go to my final farewell dinner....Going to Dubai fit nowhere in those plans and she was not ruining my final day in AD!!! I just told her I needed to pack and they could figure something else out. The next suggestion was that I postpone my trip a day to have it done. Yeah, no. Also a terrible idea. In the end they said they would just cancel it when I left the country. Now why the h*ll was that not the FIRST suggestion? Instead of wasting money sending me to Dubai or having me change my flight, hotel, etc to stay another day. I wanted to say, this is exactly why I don't want to work here in the UAE but kept my mouth shut. I went to the pool for about an hour and a half for my final sun and saying goodbye to the beach club was pretty sad. I spent an absurd amount of time laying by the pool there and already miss it! I hit the gym next, then showered and hit Nails for a final mani/pedi before going to dinner. I picked Trader Vics as its a pretty upbeat atmosphere (and in my hotel!) and sat in the bar as a lot of ppl were passing by throughout the night to say the final final final goodbyes! My buddy Aki was trying to convince me to go to Sax but I had to veto that as I had to be up at 6:30 am. Stayed til about 11:30 and then went home to finish packing and get in bed.

My driver picked me up and took me to the airport which was nice so I didn't have to deal with a cab...he texted me as soon as he dropped me off to say that I was the best guest he ever had and that he was going to miss me a ton. Awww. My flight left on time but was not the best one ever. Business class on Etihad was FULL of obnoxious children, including one that cried for about 12 of the 14 hour flight. Ear plugs didn't work, nor did watching movies. (This is where I have to go from memory so I've sort of forgotten my frustration by now!!!). I got to JFK and had quite the time with my 5 suitcases as I had to collect them, go through Customs, re check them, and then do it all again when I got to DC! It was quite an arm workout for the day. I had a 5 hour layover in JFK which stinks but at least I was prepared. Well we get on the plane and then it was delay after delay (mechanical issues, weather, etc). After sitting on the runway for 3 hours, we finally took off for DC. After travelling for 25 hours, I finally made it home at about 1am (9am AD time) and was both exhausted, disgusting and starving. Sleeping in my own bed that first night was nice (because my bed is fabulous) but also sad to realize that it was truly over.

I'll go more into reflections in the next and final post so will end this here. It was a fabulous, exhausting, fun filled last week and I couldn't have asked for a better end!

The beginning of the end.....

It's Thursday and I'm blogging the first half off the week now for 2 reasons...1. there will be too much to write if I wait and 2. I won't have a computer. It's my last day at work here and feeling very strange that I wont be coming here ever again. After 8 months its become so familiar, I love what I do here and the group I work with and I'm going to miss it so much. I am taking away a ton of knowledge though so feel like I got out of this experience what I had hoped to (and much more!).

Okay fun stuff. I am exhausted and the best/worst of the week has yet to start! Maria being here has been awesome as we realized its actually been since last July when I saw her last and to have so much time to catch up has been great. Plus we've done some fun stuff and have more planned and I probably wouldn't have gotten around to a lot of it had she not come.

Sunday night I dragged her to bootcamp and I think she might have hated me slightly. It was her first full day in the UAE and she was not acclimated to the heat yet and Sunday ended up being one of the hotter days we've had so it was rough. She also hated the sand. However, she held her own and I was proud! Afterwards we hit Spinney's so she could stock up on some snacks since the only thing in my fridge ever is cheese and diet coke! We went home and got ready to go out for dinner which took forever since we were busy chatting and two chicks takes much longer than when its just me. We got to dinner pretty late (which has become the norm this week!) but it was all good. We went to Finz and I was telling her how its voted one of the most romanitc restaurants in AD and I've been there many times with girlfriends and co-workers....never with a date. Ha. We had some delicious food and wine and then hit up Trader Vics in the hotel for some of their lethal mai tais. Here Maria was first exposed to the obnoxiousness that is men in the UAE. This one guy introduced himself, told me way too much information in 2 minutes, then proceeded to tell us (Maria thinks it was aimed at her, I thought both of us) that we were essentially everything that is wrong with the world, blah blah blah blah blah Then he begged me to meet him at his hospital for coffee. How bout f-off?! We were home around 1ish as I was up half the night when she arrived and knew we had a big week.

Monday I went to work early as I was leaving early for our desert adventure and def. didn't want to get up when the alarm went off. I keep telling myself its just one more week to survive! I left work about 4 and went home for a quick change and then we left for the desert tour. It was amazing! We picked up 4 other Russian/Egyptian folks (2 couples) and headed off towards Al Ain which was like a 45 minute drive. It was soooooooooo hot when we left the hotel and I was a bit scared that it would be miserable but by the time we got to the desert it couldn't have been more perfect. The sand was cool, there was a breeze and the night was gorgeous. We started at a camel farm where we could go pet them. I wasn't quite sure what to do at first (do they bite?!) but we saw another girl all in there so went for it. No fingers lost! It was basically like petting a horse. So then we start taking photos and getting in close with them and I took my hair down (hers was already down). They LOVED our hair. It was hysterical. So we've got some funny pics of us being attacked by camels slobbering on us! After this we started the dune bashing. SO FUN! There were 3 vehicles in all and our driver was clearly the craziest....as were we so def egging him on. We spent about an hour doing this with 2 stops to take pics and watch the sunset. It was gorgeous. Maria and I were goofing around taking pics...running out into the dunes (which proved to be quite the work out!) and just enjoying where we were. The dune bashing the first 2 sets was a blast and we felt fine..by the 3rd I think we were all starting to feel a bit woozy so was glad when it ended. We stopped at a camp where we spent the next 2 or so hours. We did sand boarding (so fun and nothing broken!) and camel riding and then watched (and joined) the belly dancer and had a fabulous dinner. I felt kind of bad for the camel as the standing up/sitting down procses did not look easy or comfortable but then I also wasn't going to not do it so I just hoped it wasn't as bad as it looked! At the end they turned all the lights out and we just layed under the stars..a perfect end! It was nice as we were scheduled to get home at 11 but got home around 10:15 so had some time to unwind with a bottle of red before bed. I slept like an absolute baby, was wonderful. I've sort of let go of all the stress that I've had the last couple weeks and going with the, it will all work out mentality now and have not had one problem sleeping since Saturday night. So thankful as I'm not in bed for very long so if any of that time was spent trying to sleep I'd likely already be dead!

Tuesday was work and my final bootcamp session. Maria decided to pass, one was enough! It was a fun last class but I'm hurting now. We had to pair up for a bunch of stuff and as I was the odd woman out, ended up with the instructor. He def didn't take it easy on me and I'm hurting in some weird places. He also bruised my arms as he grabbed onto them so hard during this one thing and apparently thinks I have big hard manly arms. Note to self: don't do this again. Bootcamp has been one of my favorite things here and I am so sad its over. My body has changed and I love the results. I'm also in amazing shape, probably the best I've been in since high school. I'm hoping to find something as challenging and fun in Boston to keep this up! I went home pretty disgusting as it was hot again and we spent a lot of time on the ground in the sand and did a quick get ready as it was already kind of late and we had dinner/going out plans. I took her to Emirates Palace to Hakkasan which is an amazing Chinese restaurant. We didn't eat til around 11:30 which sucked as I was starving and hate eating that late, but the place we were going after wasn't going to get busy until after midnight anyway so it kind of worked out. Well all except for the Maria getting sick part. Dinner was good, my friend Anwar who has been dying to meet her came and they got on well. Afterward we hit up Etoiles (same hotel) for some drinks and dancing. It was ladies night so free drinks and Jill/Nisha met us there. It was a good time, did lots of dancing, but Maria started to feel sick pretty soon after dinner and ended up having a miserable 12 hours. She did her best to have a good time, especially when the hip hop was on, but I could tell she didn't feel great. We called it a night around 2:30 and I was in bed by 3:30 dreading my alarm going off!

