This week’s blog will not be that entertaining. It was not a great week for me and I considered pretending like it didn’t exist but I did manage to have some fun and will get yelled at if I don’t write about it so here goes (update, I have already gotten a request as to where the blog is while I was writing, so predictable :p ).
I mentioned in last week’s post that I was feeling really tired and needing naps. This week has only gotten worse, along with my sleeping which is a bad combo. I was awake to hear the 5am call to prayer all but one morning in the past week and it’s getting pretty annoying. I manage to fall asleep pretty easily (likely because I’m exhausted from the night before!) but then wake up around 4am and just lay there, mind racing.. Not sure how long my body can deal with this but I can’t seem to do anything about it. I try to just relax and force myself back to sleep but the longer I lay there, the more irritated I get, and the vicious cycle continues! I’m working out a ton so I feel like I should be sleeping better but it’s not working. At the gym last night I actually started to lose my vision in the middle of Pump class which was pretty weird and not sure if somehow related to my severe lack of sleep or something else going on. Anyways..that’s all crap so let’s move on to more interesting things.
Sunday I did Pump and am doing it pretty consistently 2x per week now. In DC I only did it with Tanya on Saturday’s cuz of timing but it’s offered every day here and very easy to find times that work out.
Monday I hit Rodeo Grill with Oliver for my first steak in over two months. It was delicious and nice to catch up with Oliver which we’ve managed to do twice in two weeks, very proud of us!
Tuesday I went to my gym and then had a phone date with a friend’s brother who lives in Boston. Was nice because he has lived in DC, NYC and Boston all in the last 5 years so was able to give some good insight into the options that are open to me, where to live in Boston, how much things cost, etc etc etc. Only bad news was that I went to start searching the areas he told me I would want to live in and I’ve decided that I’m just going to be poor for the next few years. The breakup was a terrible idea financially, ha.
Wednesday I was feeling particularly dead so I went home and took a 30 minute nap before forcing myself to get up and go do something with myself. I really considered sleeping all night but wasn’t sure that would happen and wanted to get a workout in. I compromised with myself and just did a 30 minute swim instead of a full on workout. Talked to my mom for a bit and then had a phone date with Carla who I haven’t talked to since X-mas. Was good to get the scoop on her crazy life and fill her in on mine.
By Thursday I was completely exhausted, had a constant headache and was looking forward to a very chill night. Liana and I did Pump and I decided it was time to up the weights on everything since my body was getting used to it otherwise. Biceps was the worst….but I survived and it was good to feel sore again on Friday morning. So Liana and I were originally going to go to Level for a drink or two, very chill evening, no getting ready and just what I needed. However, her new friend from last week’s boat party texted to say they were getting a table at Etoiles and did we want to come. Hmmm…..what to do?! I figured we def weren’t going out Friday night so mine as well go for it, plus I was feeling fairly awake after the workout. So went home, ate, actually got ready (hair and all!) and went to Level first since they weren’t going to Etoiles until 12:30 and if I sat around til then I def. would have been asleep. Level was nice to just chill out and bs and I tried to ignore the throbbing in my head from being so tired. We got to watch this really drunk, uncoordinated girl make an a** of herself for quite some time so that was great. Someone should tell people that get that drunk that they should just sit down and stay seated! So Sophie says she’s going to come kidnap us around midnight and at that point we were getting bored so it worked out. We went down to wait for them and encountered a very very very drunk man. He just walked up to Liana and I, stopped in his tracks, started swaying and then mumbling incoherent things to Liana. I couldn’t even tell you if it was English, it was that hard to understand. So she is just staring back at him while I laugh and watch this go down. It took us actually moving away from him to end the stare off. I was really hoping he was just going to fall on his face but that might have been one more drink in.
So Sophie came with one of her friends and they had clearly been doing their share of drinking! Oh, and I was the shortest one of the group, with 4 inch heels on. My friends at home are mostly short so it’s very different to hang with the girls here as I’m almost always the shortest! Anyway…so we get to Etoiles and it’s still fairly dead at 12:30 but had a big table area and started drinking. Sophie kept getting in trouble for climbing up on the cage but just continued to do it again as soon as the bouncer would walk away. Lol. One time when she came down she came down right on my foot so I have a nice bruise/boot imprint thing going on. She eventually got booted for good although none of us really knew why. I think she’ll be a fabulous new fun person to hang with and seems to know the AD party scene pretty well! The music at first was house although decent enough to move to but then they changed it to hip hop and I was toast. My legs were so sore from squats/lunges at pump but I was having way too much fun. The pictures are atrocious but great fun to look at the day after. I have so many bruises on my legs from running into various tables as well! So Etoiles used to only be open til 3:30am but I guess now is open til 4:00am. I hadn’t even bothered to check the time as I was in the zone so when the lights came on we were like oh wow..okay. So we go outside and it’s a zoo, everyone trying to leave and get cabs and cars at the same time. This one weird guy walked up to me and was like, “Do you have a car?”, “No, do you”, “Yeah, you want a ride home”, “Ummm…Absolutely not!”. So I move away from him cuz he was just kind of staring at me being creepy and then I could see him kind of hovering behind me for awhile until his car showed up to which he reminded me he had a car and did I want to go with him. Yeah the answer is still no. Then this other guy who happens to be from Dallas comes to introduce himself (I think he was with Maine girl who we saw outside the club but hadn’t noticed inside!) and he’s all…..you have to give me your number so we can hang out…you from the states..blah blah blah. Yes I am, and by no means does that require me to hang out with you just because you are too. So after hassling me for like 15 minutes, including following me to the bathroom, I finally get a cab and head home…stop at a stop light and look over..he’s in the car next to me yelling my name. The cab driver was like….ummm…I said ignore him, he’s a weirdo. I rolled in about 5am and couldn’t wait for my bed (Yes, the call to prayer on this night was my own fault!).
Friday I didn’t sleep as late as I wanted to because I was supposed to go meet Alice at the Beach club for the day. Turns out she didn’t leave the office until 8am that morning (after a 24 hour day) so I figured she would be out for a bit and went to my pool instead and figured I’d nap later. It was hot as crap again….no nap at pool but I did finish a great John Grisham book I was reading (The Street Lawyer…all about DC and it’s always nice to get what they’re talking about !). I went up around 3 and napped til 6 which was really nice. We had decided on dinner instead so I went to meet her at her place around 8, had some wine and chilled out while she was on a conference call and then walked over to Pregos. Prego is my favorite place for tomatoes/buff mozz but being off cheese, this was a no go. On that note, I’m 28 days cheese free…3 more to go! Am down 2.5 pounds from where I’ve been stuck for quite some time so very excited. 2.5 more and I’ll be where I’ve wanted to be for like 5 years. Yay for AD and getting tan and in shape. Only issue, my pants don’t fit great anymore. Anyways….I figured I’d have the risotto dish I had there last time that was excellent until I looked on the menu and realized it’s a four cheese risotto…d*mn!!!! So I ended up with grilled prawns and soup and it was fabulous (the no cheese thing is certainly forcing me to make all around healthier choices). I was home by 11ish and glad go climb in bed…caught about half of Coach Carter (I’m assuming that’s the name of the movie..pretty good!) and called it a night.
Saturday I hit my pool again as Liana was exhausted from her weekend and needed a nap (we were gonna pool at her gym). The day was really weird…super hazy, but a lot cooler than Friday and a relief for me. With no book left I tried to nap some and I think succeeded at least for 10 minutes at a time which at this point, I’ll take what I can get! We went to the gym around 5pm and I was finally able to see the ridiculous photos from Thursday night, that’s my favorite thing about the day after a crazy night, checking the camera and in this case I had to wait an extra day which was torture! Had a good workout, hit the nail joint for mani/pedi and then headed home. I was planning on being a bum but she asked if I wanted to do dinner with her and a friend from the states that she knew in Doha who happened to be in AD seeing friends (are you lost yet?!). The opportunity for wine (of which I’m out of) was enough to tip me over the edge and I was really glad I went. Liana couldn’t remember where she was from but it turns out she has lived in Boston the last 5 years…score for a new friend! It also turns out that she went to high school with my dorm neighbor (who was also a good friend) from NYU! Crazy small world sometimes. It also turns out she’s headed to Doha on Wednesday for the weekend and we are headed over on Thursday and think we’re all on the same flight back!
I am very excited about heading to Doha for the weekend and seeing Liana’s old stomping grounds. Because she is awesome, she has gotten us hooked up with a free suite at the W for the weekend, everything paid for. The GM called her personally to make sure she was taken care of and then had some customer service guy call to verify our flight plans so they could pick us up at the airport. He asked if she had any requests….a chilled bottle of champagne waiting in the room of course! As luck would have it, there is a huge Corona sponsored volleyball tournament going on over the weekend so we’ll be going to that. We had set up a pretty good itinerary (including actually going to a museum, the Souk and doing a Brunch) but that has all gone out the window as we’ll likely be at the beach for the tournament. Fine by me. Who needs plans anyway?! I’m very excited for our second stop on the Middle East tour (even if its slightly delayed!).
Also in the works is a Beirut trip for May with the girls. We’re trying to get Katie to come from London, Liana/Alice/Maria/me from AD and one of Alice’s friends from London so should be a great time. Only bummer is that Sky Bar which Beirut is known for doesn’t open until June and we’d be going end of May. Oh well, there are plenty of other places to see (and we did the Sky Bar experience here in Abu Dhabi for Formula 1).
Let’s see…..what else….yesterday was Pump again and I’m feeling the increased weights today…also ran a mile beforehand which was great as I was much looser. Sometimes we don’t have time when we go from work to get there in time for some cardio beforehand and that’s always a crappier workout since we put the cardio on the back end. Tonight we’re skipping the gym and hitting the mall as we both need some new stuff and never take the time to actually go shopping. Seems like such a waste of the beautiful weekend days to be indoors but at this point, I need some new stuff, need to replace my sunglasses and camera, etc.
Oh.the other fun thing we implemented this week was flag status. So a lot of the ppl we’ve met over here have these crazy BBM display names including all these flags and faces and random stuff. I started playing with it last week and figured out how to do it so put an American flag on mine. Then we decided the flags would be based on men. Liana is constantly juggling loads of them so to keep up with who is her top choice at the moment, I check her bbm status. I think it’s informative and highly educational and love watching them change (as it happens quite often!). When this first started, one of her old guys started bbming her immediately asking why she had a Portugal flag up. She came up with some bs about wanting to do a sky diving course there…and then the next day the flag was Afghanistan and he was like umm, okay now what. Ha. We’ve decided he must have an alert set up to notify him when she has done anything to change her status.
One more thing, Liana and I were asked 3 times in the last week if we were sisters. The first two times we were in sunglasses so kind of laughed it off (her eyes are brown, mine are blue), but the last time we were not. We've started polling ppl since then and most are in agreement we do look like sisters. She can be my sister any day :)
I think that’s it…not a terribly exciting week mostly cuz I was exhausted but still lots of fun fit in. Ideally more fun in next week’s blog when we return from Doha.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
A Birthday Week to Remember!
Warning: LONG POST!
Well….I made it to 28 and am still alive to write about it today, I’d call that a successful week!!! It was a great week of birthday festivities and I’m sad to see it end although there will be many more adventures to be had so not too worried about it! Not like I need a birthday as an excuse to have fun!
Sunday was Pump and then a chill night. Monday was my gym and another chill night.