Yesterday was work and then we did a Summer Nights kayak tour through the mangroves. It was awesome. We wanted to do the kayak tour on Sunday during day since we have one full day in AD together but they dont do it Sunday or Monday and then we found out about this night tour and jumped on it. We almost missed it, my fault, as my boss wasn't going to be in today so we were doing the goodbye thing at the end of the day. Traffic was awful and I was thinking there was no way we were going to make it. I literally jumped out of cab and started running to hotel when the traffic was clearly going to take longer than that, ran into room, changed with a quickness and ran back to cab stand. We were supposed to be there at 6:45 for the 7pm paddle and at 6:46 they were calling asking if we were coming. NOTHING in the UAE happens on time, but this week both the desert tour that I was rushing to and this both were spot on! So I'm like we're on our way, please wait for us....and thankfully I had printed off step by step directions cuz the cabbie had no idea where we were going and you couldn't see the launch point from the road. We made it with about 30 seconds to spare grabbed our paddles and life jackets and were ready to go. Some guy later asked if we were professionals..ha...I guess we looked natural on the kayaks and seeing that we showed up, grabbed our sh*t and asked no questions about what we were doing pointed him to this conclusion. The sun had basically set when we started but it was still light out for another 30 minutes or so. We paddled down the open water area for a bit before heading into the mangroves. It was fun to maneouver the sometimes very difficult areas and it was pitch black and you could just ear all the animals, etc making noise. Oh and this stupid British chick that I wished would tip over. She was soooooo loud and annoying and clearly hated what she was doing. DON'T SIGN UP TO KAYAK THEN!!! We eventually got way ahead of everyone and left the noise so that was nice. We had a great time and I think the night time tour was way better than the day would have been so it all worked out perfectly! It's been nice too as it stinks that I have to work but have actually been able to do a lot of the activiites she wanted to do with her since we can do some at night! She chills at pool or what not during day and then we do activities and go out....perfect for us both (well except that I have to work..would much rather be at pool with her as my tan is fading!!!!). We went home and did another quick change and set off for Yacht Club for dinner..its a great spot on the water, nice rest and it was ladies night so free drinks again. It would have been super cheap had I remembered my BOGO voucher but I always seem to forget them and didn't have the energy to go back up when we got in cab and I realized I forgot. I was starving at this point since it was already 10pm and just not in the mood to make the trip up. Laziness cost me about $30...agh well!

We sat outside...it was bordering on not tolerable but we managed and it was easier to talk out there anyway. We had a large amount of sparkling wine and talked about boys and love for 2 hours. I think we're going to have to cross that off the list of topics going forward since it produces nothing good! I had planned to take her to Sax since its great on Wed nights but she was just starting to feel better and I was struggling so we decided to make it an earlish night to be in better shape for this weekeend. I was in bed at 1am so managed more than 4 hours of sleep which was much needed.

We are headed to Yas later this afternoon to check in to our hotel for the night and then I plan to crash for a couple hours while Maria goes to some art event. She met with some people earlier in the week (work related) and ended up getting invited and it works out so I can chill for a bit. Doing a big dinner at Pearls & Caviar (she will have been to all the major hotels by the time she's done here..trying to show her as many diff places as possible!) and then back to Yas for my big AD farewell. Tomorrow we get up and stragith to Dubai for farewell brunch and should be pretty well shot by 8pm tomorrow. Ha.

Next post will be my last post of adventures.....I can't even believe it's almost over. So bittersweet.

Under the double digit mark....

Another week has come and gone and sadly this next one will be the last full one. Ugh I hate it. I was out to dinner with Liana and co on Friday and she started tearing up when people were asking what we were gonna do when I had to leave. I think its going to be another up and down kind of week, loads of fun events and Maria is here, but likely not much sleep and a lot of tears. Okay the last week I was a bit less of a loser….Liana kindly noted that I have become one after posting last week’s blog. I’m just trying to stay in shape, healthy and tan for my return and partying my a** off doesn’t fit in well with this plan.

Tuesday was a pretty frustrating day as my work laptop decided to stop working. I got the blue “screen of death” about 8 times before I realized it was doomed. I called IT and they essentially said they couldn’t fix it and to take it in to the office (my home office..right..how do you expect me to do that when I live in ABU DHABI?!) I figured they would fix it locally the next day so tried not to stress too much. Tuesday night I hit bootcamp for hell week arm day and it was so nice out (oddly enough, June has been cooler than May…or I’m just too used to the heat and the crazy work outs and neither both me much anymore!). I went home and was barely sweating, nice change though! I was able to sleep well again, score for 2 nights in a row!

Wednesday I dropped my laptop at office and then came to work. Got the fabulous news mid day that it was unfixable in the UAE. Awesome. Thankfully I’m going home soon but it has still made things a hell of a lot more challenging for me. I’m trying to sort out a move, where I want to live, etc etc etc and now have no laptop at home so am doing it all via blackberry. Very annoying. Also I have a ton of work stuff that I need to do before June 30th (our fiscal year end so a hard deadline for all this stuff) and if I get home on the 28th and have it fixed on the 29th that doesn’t give me much leeway. There are also a few things I need to do before the 30th so I emailed and HR and said HELP! They have yet to respond so I’m guessing they have no idea how to help me and I’m already getting hate emails about not doing what I need to be doing. I was feeling dead after work so skipped Circuit in favor of getting my nails done, eating candy and veggin out. After two crazy weeks of workouts, I figured I deserved it and I was able to get in bed pretty early and crash.

Surprisingly even after 3 decent nights of sleep I still felt like dying on Thursday. I think I’m just completely run down and stressed out and it sucks feeling that way. I didn’t bring my BC stuff so had to go home first and actually had 30 minutes to chill out before I went. I was laying in bed just wanting to sleep but dragged my a** up and to BC. It was a great workout and I’m really glad I went, it always makes me feel better. I was supposed to go get drinks with a girl from work but was just not in the mood so got in bed early and I’m glad as I knew the rest of the weekend would be long!

Friday I meant to get up and workout before brunch but decided against it after I woke up a million times in the morning from 4am onwards and resulted in not feeling that rested. I figured 3 workouts on hell week equates to 4 normal ones and while I’ve been trying to do 5…..I’ll take 4. Anyways….I got up and got ready and met Alice to head to brunch for her cousin’s birthday. I was sad to not be hitting the pool but I love Alice and she needed company plus we haven’t hung in awhile and she’s away this coming weekend so need to get in the time while I can. She had ordered a hotel car for 12:10..we went down about 12:14 and got in the car and OMG….it was like we walked into a sauna turned up as high as possible. We were both like holy sh*t!!! Turn the air on..whats wrong with you. His reasoning was that he was waiting for 40 minutes. 1. We booked the car for 12:10 and 2. Why are you sitting with no air on you lunatic! So then we get to Yas and Alice was so sure we were going to Crown Plaza so we go in and check the first brunch spot..no booking…so they are like there is another downstairs….this one had NO ONE in it..it was quite sad…I think the guy was very excited when we rolled up but then no booking there either. So then Alice is like, maybe I should check the email….yep, wrong hotel. Ha. So we walked to the right one and it was hot, but we survived. Brunch was excellent and I stuffed my face. I’ve been eating so good and healthy (ie: boring) so this was a nice break. Drank a load of sparkling wine as well.

Around 4 I left for Dubai, Alice couldn’t come with as she had to work..I wonder how many times I’ve written that in my blog. Alice, you should count..and then you should get a new job. Lol..jk…its just cuz you are so good at it. So got some crap news when I got in the cab (I’m not talking about it) which essentially had me bawling my eyes out the whole way to Dubai. My cabbie was very sweet and tried to console me, lol. So by the time I get to Dubai my head is killing me from drinking all afternoon and crying…Liana thought this could be fixed by drinking some more. Good lookin out girl! So we have a drink and then hit the mall near her place as I was in need of some new going out clothes. I hate shopping and the last time I forced myself to go try to find stuff, I found some great day stuff but no night stuff. Not this day! I walked into Bebe and 20 minutes later had 3 fab new dresses. I tried on a few others that looked nice but way too much color. I ended up with 2 black/whites and a grey…so typical Cristina! Because I love torture I looked them up online today and could have gotten them much cheaper in the states but I’m ignoring that and pretending I did well, ha. And now I have new stuff to wear for my last week..woohooo. Then we did a quick stop at the spa and walked back home. Liana has company visiting her…Bob…who we met back in March. He’s unfortunately kinda famous which made outings super annoying but Liana has been dealing with it for almost 2 weeks now so I really couldn’t complain about 2 days!!! We got ready and went to Ruth Chris for dinner and another of Liana’s friends and her 2 friends came too. They were mostly obnoxious about Bob being famous and I’m like can’t we just talk about normal stuff, leave the man alone! Dinner was phenomenal…I was in need of a good steak and you can’t go wrong with RC. Not too many ppl recognized him which was nice but the server made him sign a plate and I got a great pic of server, Bob, plate and Liana with her less than impressed face on (that’s even an understatement!). After dinner when I could barely move (note: I ate all afternoon at brunch..and then a massive dinner…I prob gained 10 lbs!) we went to the hip hop club in the same hotel. We had a nice VIP area which was good and I’m actually not sure anyone recognized him there so that was nice. We didn’t stay out too late….by 2am I was done and all agreed it had been enough. The music was good and had fun dancing but my head was throbbing at that point. When I went to bed it literally felt like I was laying on a brick instead of the pillow. I was thinking it must have just been a really sh*t pillow but then I realized there was nothing wrong with the pillow..it was my head! Bob hooked me up with some colorful pills the next morning…they def helped!