Tuesday was my birthday! Yay, Happy 28 to me! Ha. It was an overall great day
other than having to work! March 15th happens to be a huge federal tax deadline in the US so normally I am working a gazillion hours up to and sometimes through my birthday so being here and not having to deal with traditional busy season was a pretty big gift in itself. I did get to deal with getting extensions out for my client here but it was pretty simple and stress free so I was happy to help. I got to work and almost immediately got a gorgeous bouquet of flowers from my Mom and Dylan. They made a great centerpiece for our cube area and smelled amazing as well. Oh wait..must back up…first….I came in to work, walked around the corner to my desk and started laughing. There was orange silly string sprayed everywhere as well as a beautifully wrapped present with bow and card awaiting me. I figured it was Liana but didn’t see her at her desk. She eventually came over from the kitchen with a telling grin. She got me a fab gift….a heart rate monitor watch so I actually know how hard I’m working out and so we can compete…lol. I’m thinking it could be a positive, if I do work out as hard as I think…or it could be depressing when I find out I’m a huge slacker everyday!!! Of course when I went to pump on Thursday I forgot it so its making its debut tonight. Okay so then flowers….lots of Happy Birthday’s etc. A few of us went to Jones for lunch, sat outside and had my favorite chicken Caesar salad and then Sergio, the manager who knows us pretty well, brought me out an amazing cake. So sweet. Then came back to office and we all got called in for a meeting, which was cupcakes for my bday. They were tiny and delicious and thankfully I was only forced to eat one! Finished out the day and then went home for a quick nap (I was exhausted all last week, not sure what’s wrong with me but I’m run down). So I power napped for 30 minutes or so even though I wanted to go to gym due to the sweets I was forced to eat, but I had been the prior 4 days and was tired and it was my birthday so said screw it and napped. Liana walked over and then we both walked to the Le Royal for dinner at Oceans. Alice, Phil and Bushy (no not his name but his nickname) met us there and we had a delicious dinner and lots of bubby. So when the bill came, Bushy suggests credit card roulette (he might not have seen the bill at this point….3600dhs or about 1,000 USD). He won/lost. Poor guy..but took it like a champ and paid up. Thank you Bushy!!! Then we went over to Sax which is the club next door as they started doing karaoke on Tuesday nights and I’ve been wanting to check it out. There weren’t a whole lot of people there and the singing wasn’t great but we made the best of it. There were so many songs in other languages that kind of sucked for us. Anwar came and met us at this point so there were 3 guys/3 girls. We decided we would pick a song for them and they would pick one for us. I NEVER sing, EVER but somehow got conned into this. So we pick Barbie Girl for them, they pick something and Liana and Phil go to put in our requests. As it turned out, they picked the exact same song for us. What are the odds of that happening?!?! Liana compromised and they sang Girls Just Wanna Have Fun instead and we sang Barbie Girl. And by we, I mean Liana and I. Alice, the most Barbie doll looking one decided to play chicken and sit and watch. See if I invite her to my bday again….just kidding Alice, you know I love you anyway! Was funny on the parts with Ken/Barbie cuz Liana played Ken and I Barbie. I don’t think anyone in the crowd was pleased with our performance but it was funny and at least I did it. The worst part was trying to read the screen as instead of having a nice blue backdrop with white words, it was like a moving city backdrop and I could barely read the words (and no, I don’t know the song by heart either!!!). Liana also rapped Eminem and did a fantastic job keeping up. I was impressed. We stayed out til about 1 and all decided for a Tuesday, we were gonna call it a night. Smart choice as I was pretty tired on Wednesday although not hungover so that was a plus.
Wednesday got through work and then went home for another power nap (yes, I’m getting old). The original plan months ago was to do a dinner at Cipriani on Yas Island and then go out to Allure for ladies night. Allure is only open W-F which is why we did a second dinner. Or because I’m awesome, either way! So after Alice reserved everything, she got a call that a private party had booked the entire restaurant for the night but that there was a small Japanese restaurant we could go to (the normal one is Italian which is my favorite). I guess it worked out since I’m off cheese for the month and it would have been very difficult to do Italian with no cheese. BTW..I’m 20 days in and going strong!!!! So we drove out to Yas, had a very good dinner, albeit very very very slow. For the no customers in the very small space, you’d think it would have been easy to get things. Oh..Liana and I ordered Saki cocktails that came out literally like small shots. We were like…umm…this is $25?!?! Hers looked like a urine sample. At least mine was pink!!! There was also this girl “working” as the hostess or piece of furniture, not sure which. She was the most airheaded spaced out girl I’ve encountered in some time but gave us all a good laugh. So then we find out that not only have these b*stards taken over the restaurant, they have also reserved the club (all owned by same person) until 1 am. Well we finished around 11:30 and were not going to wait around. Liana was like let’s just pull the usual, walk up like we own the place and see if we can get in. Okay cool. Well in the meantime the waiter sees us going upstairs and is like, umm..there is a private party, you can’t go up there but let me check and see if I can get you in. Bad idea. Liana and Alice had already started rolling up and as figured, their plan worked. Nobody checked a thing. I went in right behind them but at this point the waiter was up there talking to security about getting us in and saw us and pointed us out. So without him we would have been golden. Anyway…we went in, walked around, found a place outside and lasted about 5 minutes before security found us and asked us to leave. It was a National Geographic party..ha. We like animals too! I didn’t even get a chance to do a mock NG cover with my animal of choice. BOOO. I kindly let all the bouncers know they RUINED my birthday…lol. The good part was that I was home and in bed at 12:30 and didn’t feel like death on Thursday! Oh also, one of the super sweet Emirati girls that works in our group came over right when I got to work and dropped a Tiffany bag on my desk. I was like ummm…..I’m not sure I can accept this but then didn’t want to make her feel bad. She got me a really nice, totally me necklace (I’m wearing it today!).
Thursday was another Pump class to work off all the food from T/W and then I was a total bum. Went to the grocery store to pick up a few things and was asleep by 11pm. Our plans for the weekend had been a million different things that kept getting changed for various reasons but we finally settled on something a bit spontaneous, going to an African themed birthday party of a friend of a girl Liana met 2 weekends ago on Bahraini island (no not Bahrain, this was an island off the coast of Abu Dhabi). So we got up early and went down to the fish market where the boat was leaving from (our dumba**es walked THRU the fish market….and people ask me why I don’t eat fish!). So Liana’s friend Sophie is not there but we eventually see people dressed up that clearly were going to this party so found our way to the boat as more and more people showed up. Still no Sophie. People were all, how come we’ve never see you ladies before…ummm…because we don’t know any of you, lol. Finally Sophie said she was on her way but at this point we figured screw it, we were going for it, everyone seemed pretty nice! We ended up on the first boat over sans Sophie and the ride was quite interesting. We got stopped by 3 separate Coast Guard boats (you know in case we picked ppl up in the water between point A and B) although at this point the water was still fairly calm. And then we got out in the main body of water and that all changed. We were in the front with 4 others….all of us ended up completely drenched as wave after very large wave slammed into us. It was quite comical although not totally enjoyable. It hurt to sit down yesterday from where I was bruised (I was worried about the sky dive harness but alas, I was fine!). So we FINALLY get to island like 90 minutes later and it’s just one big island full of sand. Perfect spot to set up a party! The other boat was a bit behind us with the speakers/grill but we set up what we could and started boozing and making friends. Oh…..and the bathroom experience. Ha. I should probably keep this to myself but what the h*ll. So almost everyone had to pee once we got there and I am not a big fan of going in the water. So this one girl literally jumped off boat and ran (she had to go bad!) and then came back and was like, okay bathroom is over that sand dune. So I walk back there and cop a squat and it was hysterical….just sitting there looking in every direction at sand. Lol. I felt like I was in the middle of the desert. The other boat eventually shows and they’ve got generator powered speakers (they were very prepared), got the grill going and the booze kept flowing. Booze, mixed with sun, mixed with some special Brazilian vodka/coconut drink resulted in a very drunk Cristina/Liana combo. I met a Russian girl who I danced with for at least an hour. Lots of spins and twirls. In the sand. Drunk. I’m sure this did nothing to help! We had a blast though. OHHHHHH…..and….I met a girl from MAINE! So I’m usually one of the only Americans and for awhile was…then this girl rolls up and I hear her say she’s from Maine and I’m thinking, okay I know I’ve been drinking but what did she just say. Yep. Small freaking world. We were on a little island with 30 people and 2 of us are from Maine. So we of course became instant friends since lets get real, most ppl from Maine never leave Maine let alone end up at an African island party in Abu Dhabi! HA!