I woke up way too early on Saturday (this is usually Liana’s job!) and then couldn’t go back to sleep which was frustrating as h*ll. I knew I had a ton going on this next week and needed to be rested but my body is not doing a very good job of cooperating with me. Anyway..we hit JBR for breakfast and I was not even remotely hungry but felt like I should at least eat something so managed a half an omelet. Breakfast convo was…..interesting. Lol. Bob’s has lots of views on lots of things and often hard to follow. I adopted the just go with it mentality early on, I think that was a smart move. And then we decided to go have some good old childish fun at the waterpark!!! It’s been on my agenda for months but just didn’t ever get around to it. We didn’t get there til about 3 but it ended up being perfect as there weren’t many lines and the weather was perfect. Being at a waterpark with Bob was a riot. A ton of people recognized him and wanted photos..but even the ones that didn’t…he’s 6’4”, 350 pounds walking around in fairly small shorts. Liana and I were both like what is that?!?! Funny too..we went in to change and he did as well..we finished and come out and no Bob…so Liana gets the security guard to go in and rescue him from the mobs taking photos. The good thing about the waterpark was that for the most part when we were in the slide area, not too many people had waterproof cameras so couldn’t take pics!!! Bob was a big baby about all the slides.he was so scared, but he did them all with us and I think he had a great time. We also did this thing called the Rapids that is meant to be pretty tame..its essentially a lazy river with rapid like areas throwin in at regular intervals for a little fun. Well I failed rapids. Remind me NEVER to go white water rafting. I fell out of my tube twice, in the middle of the rapids, not fun. First time I half lost my bottoms, second time my top. I also have a nice scraped up hand from the bottom of the pool as I tried not to drown. It was pretty funny though cuz I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that couldn’t make it through the rapids in one piece. To be fair, it wasn’t my fault though. First time was Liana’s and second was some of Bob’s fans. After that I made sure that no one was in front or directly behind me when I went! After about 3 hours we had all had enough and Bob pulled a muscle in his leg goofing off in the lazy river so we called it a day. We got back to her place, said our goodbyes and I grabbed a cab back to Abu Dhabi.

Maria’s flight schedule got messed up due to strikes in France that affected a very small number of flights but hers was one. Instead of flying into AD at 10:30, she flew into Dubai at 11. I considered waiting for her so she wouldn’t have to cab solo but it was just going to be way too late. I got home, hit the coop for some essentials (ie: diet coke) and then organized, did laundry and passed out around 10. The sleep was a bit patchy until she arrived at 1:30 as there were lots of texts when she landed, when she got in cab, directions, etc. but at least I got some sleep. We stayed up til about 3:30 catching up and drinking wine…it was pretty surreal sitting on my balcony here talking to her in person!!! And then I got a few more hours of sleep before work. I don’t feel the best but don’t feel too bad either. I’m forcing her to come to boot camp with me tonight and then we’ll go out for dinner. I’ve informed the instructor to kick her b*tt for keeping me up!!!

Overall it was a good week, but I’m in such a weird place as the end is coming near and just not sure how I feel about it. A part of me is super excited to go home (although one of the big things is out of the equation so that sucks) but the other part is so sad to leave here. It’s like every day is a mixture of happy and sad and I hate feeling this way. I’m going to try to just make the most of the next 9 days and hopefully I will be at peace when I leave. Boston is stressing me out major too which is hard…trying to apartment hunt from afar, figure out movers, how much stuff I have..what I want to take, what I want to sell….when I’m going to find the time for any of it. I just want it all to magically fix itself….its possible right?!

We have loads of plans for week….Desert Tour tomorrow, Emirates Palace on Tuesday, Shooting on Wednesday, Farewell party in AD on Thursday, Farewell Brunch in Dubai on Friday, Fitness Challenge on Saturday, etc etc etc. Sucks I have to work but she will make good use of the days to see some stuff and chill out at the pool and then we’ll have the long weekend together so it will be fine. Next weeks blog should be jam packed and I might try to blog half way through to keep it readable. It will also mean my last blog will be #44 which is my favorite number so strategic as well. Ha.

A load of workouts and the beginning of the Farewells....

I’m late this week….sorry! I am officially under the two week mark and pretty stressed out. I have no idea how I’m getting all my stuff home, no idea where I’m moving to when I get home, or how I’m moving, or when. Lol. For a super planner like myself all this state of uncertainty is driving me crazy and has resulted in a severe lack of sleep the past few days so last night I just couldn’t write. I’m also feeling very torn emotionally…..half of me is dying to get home….the other half doesn’t want to leave. It’s a very weird place to be and I don’t like it! Oh and today my work computer decided to blow up. I got the blue screen of death about 8 times and was told by the Help desk that they can’t fix it. Awesome. So now I have to waste time going to the office to see if they can fix it as I have stuff I need to do on it! Okay…fun stuff….

Monday I hit beach yoga again and was sad to find out it was the last class since its getting too hot. Personally I think this is crap because bootcamp goes all summer and that’s a bit more strenuous than yoga! It was a pretty tough class since it was the last and a lot of the class had been coming for months. My arms certainly felt it the next day! I need to pick this back up regularly when I get home….it’s very relaxing, a good stretch and decent workout.

Tuesday was arm day at bootcamp which proved to be a problem since my arms were quite sore from yoga. Up until the last 2 weeks I never did any workouts on the days between bc for that reason exactly but I’m trying to push myself as hard as I can until I leave which means lots of soreness! It was really hot out on the beach..not a lot of breeze and I was a nasty sweaty mess. It’s bad when the sweat is dripping in your eyes and you can’t wipe it off cuz your shirt is full of sand!

Wednesday I did some cardio and then hit circuit class for the second time. The class cracks me up cuz the circuit part is great but the stuff between circuits that he makes us do is just weird. The ab part of the class is killer though…I’d like to think I have pretty strong abs and I could barely keep up! I went home had some dinner and then did some trip planning for Maria’s upcoming visit (in 4 DAYS!) and some bachelorette planning for Julie’s weekend in July. It’s going to be a fab 4 days and ideally we all survive it! Planning for it has been super fun though and its something I can do from afar which makes me feel like a useful bridesmaid.

Thursday we had a team away day at Yas Island again. We did this about a month ago and it was very useful to just get everyone away from their emails, phones, etc and focused on what I need them to focus on before I leave! We didn’t end up getting over there til 3 which sucked cuz we were doing lunch there and I was STARVING by then but I survived. We had also planned my farewell dinner for that night since it was the last Thursday we could all do it together but since we ate so late..when we went for dinner at 8pm no one was really hungry. So instead of eating we sat outside and had champagne (3 bottles for 3 of us) and sheesha. This plus no food made for one bad champagne headache/hangover the next morning!!! It was really nice to just relax with the team (it sounds so big..there are 3 of us!) and reflect on the whole experience. They also got me a really nice thank you gift…a silver Tiffany business card holder. I will try not to lose or ruin it since I have a habit of that! It was also my first day off the gym in 4 days and a much needed break since my body was hurting. I got home about 2am and passed out immediately.