So around 5pm the boats were headed back…Liana and I got on the same boat but she was on one side of the front laying down and I on the other with 3 others smooshed (anyone know how to spell this word btw?!) between us. I was under my towel the whole time to stay as dry as possible and when we docked and I popped out, she was so excited to see me. Apparently she thought I was on the other boat or she had lost me. Lol. We laughed a ton and then went home smashed..it was about 7pm. Liana goes..how bout this…lets go home, get cleaned up, and then go out….to which I immediately vetoed and said the only place I’m going is to bed! I did manage to make a stop in the shower and had yet to realize how much sun I had gotten. Was out cold by 8pm and then woke up at midnight hot and hurting. It was hangover time and then I realized how sunburned part of me was (mostly face, ears, upper back) and my body was hurting from the boat. At this point I’m thinking oh wow, this is great shape to be considering sky diving tomorrow! Thankfully I went back to sleep a few hours later (once I woke up I was doomed…Liana and I were both up blackberrying each other!) and then woke up at 9am feeling like a new person. My sunburn had mostly faded to tan and I even went up to the pool for a quick sunbathe before we were off to Dubai. We were excited about what a cheap day it was…about $28 each, until I realized that I broke my camera and ruined my Burberry sunglasses and Liana lost her phone. It just became a very expensive day. Not as bummed about camera as I needed a new one anyway but I loved the sunglasses. I had the case, not sure why I didn’t just put them in the case instead of what it looks like I did….and crushed them in the sand for quite some time.
Our jump was scheduled for 3pm so we left around 12:30 to make sure we had plenty of time. Got to Dubai around 1:30 and sat on the JBR for a coffee/hot choc as the nervousness started to set in. I was looking at all the delicious treats at Starbucks thinking I should probably eat the tastiest looking as it might be my last shot. Ha. I was good though. So around 2 we headed over to the drop zone and met up with Sergio and Dolly. Sergio turned 30 on March 5th and had been wanting to sky dive so when he found out we were, he decided to join. Him and I were the two virgins. Oh..and he calls me Caesar Salad Girl cuz that’s what I order every time Liana and I go to Jones so he got me a fab book about salads. He said he tried to find the history of caeser salad but couldn’t. I think the replacement is perfect..there are sooooo many delicious looking salads and he said I can pick a few and he’ll put them on the menu at the restaurant. Sweet! Unfortunately they can’t be named after me but at least I’ll know. HA! Dolly is Liana’s friend from Doha who has been in Dubai for a couple weeks (I met her at brunch last week) and she jumped once in Australia but 8 years ago so we decided she was essentially a born again. Liana was on her 3rd jump so def the resident expert! We got there right as a whole group were landing so that was kind of cool to see. I was surprised at how small the parachutes seemed. Somehow sitting at the actual site was more calming than Starbucks. Oh and on the radio on the way over we heard Gone and some other song like…last day of your life….I was like CHANGE THIS SH*T!!! So we all go check in around 2:45 (as we were told come 15 mins early), filled out some forms signing our lives away and then were told it would be about a 2 hour wait. WHAT?! Turns out it was more like 3. We’re sort of watching the sun fade, have totally lost excitement and now are all just starting to get angry (and by all I mostly mean me). Ha. I was like it’s going to be dark and the pictures are going to be sh*t and its cold and blah blah blah. At that point none of us were really scared anymore as we just wanted to get the show on the road so maybe they do that on purpose?! When it was finally our time to go get suited up we all rallied and tried to look alive. I got a great instructor and videographer/photographer. Each jumper has their own picture person that jumps with them which is pretty awesome. I now have a great DVD and CD full of pics. Both were Brazilian and nice guys who I felt comfortable with so that was a plus. Liana got the one she had been eyeing for the past 3 hours (wonder if that was coincidence?!). Sergio was probably the only uncomfortable one as he wasn’t super thrilled to have a dude strapped to his back. So we’re goofin off and trying to get everyone excited (they had all been jumping all day and were def tired) and then finally go to get on plane. There were the 4 of us from our group and then a bunch of guys jumping solo. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me on the plane so that was fun. And then I started looking outside. There is actually a great frame from the DVD at the moment happy birthday stopped and I looked outside….sheer terror on my face. HA!!! So the instructor is telling me what to do when I jump and I’m shaking I’m so nervous. Hold on….let me reverse….so when we’re getting suited up, I’m all being tough girl Cristina going…can we do some back flips? I was a gymnast…I can do it. This was meant to be a joke. Note: Do not tell your sky diving instructor this as a joke. He will not believe it’s a joke. So he’s like, when you jump, you need to throw your legs and head back immediately. Got it. So we jump and my legs immediately go forward and bam..the back flips start straight out of plane and I’m thinking OMG!!!!!! I MESSED IT UP!!! I didn’t put my legs back. Well now looking back at the way we exited the plane vs everyone else, he meant for this to happen, I really had no choice!!! After the 2nd or 3rd flip I got my bearings enough to get into the correct position at which point it finally set in that I was flying! It was so incredible and surprisingly unscary once we were in the air. Getting out of the plane was the hard part as you are looking down going what is wrong with me and can I actually do this?!?!?!? I asked my instructor what happens if someone gets up and doesn’t want to jump..he said it depends on if they are stronger than him or not. Got it. I didn’t think I’d be okay with the jump until the chute was pulled but I was actually fine. It was much more fun without the chute!!! However, once we pulled it there was that sense of, oh good, I won’t die today and then we started to play around with directions and spins and we even suspended in the air for a few seconds. They let you work the chute which was pretty cool. The view of Dubai and the Palm as the sun was setting was pretty awesome. I would like to do it again during the day but this time of night was actually quite nice and the pictures did come out so I’m happy. Apparently Liana’s photographer was stoned so her pics are not as good but there will def be a next time. She wants to take the course this year to get her license to jump solo. I have a few friends coming over (2 in April, 1 in June) that now all want to go so I think I’ll be making a few more jumps and totally happy with that. It was a very cool experience and I’m glad I had the balls to do it. By the time we got down and all calmed down, it was pretty dark and we waited for our videos. We were meant to go to the Hilton for dinner and a drink (we really wanted a drink prior to but you can’t have alcohol in your system for the 12 hours prior..and you certainly wouldn’t want to do this hungover!) so we just drove home. It was a pretty quiet ride home as the 10 days prior had been full of bday events and we were both exhausted.
I got home, loaded pics, watched the DVD a bunch of times and reflected on a great week. This adventure for me has certainly been full of firsts and I’m loving all (well almost all) of them. This week should be pretty quiet….lots of gym and hopefully getting over feeling so tired. I haven’t had a steak or any other red meat in over 2 months so I’m thinking maybe its time. Or maybe the lack of cheese?! Anyway…the next big trip is looking like Doha in 2 weeks so Liana can show me her old stomping ground. We were meant to go in January but then we went on a Bahrain run for a bit so it’s finally time. Ohhh…and…..remember Mr. Sapp from last weeks entry, he just booked a fight in London the first week of May and Liana is working on getting us flown out there for it. We can see Katie and I’ve never been to London so def. excited.
I apologize if you are asleep by now..that was a long one!
Well….I made it to 28 and am still alive to write about it today, I’d call that a successful week!!! It was a great week of birthday festivities and I’m sad to see it end although there will be many more adventures to be had so not too worried about it! Not like I need a birthday as an excuse to have fun!
Sunday was Pump and then a chill night. Monday was my gym and another chill night.
Tuesday was my birthday! Yay, Happy 28 to me! Ha. It was an overall great day
other than having to work! March 15th happens to be a huge federal tax deadline in the US so normally I am working a gazillion hours up to and sometimes through my birthday so being here and not having to deal with traditional busy season was a pretty big gift in itself. I did get to deal with getting extensions out for my client here but it was pretty simple and stress free so I was happy to help. I got to work and almost immediately got a gorgeous bouquet of flowers from my Mom and Dylan. They made a great centerpiece for our cube area and smelled amazing as well. Oh wait..must back up…first….I came in to work, walked around the corner to my desk and started laughing. There was orange silly string sprayed everywhere as well as a beautifully wrapped present with bow and card awaiting me. I figured it was Liana but didn’t see her at her desk. She eventually came over from the kitchen with a telling grin. She got me a fab gift….a heart rate monitor watch so I actually know how hard I’m working out and so we can compete…lol. I’m thinking it could be a positive, if I do work out as hard as I think…or it could be depressing when I find out I’m a huge slacker everyday!!! Of course when I went to pump on Thursday I forgot it so its making its debut tonight. Okay so then flowers….lots of Happy Birthday’s etc. A few of us went to Jones for lunch, sat outside and had my favorite chicken Caesar salad and then Sergio, the manager who knows us pretty well, brought me out an amazing cake. So sweet. Then came back to office and we all got called in for a meeting, which was cupcakes for my bday. They were tiny and delicious and thankfully I was only forced to eat one! Finished out the day and then went home for a quick nap (I was exhausted all last week, not sure what’s wrong with me but I’m run down). So I power napped for 30 minutes or so even though I wanted to go to gym due to the sweets I was forced to eat, but I had been the prior 4 days and was tired and it was my birthday so said screw it and napped. Liana walked over and then we both walked to the Le Royal for dinner at Oceans. Alice, Phil and Bushy (no not his name but his nickname) met us there and we had a delicious dinner and lots of bubby. So when the bill came, Bushy suggests credit card roulette (he might not have seen the bill at this point….3600dhs or about 1,000 USD). He won/lost. Poor guy..but took it like a champ and paid up. Thank you Bushy!!! Then we went over to Sax which is the club next door as they started doing karaoke on Tuesday nights and I’ve been wanting to check it out. There weren’t a whole lot of people there and the singing wasn’t great but we made the best of it. There were so many songs in other languages that kind of sucked for us. Anwar came and met us at this point so there were 3 guys/3 girls. We decided we would pick a song for them and they would pick one for us. I NEVER sing, EVER but somehow got conned into this. So we pick Barbie Girl for them, they pick something and Liana and Phil go to put in our requests. As it turned out, they picked the exact same song for us. What are the odds of that happening?!?! Liana compromised and they sang Girls Just Wanna Have Fun instead and we sang Barbie Girl. And by we, I mean Liana and I. Alice, the most Barbie doll looking one decided to play chicken and sit and watch. See if I invite her to my bday again….just kidding Alice, you know I love you anyway! Was funny on the parts with Ken/Barbie cuz Liana played Ken and I Barbie. I don’t think anyone in the crowd was pleased with our performance but it was funny and at least I did it. The worst part was trying to read the screen as instead of having a nice blue backdrop with white words, it was like a moving city backdrop and I could barely read the words (and no, I don’t know the song by heart either!!!). Liana also rapped Eminem and did a fantastic job keeping up. I was impressed. We stayed out til about 1 and all decided for a Tuesday, we were gonna call it a night. Smart choice as I was pretty tired on Wednesday although not hungover so that was a plus.
Wednesday got through work and then went home for another power nap (yes, I’m getting old). The original plan months ago was to do a dinner at Cipriani on Yas Island and then go out to Allure for ladies night. Allure is only open W-F which is why we did a second dinner. Or because I’m awesome, either way! So after Alice reserved everything, she got a call that a private party had booked the entire restaurant for the night but that there was a small Japanese restaurant we could go to (the normal one is Italian which is my favorite). I guess it worked out since I’m off cheese for the month and it would have been very difficult to do Italian with no cheese. BTW..I’m 20 days in and going strong!!!! So we drove out to Yas, had a very good dinner, albeit very very very slow. For the no customers in the very small space, you’d think it would have been easy to get things. Oh..Liana and I ordered Saki cocktails that came out literally like small shots. We were like…umm…this is $25?!?! Hers looked like a urine sample. At least mine was pink!!! There was also this girl “working” as the hostess or piece of furniture, not sure which. She was the most airheaded spaced out girl I’ve encountered in some time but gave us all a good laugh. So then we find out that not only have these b*stards taken over the restaurant, they have also reserved the club (all owned by same person) until 1 am. Well we finished around 11:30 and were not going to wait around. Liana was like let’s just pull the usual, walk up like we own the place and see if we can get in. Okay cool. Well in the meantime the waiter sees us going upstairs and is like, umm..there is a private party, you can’t go up there but let me check and see if I can get you in. Bad idea. Liana and Alice had already started rolling up and as figured, their plan worked. Nobody checked a thing. I went in right behind them but at this point the waiter was up there talking to security about getting us in and saw us and pointed us out. So without him we would have been golden. Anyway…we went in, walked around, found a place outside and lasted about 5 minutes before security found us and asked us to leave. It was a National Geographic party..ha. We like animals too! I didn’t even get a chance to do a mock NG cover with my animal of choice. BOOO. I kindly let all the bouncers know they RUINED my birthday…lol. The good part was that I was home and in bed at 12:30 and didn’t feel like death on Thursday! Oh also, one of the super sweet Emirati girls that works in our group came over right when I got to work and dropped a Tiffany bag on my desk. I was like ummm…..I’m not sure I can accept this but then didn’t want to make her feel bad. She got me a really nice, totally me necklace (I’m wearing it today!).