Friday I woke up not feeling the best but at least I was able to sleep in. I went to Maya island with Jill (my bootcamp buddy) and her friends Neesha and Lia. They are all teachers from Canada. At Maya we met up with a bunch more that fit this description. As an American Tax person, I felt quite left out. HA! Essentially Maya island is a small island off the coast of AD with what appears to be a small resort and they throw this big pool party every Friday and it was free for ladies so we figured why not. It was fun for the day (and a nice change from laying out at the Rotana by myself!) but it was nothing really special. None of us were drinking (well I had a vodka to try to rid myself of the hangover!) but it was just kind of standing around in the pool talking. We only stayed a couple hours and then headed home to nap and prepare for a night out.

Its funny cuz Jill and I met last month at bc and clicked right away but just haven’t been able to connect outside of class as we both seem to be pretty busy. So today was Jill day and we all decided to hit 8. Oh also funny….it turns out she lives literally 2 buildings over from my old place…would have been nice to have met her 7 months ago!!!! I went home and did a nap and got ready and then went to her place for drinks. Neesha and Lia came over too and they entertained me with stories of other teachers, etc. Eight plays great music on Fridays so I was happy to go and it turned out about 4 other groups of people I know went so I was bouncing around all night talking to different people. Maybe the fact that I knew half the club is a sign its time to go??? My feet gave up around 3:30 and I went home and crashed. All in all..a great Friday!

Saturday I woke up feeling kind of blah from two booze fueled late nights but thankfully my only plans were to hit the pool! I got there around 2..had my usual club sandwich and fries delivered to help with recovery. I was laying there thinking, wth am I gonna do when I no longer have that in my life?!?!?! It’s going to be quite depressing so I better find some other fun things to do stat! I dragged my a** to the gym after the pool even though I wanted none of it…am trying to keep up with 5 days a week and this was #5. I ended up watching a movie so had a pretty good cardio workout and stayed a lot longer than I planned! I did a quick shower and then went to meet Alice at her place since we haven’t seen much of each other since Oman. We ordered room service in and had a nice little dinner and wine. I haven’t been doing naps on Saturdays so I sleep better but that ended up failing miserably. I got in bed at a decent time but didn’t fall asleep for hours. Not a good way to start the week.

Sunday I felt pretty dead all day and of course it was the start of boot camp hell week. The last time it was hell week I had red eyed in from London and gone straight to work so I was in about the same condition!! I ended up having a great workout anyway and figured sleep was going to come easy. Not so much. The last time I checked it was 4:10am. Talk about frustrating since I had been laying there for 6 hours at that point. When I woke up 3 hours later I wanted to die!!!

Somehow I made it through Monday although it was nice because we were doing a Treasury team “lunch”. We left the office at 2:30 and once I was away from my computer I felt a whole lot better. Went to an Indian restaurant..I wasn’t impressed but everyone else loved it. Thankfully I had eaten lunch at noon as I told them I can’t do this whole 3:30 lunch thing. I picked at a few things but its def not my scene. We went for drinks after which I decided was good as I sleep much better when I just pass out!!! I only had two martinis (watermelon, yum!) but went home around 7:30 feeling very relaxed. Got in bed at 8:30 and by 10:30 was out! YAY! A solid 9 hours was much needed.

Tonight is bc arms and then I’m hoping for another good night of sleep. Maria comes on Saturday and as it’s my last week, I’m pretty sure every night is going to be spent out so I need to be in tip top shape. I was feeling like I was getting sick yesterday but feel better today so hopefully it was just exhaustion and not actually getting sick. Gonna hit brunch with Alice on Friday and then head up to Dubai (she’s hoping to come..pending her work schedule) to see Liana! It sucks with her so close yet so far now. Was easier when she was just on holiday!!! We’re gonna do Dubai Friday night and then the Atlantis water park on Saturday so should be a good time. Then I will head back to AD and wait for Maria to arrive. And then next week is my last week. 8 months went by pretty d*mn fast although it also feels like I’ve lived here forever so it was enough time to really get settled. I’m trying not to think about the fact that I will not see these people again for a long time as it’s too sad. I have made some amazing friends here and not having them around will be a shock to my system!

Holy sh*t, it's June!

Can someone please tell me how it’s June already???? This year is flying by! I’m at the 3 week mark and unsure how to feel about it. On the one hand I’m really excited to go home as there are some people I miss like crazy…..but on the other, that means this adventure is over for good and makes me incredibly sad to think about. People keep asking me why I’m not staying, but this was never meant to be a permanent thing and I can honestly say that I will leave here after 8 months having gotten as much as humanly possible out of the experience and think that as much as I’ll miss it, that I’m ready to head home. And hey…its not going anywhere right???

Monday I was so tired all day cuz of sleeping so poorly on Sunday (trend for the week!). I took a night off from the gym, had a short call with my Mom and with Maria and then was asleep by 9:30 which was much needed.

Tuesday I felt a little more normal after a solid night of sleep. Hit BC after work and it was a rough workout! Usually the first "real" workout of the month is pretty easy for the recurring folks as he tries to show the new folks a lot of the basic things we do and the intensity is usually pretty low. Not this month. Not sure if he was trying to scare off the non serious folks since the class was so big or what but it was hardcore and I was a happy (boot)camper! Came home and did some much needed family catch up time! Talked to my brother, dad and mom…all in one night!!! My brother should be in Maine by now and my dad is headed back there soon. I can't wait to see my family in a few weeks! I saw my mom at X-mas but haven't seen my dad or brother since last July and we're way overdue. I slept like crap again which sucked but oh well…I don't know what my deal is lately, just can't sleep.

Wednesday I did yoga on the beach with Marisabel and it was awesome. I wish I had started this before. It's 6:30-8 so the first half hour you watch the sunset over the corniche and its gorgeous. I am terribly inflexible and have bad knees so have been told to do yoga…I started bikram before I came to AD but then slacked for 7 months. Anyway…was a pretty good workout, got some good stretching in and then left feeling very at peace. It would have been nice to go home and straight to bed but I had plans so couldn’t. Oh..Wednesday was also June 1st so my 7 month anniversary in AD. Crazy how fast the time has gone. Liana also came home from her latest travels to S. America so it was a big day. Liana came and picked me up at the BR and we went to Coopers for ladies night. This was my first time as its off island so I usually decline but Marisabel invited me so I accepted. She's from Boston so I've been getting pointers from her which is nice. The place was about 95% male and kind of annoying cuz people kept coming to talk to us and I just wanted to catch up with the girls. This one guy walked by and I guess heard me talking and was like…oh are you American. Yes why? So am I. Great, I guess that means we have to be friends right? I eventually got myself out of that but left Liana hanging with him and his friend. Ha, sorry girl. So then Liana is talking to this other guy and starts going down this very long path of Liana stories in which she has multiple ex-husbands, is in her late 30's, etc etc. It's so funny to watch guys buy this crap….especially when she tells them things like, the reason she gets married so much is that she just loves weddings and honeymoons. And the voice she does it in is so ditzy. It's great entertainment for me. Since it was ladies night we just boozed for free..and had about 10 diff ppl offer to buy us drinks..hahhahaha..oh yes, you are all so original seeing that they are free. We left around 1, I figured I don't sleep anyways so what does it matter if I'm out?!

Thursday I woke up insanely exhausted from the week and perpetual lack of sleep. I struggled at work….the clock just wasn't cooperating!!! Thursday BC is usually 2 sessions of just running and 2 actual workouts. Corey told us on Tuesday that it would be running so I decided to skip it and was just gonna go home early and run on my own in the air conditioning so didn't bring my stuff. Well then my friend Jill ending up going to the am session and Corey had lied…it was an actual workout so then I felt compelled to go even though I felt like dying. I got out early enough to get home and changed and then made my way over to the beach. I was glad I want, but even more glad to get home and in bed. I was out by 11:30 and slept til 11:30 the next morning…amazing!