Thursday was another Pump class to work off all the food from T/W and then I was a total bum. Went to the grocery store to pick up a few things and was asleep by 11pm. Our plans for the weekend had been a million different things that kept getting changed for various reasons but we finally settled on something a bit spontaneous, going to an African themed birthday party of a friend of a girl Liana met 2 weekends ago on Bahraini island (no not Bahrain, this was an island off the coast of Abu Dhabi). So we got up early and went down to the fish market where the boat was leaving from (our dumba**es walked THRU the fish market….and people ask me why I don’t eat fish!). So Liana’s friend Sophie is not there but we eventually see people dressed up that clearly were going to this party so found our way to the boat as more and more people showed up. Still no Sophie. People were all, how come we’ve never see you ladies before…ummm…because we don’t know any of you, lol. Finally Sophie said she was on her way but at this point we figured screw it, we were going for it, everyone seemed pretty nice! We ended up on the first boat over sans Sophie and the ride was quite interesting. We got stopped by 3 separate Coast Guard boats (you know in case we picked ppl up in the water between point A and B) although at this point the water was still fairly calm. And then we got out in the main body of water and that all changed. We were in the front with 4 others….all of us ended up completely drenched as wave after very large wave slammed into us. It was quite comical although not totally enjoyable. It hurt to sit down yesterday from where I was bruised (I was worried about the sky dive harness but alas, I was fine!). So we FINALLY get to island like 90 minutes later and it’s just one big island full of sand. Perfect spot to set up a party! The other boat was a bit behind us with the speakers/grill but we set up what we could and started boozing and making friends. Oh…..and the bathroom experience. Ha. I should probably keep this to myself but what the h*ll. So almost everyone had to pee once we got there and I am not a big fan of going in the water. So this one girl literally jumped off boat and ran (she had to go bad!) and then came back and was like, okay bathroom is over that sand dune. So I walk back there and cop a squat and it was hysterical….just sitting there looking in every direction at sand. Lol. I felt like I was in the middle of the desert. The other boat eventually shows and they’ve got generator powered speakers (they were very prepared), got the grill going and the booze kept flowing. Booze, mixed with sun, mixed with some special Brazilian vodka/coconut drink resulted in a very drunk Cristina/Liana combo. I met a Russian girl who I danced with for at least an hour. Lots of spins and twirls. In the sand. Drunk. I’m sure this did nothing to help! We had a blast though. OHHHHHH…..and….I met a girl from MAINE! So I’m usually one of the only Americans and for awhile was…then this girl rolls up and I hear her say she’s from Maine and I’m thinking, okay I know I’ve been drinking but what did she just say. Yep. Small freaking world. We were on a little island with 30 people and 2 of us are from Maine. So we of course became instant friends since lets get real, most ppl from Maine never leave Maine let alone end up at an African island party in Abu Dhabi! HA!
So around 5pm the boats were headed back…Liana and I got on the same boat but she was on one side of the front laying down and I on the other with 3 others smooshed (anyone know how to spell this word btw?!) between us. I was under my towel the whole time to stay as dry as possible and when we docked and I popped out, she was so excited to see me. Apparently she thought I was on the other boat or she had lost me. Lol. We laughed a ton and then went home smashed..it was about 7pm. Liana goes..how bout this…lets go home, get cleaned up, and then go out….to which I immediately vetoed and said the only place I’m going is to bed! I did manage to make a stop in the shower and had yet to realize how much sun I had gotten. Was out cold by 8pm and then woke up at midnight hot and hurting. It was hangover time and then I realized how sunburned part of me was (mostly face, ears, upper back) and my body was hurting from the boat. At this point I’m thinking oh wow, this is great shape to be considering sky diving tomorrow! Thankfully I went back to sleep a few hours later (once I woke up I was doomed…Liana and I were both up blackberrying each other!) and then woke up at 9am feeling like a new person. My sunburn had mostly faded to tan and I even went up to the pool for a quick sunbathe before we were off to Dubai. We were excited about what a cheap day it was…about $28 each, until I realized that I broke my camera and ruined my Burberry sunglasses and Liana lost her phone. It just became a very expensive day. Not as bummed about camera as I needed a new one anyway but I loved the sunglasses. I had the case, not sure why I didn’t just put them in the case instead of what it looks like I did….and crushed them in the sand for quite some time.