Friday I woke up feeling refreshed and decided to hit the gym before the pool since it's so hot…2-5 is plenty of time at the pool. I had a great 4 mile run followed by some abs. Had a delicious omelet and then hit the pool for a few hours. I was laying there thinking, what on earth am I going to do when I leave and I can't do this every weekend???? It's going to be pretty depressing. I tried to take a short nap but more just laid there until it was time to get ready for date night with Liana. We hit Left Bank for dinner which was delicious and Liana had me cracking up….like I'm going to break the table because I keep slapping it with my hand cracking up. Her stories from S. America and Dubai are great. Oh..so at one point the server comes over and goes….some guy wants to buy you drinks..and we're like who? And he's pointing over to where the "real" tables are (we were more sitting in the bar) and we don't see anyone but were like..well whatever, we were going to get more drinks anyway so bring them on. Well then guy comes over and in not great English starts talking to us and I think he invited us over to where him and his friends were sitting. To this we declined. If you wanted to send us a drink, thanks, but we have no intention of talking to you (wow that sounds b*tchy huh?)….but I mean we were on a date..leave us alone. Lol. So then the server was like, do you want more drinks and we're like..umm..yes…and he says well they did a take back. Ha. A first for everything right? Then when we were leaving he tried to talk to us again! No thanks buddy. We went next door to Eight and got there fairly early but didn't want to sit at Left Bank anymore and the music was fab. Liana and I haven't had a night out in prob a month since she's been travelling so much. We had some other friends show up that I hadn't seen in awhile so that was nice as well. I drank a tad too much and by about 2am was done. Liana tried to claim that this was the 3rd time I'd ever been drunker than her but then she didn't remember some stuff that I did so I think I win! I just knew when I had had enough and glad that I put the brakes on when I did! There was this one guy she was eying at the bar all night who was solo and would walk around and show interest but would never talk to her so when we were getting in the cab he was outside and she started yelling something at him over and over….I cannot for the life of me remember and neither can she which is super annoying because it was hysterical. Liana stayed the night with me since she is now homeless in Abu Dhabi (she officially moved to Dubai the night before) and had me up wayyyy toooo early. This is typical of her.

When I knew I was not going to last trying to stay asleep with her around I figured I'd wake up and it was like 9am…def not enough sleep for me and my head was throbbing. She had to go meet a friend for breakfast though so I passed back out when she left and slept til about 1. Hit the pool….had a delicious club sandwich and fries (excellent hangover food) and baked for a couple hours. Hit the coop for some groceries and then went and had my nails done. I was going to attempt the gym but still felt pretty crappy and had been the last 4 days so decided against it. It was my best friends bridal shower back at home and I was super sad that I couldn't be there so I did some bachelorette party planning instead! I got in bed nice and early and then laid there for hours again. I haven't had this much trouble sleeping in months. Of course the longer I lay there, the more frustrated I get and then I am no closer to sleep than I was. Terrible cycle.

Yesterday went by super fast at work which was nice…I'm down to 14 days and lots of loose ends to tie up before I go. Hit BC after work and it was rough as we didn't do the beach….did most of the workout in the parking lot and it was so humid with no breeze. We did beep tests to start and I was the last girl standing so was proud of that although I don't think I did as good as I could have had it not been 1,000 deg. By the end of the workout I was DRENCHED in sweat. It looked like I had taken a shower. I suppose that’s how its going to be for the rest of the month so I mine as well get used to it. Got in bed early again and slept poorly yet again. Last time I looked at clock it was 2. And then I woke up at 6! Agghh. I am exhausted again. Hitting beach yoga after work and hoping that I can relax and go straight home and to bed as I hate feeling like a zombie.

So last week wasn't super exciting after reading that…lol…but I'm much more focused on getting in shape right now so unfortunately there isn't much to read about. This week will be more of the same and no real plans for this weekend. Liana is in Dubai and has a visitor coming so I prob wont see her although Alice will be back (she hit the desert last weekend with some other folks) so I'm sure there will be something going on. Ohhh..and Maria will be here in less than 2 weeks which is very exciting. I should prob spend part of this weekend started to pack as I don't even know if I have enough space for everything and if I'm shipping stuff home I want it done sooner rather than later since I'm moving when I get home.

Random but curious!

So I was just checking my blog stats...I didn't even know how to do this until fairly recently, and my blog gets checked by a pretty large range of countries. The US and UAE I get, these are likely people I know who are following my trip. But for all those of you reading this that do not know me.....who are you and are you enjoying the blog? I feel like it would be really boring to anyone who doesn't know me but I know I can't know all of you who are following!

Leave some comments...I'm curious!!!

A bit of paradise, Oman style!

Happy Memorial Day to all those in the US. You all are at the end of a long weekend and I’m almost half way through my work week! I would normally spend Memorial Day weekend in Ocean City, MD but have to say, Oman kicked it’s a** even though I only had two days!

I’m down to the 4 week mark and feeling like it’s going to fly by. In some ways I’m really excited, in others I’m sad that this journey is coming to an end. I just returned from my last weekend trip and it was probably the perfect end. I have now done five countries in five months and feeling like while there was much more I would have liked to have seen, I’m happy with what I’ve gotten to do given the political unrest in this part of the world and the fact that I can’t take time off.
The past week was my first week off from boot camp in 2 months and it was a nice break. I got to leave work around 6 everyday instead of waiting around to go to boot camp at 7. Got a few good workouts in at my hotel gym and let my body rest some. A recap:

Monday I was conned (no, not really) into attending Monday Club. Monday Club is something I may have mentioned months ago but that I never actually attended. Liana told me about it right after we met, Katie used to go, Alice as well, but for whatever reason I just never made it to one. It hasn’t really been anything since January but one of the guys who usually organized was back in town from Singapore for one night so we all agreed to dinner/drinks at Sax (I used to spend many Wednesday nights here..hadn’t been since my birthday!). I was able to sneak in an hour nap after work so figured I could handle one night out during the week and Alice and I both agreed we were not staying out late so it wasn’t so bad. We did dinner at Cho Gao which is right down the street from my old hotel. Had some delicious vegetable tempura and pad thai. Last time they refused to switch the peanuts for cashews even though everything else on the menu had cashews in it but I got someone sane this time who said it was not a problem! Dinner provided for some interesting conversation in which this one guy that was with us apparently full on made out with another guy the weekend before when they were trying to convince two girls to kiss. These guys are straight which is why it was disturbing. First off, girls don’t want to see that. Secondly, don’t be so proudly touting that especially here! Anyways..we went to Sax after and I had always been told that Sax on a Monday was really good although I had only ever been on Wednesdays and thought they were pretty fab. The music at the beginning wasn’t great but def started to pick up right around the time Alice and I decided to leave. I’m glad we did, as I heard the night went downhill fast and the ones that stayed woke up feeling pretty poorly. I was home and asleep around the time I would have if I had stayed in anyway.

I woke up not feeling the best on Tuesday…..had way too much wine the night before but got through work and then went home and hit the gym. It’s def. hard to motivate myself to go (why I like boot camp so much, I just do it!) but I went and had a fab workout. I was gonna do a spin class but the girl that was gonna maybe join me decided not to and I am not a huge fan of spinning so just did a bike on my own and then ran 4 miles. I know last week I was excited that 3 was easy, but 4 seemed even easier and it felt great. My goal is to do a 10K (or 6.4) before I leave. I think the max I’ve ever run is an 8K (5ish miles). Went home and watched My Best Friends Girl and had a nice healthy chicken caesar from room service.

Wednesday there was a circuit class at the gym which I thought might be good…I hit the gym first to warm up on the elliptical and then joined the class. It was….interesting. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be coming from boot camp but I think that’s because at BC, we prob do a max 40 minutes of exercise, just at a very high intensity, whereas circuit was a full hour of nonstop. I was the only new person and the instructor knew I wasn’t a newbie to the gym (he guessed body pumper…I said used to do that..now a boot camper) and then he pushed me pretty hard. When we went outside to run sprints on the roof, all the other chicks had these well..chick weights that slide nicely on their hands and weighed nothing. When I went to grab them he was like, I don’t think so boot camp. So then he made me sprint with 2.5KG (5.5lbs) plates in each hand. Good times. The only part of the class I wasn’t a big fan of was the umm….how to describe…goofiness he threw in between circuit sets…so we’d do 2 or 3 stations and then the whole class would meet in the middle and do some form of jumping around like fools. It reminded me of the class Liana and I did a few months back where I was doubled over in the back laughing because I couldn’t take it seriously. Thankfully Liana wasn’t with me and I just tried to pretend like we didn’t all look like complete fools. Also, my hand eye coordination sucks. So most of the time I was just staring at him trying to figure out what he was doing. Anyways..I was sore the next day so it was good. After gym I did some laundry, had dinner (does popcorn and cheese count as dinner?), and then packed for Oman. Oh..and watched The Bachelor, the movie. There are an infinite amount of dumb movies on here and I end up watching a lot of them as I have nothing else to do.