Our jump was scheduled for 3pm so we left around 12:30 to make sure we had plenty of time. Got to Dubai around 1:30 and sat on the JBR for a coffee/hot choc as the nervousness started to set in. I was looking at all the delicious treats at Starbucks thinking I should probably eat the tastiest looking as it might be my last shot. Ha. I was good though. So around 2 we headed over to the drop zone and met up with Sergio and Dolly. Sergio turned 30 on March 5th and had been wanting to sky dive so when he found out we were, he decided to join. Him and I were the two virgins. Oh..and he calls me Caesar Salad Girl cuz that’s what I order every time Liana and I go to Jones so he got me a fab book about salads. He said he tried to find the history of caeser salad but couldn’t. I think the replacement is perfect..there are sooooo many delicious looking salads and he said I can pick a few and he’ll put them on the menu at the restaurant. Sweet! Unfortunately they can’t be named after me but at least I’ll know. HA! Dolly is Liana’s friend from Doha who has been in Dubai for a couple weeks (I met her at brunch last week) and she jumped once in Australia but 8 years ago so we decided she was essentially a born again. Liana was on her 3rd jump so def the resident expert! We got there right as a whole group were landing so that was kind of cool to see. I was surprised at how small the parachutes seemed. Somehow sitting at the actual site was more calming than Starbucks. Oh and on the radio on the way over we heard Gone and some other song like…last day of your life….I was like CHANGE THIS SH*T!!! So we all go check in around 2:45 (as we were told come 15 mins early), filled out some forms signing our lives away and then were told it would be about a 2 hour wait. WHAT?! Turns out it was more like 3. We’re sort of watching the sun fade, have totally lost excitement and now are all just starting to get angry (and by all I mostly mean me). Ha. I was like it’s going to be dark and the pictures are going to be sh*t and its cold and blah blah blah. At that point none of us were really scared anymore as we just wanted to get the show on the road so maybe they do that on purpose?! When it was finally our time to go get suited up we all rallied and tried to look alive. I got a great instructor and videographer/photographer. Each jumper has their own picture person that jumps with them which is pretty awesome. I now have a great DVD and CD full of pics. Both were Brazilian and nice guys who I felt comfortable with so that was a plus. Liana got the one she had been eyeing for the past 3 hours (wonder if that was coincidence?!). Sergio was probably the only uncomfortable one as he wasn’t super thrilled to have a dude strapped to his back. So we’re goofin off and trying to get everyone excited (they had all been jumping all day and were def tired) and then finally go to get on plane. There were the 4 of us from our group and then a bunch of guys jumping solo. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me on the plane so that was fun. And then I started looking outside. There is actually a great frame from the DVD at the moment happy birthday stopped and I looked outside….sheer terror on my face. HA!!! So the instructor is telling me what to do when I jump and I’m shaking I’m so nervous. Hold on….let me reverse….so when we’re getting suited up, I’m all being tough girl Cristina going…can we do some back flips? I was a gymnast…I can do it. This was meant to be a joke. Note: Do not tell your sky diving instructor this as a joke. He will not believe it’s a joke. So he’s like, when you jump, you need to throw your legs and head back immediately. Got it. So we jump and my legs immediately go forward and bam..the back flips start straight out of plane and I’m thinking OMG!!!!!! I MESSED IT UP!!! I didn’t put my legs back. Well now looking back at the way we exited the plane vs everyone else, he meant for this to happen, I really had no choice!!! After the 2nd or 3rd flip I got my bearings enough to get into the correct position at which point it finally set in that I was flying! It was so incredible and surprisingly unscary once we were in the air. Getting out of the plane was the hard part as you are looking down going what is wrong with me and can I actually do this?!?!?!? I asked my instructor what happens if someone gets up and doesn’t want to jump..he said it depends on if they are stronger than him or not. Got it. I didn’t think I’d be okay with the jump until the chute was pulled but I was actually fine. It was much more fun without the chute!!! However, once we pulled it there was that sense of, oh good, I won’t die today and then we started to play around with directions and spins and we even suspended in the air for a few seconds. They let you work the chute which was pretty cool. The view of Dubai and the Palm as the sun was setting was pretty awesome. I would like to do it again during the day but this time of night was actually quite nice and the pictures did come out so I’m happy. Apparently Liana’s photographer was stoned so her pics are not as good but there will def be a next time. She wants to take the course this year to get her license to jump solo. I have a few friends coming over (2 in April, 1 in June) that now all want to go so I think I’ll be making a few more jumps and totally happy with that. It was a very cool experience and I’m glad I had the balls to do it. By the time we got down and all calmed down, it was pretty dark and we waited for our videos. We were meant to go to the Hilton for dinner and a drink (we really wanted a drink prior to but you can’t have alcohol in your system for the 12 hours prior..and you certainly wouldn’t want to do this hungover!) so we just drove home. It was a pretty quiet ride home as the 10 days prior had been full of bday events and we were both exhausted.
I got home, loaded pics, watched the DVD a bunch of times and reflected on a great week. This adventure for me has certainly been full of firsts and I’m loving all (well almost all) of them. This week should be pretty quiet….lots of gym and hopefully getting over feeling so tired. I haven’t had a steak or any other red meat in over 2 months so I’m thinking maybe its time. Or maybe the lack of cheese?! Anyway…the next big trip is looking like Doha in 2 weeks so Liana can show me her old stomping ground. We were meant to go in January but then we went on a Bahrain run for a bit so it’s finally time. Ohhh…and…..remember Mr. Sapp from last weeks entry, he just booked a fight in London the first week of May and Liana is working on getting us flown out there for it. We can see Katie and I’ve never been to London so def. excited.
I apologize if you are asleep by now..that was a long one!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Special Birthday Post....A look back at 27!
So I was thinking a lot today about the past year and what a fabulous one it has been. I started 27 a year ago today with 2 of my favourite DC girls and 3 great friends from NYC who drove down to DC to get rip roaring drunk with me. Many spilled drinks and injuries later, we all chalked it up as a great way to start the year for me. At the time I had no idea how good it would be. In the 12 months since, I have had what most could argue was too much fun. I have travelled the world and met some amazing new people who are going to make the start of 28 just as good if not better than 27. I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunities to do and see so much. Here is a look back at the many places I've been in the last year:
Work:
Numerous NYC, Atlanta and Miami trips
A quick trip to Boston
A week in Paris with a fabulous chick
4.5 months in Abu Dhabi
Fun:
Multiple weekends in Dubai & Bahrain with my favourite Middle East peeps
5 days in St. Maarten with my favourite couple and some other crazies
A weekend in Atlantic City with my River Girls
A trip or two home to the River
Multiple weekends in NYC for my best friend's birthdays
Carly's bachelorette in Miami & wedding in Los Angeles
A week in Maine with my family
10 days in Cancun with 2 great couples
New Years Eve in New Orleans
Dylan's 5th birthday in Orlando - Nickelodeon style
Concerts:
Prince (twice!)
Pitbull
Akon
Usher
Kanye West
Nelly Furtado
Taio Cruz
David Guetta
Kelis
Here's to an even better, fun filled 28!!!!
Work:
Numerous NYC, Atlanta and Miami trips
A quick trip to Boston
A week in Paris with a fabulous chick
4.5 months in Abu Dhabi
Fun:
Multiple weekends in Dubai & Bahrain with my favourite Middle East peeps
5 days in St. Maarten with my favourite couple and some other crazies
A weekend in Atlantic City with my River Girls
A trip or two home to the River
Multiple weekends in NYC for my best friend's birthdays
Carly's bachelorette in Miami & wedding in Los Angeles
A week in Maine with my family
10 days in Cancun with 2 great couples
New Years Eve in New Orleans
Dylan's 5th birthday in Orlando - Nickelodeon style
Concerts:
Prince (twice!)