Thursday seemed to take FOREVER to arrive. It was just one of those really slow weeks. Alice and I were supposed to be going to this shoe/bag trunk show at the Fairmont prior to heading to the airport as she got the invite from someone she worked with but I didn’t get out of work in time so she went and I went home to finish packing. It worked out because she said the sale was “rubbish” so I just picked her up in a cab and we went to the airport. Her friend Niamh was flying in from London and then turning around and going straight to Oman with us (she is a trooper!) so we met up with her at the airport. Funny when we got to Terminal 1 (the crappy terminal), the line to go through initial security (before you even check in) was huge in the economy line and no one was in the business side so we just pulled the, roll up like we own the place, method and it worked beautifully. I mean really..you haven’t checked in yet, how can you even prove that we aren’t flying business or first? We looked the part so that saved us a ton of time. Alice has some special card that gets her lounge access anywhere (oh…side note…I checked my HSBC card and it gets me lounge access at about 10 random airports around the world….Abu Dhabi is not one….Bahrain and Doha however are….too bad my trips to those places ended months ago!). Anyways….she was able to get us all in so we had free dinner and wine and just chilled before our flight. Flight was quick and easy. People kept asking why we didn’t drive. Well let’s weigh the options. Drive 4-5 hours to a place none of us are familiar with, deal with border crossing, one of us would have to drive and therefore not enjoy, it would take forever, oh and we’d have to drive back which you know no one wants to do after a weekend. Or we could fly….get to the airport an hour early, sit in a lounge and eat and drink for free, fly 40 minutes, breeze through immigration and take a 15 minute taxi to hotel. Yeah, stop asking why we didn’t drive! Oh so on the plane they were serving these sandwich things and I was tired and wanted to take a nap but stayed awake to find out what it was. Well, we have chicken and mushrooms or mushrooms, yeah no thanks. Why not? I don’t like mushrooms. Well we have chicken…and mushrooms….yeah, still has mushrooms in it. Then I had to attempt sleep with my head on the tray because the guy behind me was playing bowling or something else obnoxious on the tv that was in the back of my headrest. Why the h*ll do they have games on these screens that are certain to piss off the passenger in that seat?!?! Anyways..got to Muscat, got our bags, breezed through immigration (well that’s a lie..it took a while…the immigration guy was trying to get my phone number, ha!), and then got a cab. The cabs in Oman are much nicer than Abu Dhabi and we were to the hotel in 15 minutes.

It was fairly late when we got in..probably 11:30pm but they gave us some cool cloths and some drink concoction and had us sit while they did what they needed to check us in. We had two rooms as they wouldn’t allow 3 of us in one room and it would be hard to hide at a place like this! Alice and Niamh had one and I had the other. So we noticed two things when we got there. It was insanely quiet….like we felt bad talking quiet. And hot. Disgustingly hot. Away from the water it was much hotter than Abu Dhabi, but by the water with a breeze it was a bit cooler I think. Anyway…we start following the guy to our rooms which were two doors down from each other and see plenty of people sitting around outside but it was just still so quiet. We figured people hated us for talking. They upgraded us for free because Alice is a smooth talker so that was nice. The hotel was very subdued, the rooms were quite bland, but very nice and the beds were super comfy. They went straight to bed, I went out and had a glass of water on one of the many patio type places at the resort (everything looks the same…I got lost a lot!) and it was so peaceful. Me, my wine and the stars, was super nice. Breakfast was included in our rooms and only served til 10:30am so we decided to go at 10ish…I set my alarm to get up and go to the gym but when it went off, I figured I came here to relax, that would be going against my plans and skipped it the whole weekend (although I did at least set the alarm for both mornings and then made the decision to can it!!).

We went down to the pool to secure chairs in a good spot and then hit breakfast. The buffet was great and you could order other stuff off the menu. I did something super crazy and had an egg white omelette…ha..jk…this is so typical me. Breakfast was also when we started to realize we were probably the only single folks at this place. Anyway…we hit the pool about 11am and the pool boys were great to get our stuff all set up and bring us waters (it was much needed……even by the water was still really hot). I bought a new John Grisham book at the airport and that kept me occupied most of the weekend (I finished it about 5pm on Saturday!) It was funny with the three of us as I’m by far the brownest and spent the entire weekend in the sun, Alice can handle some sun but tried to keep her face in the shade, and poor Niamh is anti sun. She was barely in it at all and ended up with very burned feet and various other random places. Splotchy is a good description and a word we used a lot over the weekend. So after laying there for about an hour Niamh (who remember has come all the way from London for a weekend away) thinks she recognizes someone she works with. We are at this small boutique hotel in Oman and sure enough, it’s her. Then we go sit at the food area by the pool and within 10 minutes sees someone else she used to work with. It was crazy. She said if she saw one more person she was going home but thankfully that didn’t happen! We were slightly annoyed on Friday as due to religious reasons you couldn’t drink until after 2pm. I don’t get rules like that…is there really a difference between noon and 2? Or anytime and 2? If you allow drinking, just allow it. Thankfully this was just a Friday rule and it was 1:30 when we figured it out! We had a nice light lunch, got some drinks and then returned to doing nothing for another couple hours. We all had booked spa packages, Niamh was first at 3:30 and then Alice and I followed at 5pm. 5pm was perfect as I was done with the sun, got a shower in and hit the spa. Alice and I were in the same room as they could only accommodate us both at that time if we did it together and we didn’t care. We did 2 separate packages so were joking that there was no way I was going to have my Ocean type massage music since hers was something different…it all worked out just fine though. Mine was the longest package possible..3 hours and it was amazing. The Ocean bath was a bit boring and super hot, especially since I had just left the pool about an hour before. Next up was a full body scrub (not so nice on my burned back and chest, but otherwise great!). I was quite surprised when she asked if she could do my chest and I assumed she meant my chest where I was burned but nope, she meant everything. Ha. No one in this part of the world has come close to even exposing my chest during massages so I was pretty surprised, but hey, I’m up for whatever. And I told the girls after..the three hours with my therapist was the most action I’ve gotten in three months!!! Yes yes, TMI, but it was funny. After the scrub was a seaweed wrap….I wasn’t actually wrapped in seaweed, it was more of a seaweed scrub and then I was wrapped up in all these towels and blankets to keep the heat in. I laid like that for 30 minutes and my body was on fire. She had me shower after that and the reflection in the mirror almost made me bust out laughing. Alice was face up but with her eyes covered, or else she prob would have laughed as well. After I was as soft as could possibly be, I had a very nice long massage and was quite sad when the whole thing was over!!!

After spa I hit their room for some champagne and snacks (my stomach was growling during most of the spa time!) and we chatted a bunch while taking our sweet time getting ready. Although getting ready essentially involved drinking champagne and throwing on my dress and tying my hair up so it was mostly drinking! Oh forgot….on the plane ride over they were kind enough to introduce me to Curly Wurly’s which were a childhood candy for them. It was delicious but I ended up with flakes all over me…clearly I don’t know the correct way to eat it! They also had me try Pimm’s which Naimh had picked up at duty free on the way over. We were late to dinner but was no biggie since our table wasn’t ready anyways since we requested one by the window…thankfully we only had to wait like 5 minutes as we were all pretty hungry. Had some champagne cocktails and a delicious meal (lobster risotto, salad, coconut sorbet, YUM!). We could all barely move when we were finished but it was well worth it. I had another glass of wine under the stars and was in bed by midnight. Oh also funny…the first night, when I checked in they had the decorative pillows on the bed…but one sort of looked like a regular pillow just definitely not in a pillow case so I slept with that the first night. After the spa I happened to walk in while they were doing turn down service and were putting 4 nice normal pillows on my bed….oops! They had been in the closet area the night before but I didn’t even realize…Alice proceeded to make fun of me greatly. The other thing about the turn down service…pretty sure they stole my favorite earrings that I wear everyday. This is now the second pair of Tiffany earrings I have “lost”. The first time was last summer when I went to Maine, I managed to lose one. I got a new pair for X-mas and now have lost the full set so I still have one out of four. Both pairs were gifts from my ex…maybe a sign? I wonder if I buy them myself if I’ll lose those too. Very frustrating but nothing I can do about it. I hope the wife or girlfriend enjoys them (both turndown folks were men).

Saturday morning I got up to my alarm again and immediately re-set it with just enough time for breakfast and then we did a repeat of day 1. Breakfast, beach/pool, lunch, more beach pool. Just no spa this day! I finished my book at about 5pm and then went back to our suite to get ready to go. Oh yeah…so we asked for late checkout til 6 since our flight wasn’t until 8:15…there were people checking into our rooms but they gave us a suite for the day instead and moved all our stuff for us. Fabulous place!! We took off for the airport right around 6 and had tons of time to kill when we got there. The Muscat airport was much larger than I thought and not sure why as no one was there! We went through about 8 security checks and then I saw something amazing…..a Dairy Queen sign!!!! Two things I really miss from the US are Chipotle and DQ Blizzards so you can imagine how elated I was to realize I could have a blizzard for dinner. I introduced Alice and Niamh to a bit of my child (I mean adult) hood and Niamh and I had blizzards for dinner. Alice had real food but did try some of ours as they screwed up our order and gave Niamh 2 (one with Oreo and one with Butterfinger) instead of 1 with both. I was a bit bummed they didn’t have Reece’s since that is my favorite but settled for snickers and Butterfinger. Then we went to Duty free and shopped for perfume. I’ve been wanting to get new perfume for ages but anytime I go to look/smell, I get a headache after about 2 minutes and give up. I persevered and found one I loved and also got my nephew something cuz I’m such a fab Auntie! Flight was easy, I tried to sleep but couldn’t but we were back at home by 10pm which was great so I could get in bed at a normal hour.

It was sad to go back to work yesterday but I also felt like we had a really long weekend. Funny when we landed Saturday night I couldn’t really remember getting on the plane Thursday night which was 48 hours earlier! I love when weekends feel like that. Was the first night back at bootcamp so stayed a bit late at work, went over there and got ready for the fitness assessment. The class was HUGE. 46 ppl. It’s the most they’ve ever had and it’s June….makes absolutely no sense! I figured it would be those of us who are addicted already but not soooo many newbies. Anyways…I was hoping to hit the 7 minute mile mark and came close…7:12. 17 seconds better than last month so I was happy with that. It was hot so I’m sure that doesn’t help. We did everything else and I beat all my prior month scores (some considerably) except for the plank. I did 3 min first month, 3:29 last month and 3:02 yesterday. I pushed it much more on the squats/push ups so my body was pretty dead by the time I got to the plank. So of course we finished about 30 minutes late and I had somewhere to be. I was meeting Alice and the girls to see The Hangover 2 at a sweet movie theatre in the Marina Mall. I had to go home from BC (which was close to the mall already!), run in, quick shower, change, throw hair up and head back down to get cab. Thankfully I made it back and only missed the previews and…in the Gold Class theatre which we bought tickets for, you can order food and they bring it to you..plus you get these big comfy leather recliners. Not sure how I’ll ever watch a movie normally again! The movie was good….the other 3 liked it better than 1…I think I liked 1 better only because 2 was fairly predictable after seeing 1 yet still very funny and it didn’t seem like too much was edited for showing here. How’s this for bizarre? Its PG-15 here in the UAE….and R in the states. Pretty sure it should be R.

I got home about 12:15 and figured I’d pass out since I had been running around all night. No such luck. The last time I looked at my phone it was 3:30. I was sooooo frustrated by that point knowing I was going to get 3.5 hours sleep max. My mind just wouldn’t stop last night as much as I tried. I’m exhausted today and pretty glad Oliver cancelled our steak date. He’s headed to the US on Thursday to find out if he made partner or not (pretty sure he did) so we were gonna do an early celebration dinner before he left (and I haven’t had steak in about a month) but now I’m gonna go home, order room service, call Maria who I have flaked on two weeks in a row and go to bed early. Ideally asleep by 9:30. We shall see!

5 weeks and counting.....

The title of the blog was 6 weeks and counting but that was when I started jotting down things..now we’re at 5 weeks and since I’m posting today…5 weeks it is!

Another glorious weekend has come and gone and this one was the most relaxing one I’ve had probably since last year. It was much needed as I’ve just been feeling over Abu Dhabi, exhausted from my social life, etc. I know I know…wah wah wah you are all thinking. Ha. But when every night of every week involves some type of activity, it gets really tiring. I’m feeling much better today, re -energized and ready to take on the last 5 weeks. I was also starting to really miss home but have decided to just get over that since there isn’t anything I can do about it. Okay..this week wasn’t terribly exciting as I started saying no but here goes:

Monday was the last night my boss was in town (or at least the last night I had to be available). We had dinner with my old client at the Hilton and it was a nice change of pace since I’d never been to any of the restaurants there before. It was me and 6 guys, I’m pretty sure I only get invited to these things to mix it up. Ha. Oliver was in a foul mood so he sat at the end of the table and didn’t say anything. I was in no mood to be there but put on a smile as that’s just what you have to sometimes. Client dinners always take FOREVER so it was a little past 10 when we got back to Beach Rotana. Dean of course wanted to go get a drink and since I knew Oliver didn’t want to be around just him, I stayed but switched to water. There was clearly tension between the two of them so that made it kind of awkward (doesn’t this sound like my guests from a few weeks back?!?!) but I managed to keep them talking which became the third degree about my love life. The three of us sitting there talking was quite funny actually. I’m the youngest, divorced and in no hurry to get married again (or have kids, if ever) although am in an annoying situation relationship wise and hence the 3rd degree from them. Anyways…that’s far too long of a story for this blog. Dean is divorced, hates his ex-wife and is having issues with his kids. Oliver is never married and feeling stressed about meeting “the one” and having kids soon as he doesn’t think “the one” exists and he’ll have to settle just so he’s not an old Dad. It was a pretty depressing conversation. Lol. Oh..and then I was like Dean..what am I doing next month. We’ve agreed on moving to Boston..but have yet to agree on what I’ll be doing for work and its driving me crazy. He said I’d know within 30 days……sooooo helpful. At least when I got home and got in bed I fell asleep quickly!

Tuesday I just felt completely run down and had no energy for boot camp but went anyway. It’s the one hour of my day that I just forget everything that’s bothering me and usually wake up once we start. It was great for clearing my head, but it was certainly not my best workout. It was the first time I considered not completing some of the tasks. When I got home I had a call with my Coach and unfortunately, can’t divulge the outcome of it just yet but it was certainly better for my mood which the boys trashed the night before! Pearl Harbor was on and I of course started watching that and at 12:30 forced myself to shut it off since it’s a long a** movie and I just couldn’t stay up any longer. I never get more than 6 or 7 hours of sleep (all my own fault) and even this past weekend when I tried, I couldn’t sleep!

Wednesday was great. It was the first day in a long time that I just said I was going to leave work and do absolutely nothing. Granted it was only an evening but to have no other job work, no calls, no dinners, no bootcamp, no nothing was glorious. One of my friends was like..what are you doing…me…nothing. Oh..you want to come to dinner with us. No…I am making a conscious effort to do nothing thank you! Alice came by after a mini shopping trip to show me her new purchases but that and watching Invictus was about all I accomplished. Invictus was great. I had heard from a bunch of rugby players that they didn’t love it..and I can see if you are super into rugby that you wouldn’t, but not caring all that much about rugby I thought it was a solid movie! Oh…I also talked to my mom (she doesn’t count as a “call”) and got to talk to Dylan too. As soon as he knew it was me and he wanted to talk and talk he did for a good 15 minutes! He is so sweet and I miss him so much. I told him I’ve been buying him stuff on my travels and he goes…”You’re awesome Auntie Tina”. Melt my heart. We talked about Maine and all the accidents he’s had (as well as any my mom has had and the dog, ha!). Also got the scoop on my sister who is getting married this weekend. Long story, but yes, she is getting married this weekend and I’m keeping my mouth shut on the matter. I wanted to be asleep by 10pm since I was going to bootcamp the next morning but of course that doesn’t happen so 5:15am came pretty fast and I was really contemplating the extra 2 hours of sleep.

Thursday was a long day. I got my a** up and went to bootcamp. It was HOT. It was the first morning session I did for the month and what a difference. By 7:30 at night, the sun has gone down and there is sometimes a breeze on the beach. At 6am the sun is shining and there is nothing even resembling a breeze. I was sweating so much it was dripping in my eyes and I couldn’t see..and of course I couldn’t wipe it off with my shirt cuz that was covered with sand. It was a great last session of the month but I finished a big sweaty disgusting mess. I ended up in the beach shower fully clothed and the cab driver was beyind thrilled that I soaked his cab. Sorry buddy. I gave him a good tip and did sit on the floor mat which made it a little better. Went home, got ready and then to work which I was hoping would be a shorter day since a lot of ppl leave earlier on Thursday. No such luck. I was still here at 6:45 and watching my nap time slip away! I managed to get like 20 minutes in before reception called to ask if I was okay….umm..yes I’m fine why? Well ma’am, your DND sign is on. Oh yeah……then leave me the f*** alone. Seriously what is wrong with people? She was like, its been up for 4 days..um no….it was up for 3 but Wednesday I let them clean AND had them bring me room service. Clearly I am alive and well and just don’t want you to bother me, but thank you for waking me up 20 minutes early when I’m tired. So I got ready and then went to meet Alice so we could head over to Yas. One of the girls she works with had 2 friends from London in town so a bunch of us went to Kazu, a Japanese restaurant at the Yas Hotel and ate at the teppenyaki tables. The meal was amazing. Prawn tempura, chicken/fillet teppanyaki with fried rice and veggies, topped off with tempura ice cream. I was in heaven….and insanely full! After this we went up to Skylite (the rooftop bar) and had a few drinks there but it was soooo hot and sticky. It was pretty dead (prob because its outside) and it was getting late although it seemed really early and not sure why. At about 12:30 Alice and I left the gang and went to Rush which is also in the hotel. Alice didn’t get to go with me the last time and wanted to check it out. Another girl, Sophie was meeting us and my new boot camp buddy Jill was supposed to as well although as it turns out, she took a nap Thursday after work and didn’t wake up til 4am. Oops! We had a good time, music was great again and a bunch of my other friends showed up so that was nice. Ohh…and Liana missed out big time. It was full of US NBA players who are here for 2 weeks or something and there are never tall black men here (her favorite!). She would have been in absolute heaven. Alice and I were joking that it would have been hysterical to watch her try to pick which one she liked best since there are never even tall people around, let alone numerous ones, who also play professional sports (another of her soft spots!). Agh well…she is in the Galapagos Islands which I’m sure is better. By 3 or so my feet were killing me so I went home, sucks that Yas is so far away when you just want to get home and in bed but I had no plans on Friday so didn’t mind too much.

Both Alice and Jill invited me to different brunch’s on Friday but I decided that I didn’t want to spend the day indoors drinking all day (has anyone counted the number of responsible things I’ve done this week? I think this is 3 or 4!). Instead I slept in, ordered room service and hit the pool around 2pm. It’s so hot in the afternoon and the sun stays til at least 4 so going at 2 is not a big deal. It was very close to almost too hot to tolerate hot but I persevered for the sake of my tan! Around 4 when the sun went down and the breeze started it was amazing. I passed out for a good hour and woke up all disoriented. Lol. Went back to my room and took a nap and then woke up and tried to decide whether I should see what people were doing, stay sleeping, or get up but chill out. I was pretty hungry so decided to get up and chill out for a bit but stay in. I actually ordered a proper meal from room service and tried to find a good movie to watch. Of course there was crap on so I watched American Idol instead and called my grams. She was very happy to hear from me and I know she’s not doing great right now so was glad I could help brighten her day. Alice and I were bbming and joking that we were both doing the exact same thing, 2 floors apart. It was great to just chill though. I got in bed around midnight and was quite excited for a full night of sleep but then of course couldn’t sleep. After hours of tossing and turning I finally managed to pass out.

Saturday I got up around 11 and hit the gym so I wouldn’t have to deal with it after hours at the pool when I very likely wouldn’t have gone! Had a great workout and then hit the pool. Go out a bit earlier then the day before and I’m pretty sure it was hotter. Plus I had just been at the gym and even though I took a cool shower, my body was still all pumped up so I was just dripping sweat (yummy huh?!). Alice came and met me about 30 minutes later and I ordered one of my favorite club sandwiches for lunch. I also decided that having every weekend at a beach resort is pretty much like a mini vacation. What am I gonna do when someone doesn’t bring me food pool side???? Because it’s been so hot, you kind of have to get in the pool ever 20-30 minutes although the pool was pretty hot, as was the shower. Last weekend it was chilled, not so much this weekend. We hit the pool swim up bar for a frozen margarita but called it a day at 1 since we’re both trying to be good (I swear this is like #6 or 7….who am I?!). Left around 4:45 after a quick nap and hit the coop with Alice. We were both totally inappropriately dressed and got lots of looks. I had a sweater on since my beach dress is completely open in the front..unfort. the sweater is also open in the front so it was either wear it backwards or walk around with it held shut. Was a bit annoying but at least I didn’t get thrown in jail! We decided as we were checking out that for being such responsible career women….we are like children when it comes to home life. Neither of us had purchased anything that could even begin to resemble a meal or an attempt at cooking. My usual is: nuts, cheese, cereal, diet coke, gum, chup chups w/gum (like a blow pop). I do normally buy turkey slices but they didn’t have any normal stuff (and by normal I mean American brands). I changed and then hit the mall so I could get a mani/pedi even though I really wanted a nap. They didn’t have room for 45 minutes so I walked around the mall…got a new workout top (since I ruined most of mine in the wash…at boot camp its been a non issue since we have t shirts we have to wear but if I’m at the gym all week, I need clothes!), found a cute day dress and then went to my appt. Some of the bball players were in the sports store..the employees were amazed that anyone could be that tall (cuz everyone here is so short!). Went home and had some dinner (part of the meal that I ordered the night before that was way too big for me) and watched some tv before hitting the sack. Of course I was exhausted, didn’t take a nap, and still slept like crap. I’ve just been tossing and turning for hours…I guess its cuz I have a lot on my mind but getting very frustrating. I eventually fell asleep at some point only to wake up to the call to prayer at 4:13am. Why does anyone need to pray this early?!?!

And now its Sunday again! No boot camp for the first time in 2 months (they are taking a week off between last session and next as the owner is on vaca) which is partly sad because I love it but partly good because 3 days a week I end up sitting at work for longer than I need to since there is no point in going home first. I hit the Rotana gym instead and got a good cardio workout. I ran on the treadmill for the first time in 2 months (well other than 2 or 3 1 mile cool downs) and a 3 mile run after spending the last 2 months running on the sand was like running on air! I have never been a runner, I just do it because it helps me lose weight, but it was amazingly easy tonight and I felt fit!!! Boot camp has been awesome, it never really gets easier since its always changing and I can def see a difference after two months. My body is pretty hard, especially my abs and legs. My arms are def more toned and my butt is getting bigger. I started noticing that a couple weeks ago when my pants weren’t quite as comfortable. Either my shoulders or back are also getting bigger since my suit coats don’t fit as well…that part I’m not terribly happy about, but I don’t think I look bulky or weird either so I guess it’s all for the best. I plan to spend this week doing cardio and abs since we do so much leg/arm work at bc and I’ll be back to that next Sunday.

This week should be fairly quiet….Alice has convinced me to go out tomorrow night for Monday Club which hasn’t happened in ages since people have moved away, etc, but one of the founding members (I believe) is in town from Singapore for one day and wants to revive it. I figured I can handle one night out right?!?! And then Thursday we head to Oman after work. The place we’re staying at looks amazing and its about 10 deg cooler so it will be a nice break from the AD heat. We plan to go snorkeling and do a dolphin watching trip so that should be really fun. It will be nice to take one last trip as well…and will mark country #5 this year (not including the US!). I’m also glad to be getting away from AD and having another peaceful weekend with the girls. Gotta save up some energy as I know my last couple weeks here will likely be full of activities and Maria comes so it will be jam packed.