Pitbull
Akon
Usher
Kanye West
Nelly Furtado
Taio Cruz
David Guetta
Kelis
Here's to an even better, fun filled 28!!!!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Usher, Bob Sapp, Birthdays and more
I apologize for being a huge slacker last week but I’m hoping this and the next post will make up for it as there has been/will be lots going. Where to begin….
As I mentioned in my short hiatus post, I was sick all last week (and the week before) so I didn’t do much during the week. I did make myself struggle through the gym every night but that was about it. Liana was in Kazakhstan all week for work so not only was I sick but the days went by sooooo slow! She is from Australia and has spent the last 5 years in the Gulf…she is not used to cold weather. Our first convo about her trip went something like this: C “How cold is it?”, L “-18 deg”, C “Holy sh*t that’s cold, what are you going to wear?” L “I have a leather jacket, you reckon that’s enough?” HAHAHAHAH. I let her borrow my ski coat which came back from me after my X-mas trip home and quite possibly saved her life. She said she did want to buy one of the gorgeous big furry coats and hats but got realistic as she knew she’d likely never need it again.
Anyway, she flew in Thursday night and by then I was starting to feel like a normal person again (although the cough and crap lasted another 8 or so days…that seems to be what happens when y ou get sick here..sand in the lungs, not good for my asthma, etc). We met at Level for drinks (great rooftop bar very close to both our places) and caught up on the week. She dumped this guy she was seeing while she picked up her bags at the airport, figured she’d kill two birds with one stone. They weren’t exactly dating…they had been on like two proper dates and other than that he just BBM’d her every 2 seconds about how wonderful she was and the only girl for him. The best part was that her dumba** agreed to go out with him to have a face to face break up (she fell for this 2 weeks ago with a different guy) and had to suffer through an hour of monologue about what a great guy he was. After dinner he posted on his facebook about how if you treat a girl like sh*t she loves you and he found one he really cared about and she dumped him. Liana proceeded to “like” his status. Nothing like a good stab in the heart to make it final right? Although he’s still bbming her so maybe she should have stabbed and twisted. I went to Bahrain first thing Friday morning for a friend’s birthday celebration and proceeded to drink a lot for the next two days. Friday started off with a brunch at Ric’s…was supposed to be at the nice hotel in town but it got cancelled due to protestors (I didn’t see much of anything going on…the locals figure it was really due to the large amount of construction occurring.). Anyway…I love Rics so was happy with that, plus it was essentially unlimited mimosas for a few hours. Took a sober up nap after this and then went out for bday dinner where we proceeded to get drunk again, but this time on Sangria. Saturday was a lazy morning/early afternoon followed by an afternoon of drinking and one of my favorite omelet’s. Oh..side note…I gave up cheese for the month of March. I am on day 14 right now and have not cheated once. It hasn’t been as hard as I thought (I eat a LOT of cheese) but the omelet’s without cheese just aren’t the same . I’m thinking I’ll lose at least a pound of two by giving it up for the whole month. I flew back way too early Sunday morning and tried not to die at work. At this point, the normalcy that had returned from being sick was all lost and I felt terrible again…tired and crappy.
Monday I met Oliver for dinner since it had been over a month since I had seen him and wanted to get his thoughts on my future with the firm, what location would be good for me, etc and nice to catch up on each other’s lives. We went to Finz which is a fab seafood restaurant on the water at the Beach Rotana….they had some award winning Australian chef in town for the week that we didn’t know about but was a def bonus. Had some great prawns and called it a night. Since he lives in Dubai now we can’t really do our traditional after dinner Mai Tai at Trader Vic’s which is prob a blessing!
Tuesday night I hit the gym and then met a bunch of people at the Laughter Factory to celebrate another birthday (its birthday month around here!). Once a month, they have a comedy show at the hotel right next to mine and I’ve wanted to go for months but always end up with a conflict or something better. I was really glad I went, they were hysterical. Same format as US..3 acts…however all of them were British and that made it a bit tougher for me. Some of the jokes I did not get, and sometimes the accents were so hard to understand that I missed the jokes. All in all, I caught enough of it to be worth it. The chick that was up second was a riot…..you didn’t expect half of what came out of her mouth to. She started with something like this…..”I usually don’t start out feeling disdain for my audience….but all of you are tan and rich and I f*ckin hate you”. Lol. Good night.
Wednesday was a chill out night..went to Pump (it had been about 10 days and my legs still aren’t completely back to normal! I am going back tonight…we’ll see how I feel tomorrow!) and went to bed early.
Thursday was the start of my 10 day birthday celebration and the night of Usher in Dubai. Work was going really well, day was going by fast and we were getting to leave early (so we wouldn’t miss the concert like the last one in Dubai on a Thursday night) and then at 5:30 I got some really sh*t news that started my weekend on the wrong foot. I’m over it now so don’t want to talk about it but it resulted in a bit of improvising which in the end, turned out okay. I realize this will only make sense to like 3 people but oh well.
So we head up to Dubai around 5:40 and actually make it to our hotel by 7 without getting lost once. VICTORY! We had enough time to eat, down a bottle of wine, get ready and make it to the concert about 5 minutes before it started. It also started right on time at 9pm. This is a first for both of these happening at the same time and I’ve been to about 10 concerts since I’ve been here! The show was amazing….he played some new stuff and some really old stuff (stuff I knew every word to and Liana was like what is that? Who’s the real Usher fan huh?!). The place was packed too. Completely sold out concert which usually doesn’t happen here. We had some friends there but you couldn’t really find anyone so we just watched from the first spot we found and had a great time. Oh…they had a contest on the local radio station for a slogan to put on this guy Flo’s T-Shirt…well Liana’s won! It said “OMG, I have a crusher on Usher”. We saw the printed shirt online and then as I’m standing there taking pics of the stage, this guy walks right in front of me and I was like..no sh*t! It was Flo! So Liana told him he was wearing her idea and got some pics with him. We both though she deserved some sort of prize for the winning entry but she was told his embarrassment for having to wear the shirt was her prize. What kind of crap is that? So when the show let out at 11 there were ppl everywhere and we figured trying to get anywhere in a cab was gonna be impossible. Oliver was unable to get tickets cuz he’s a procrastinator so we went and met him at the Radisson rooftop bar that was about a block away. The rest of the ppl we knew from the show came too. Had a number of drinks here and jammed to the crappy music, I still don’t get why you would play techno when you have a ton of ppl coming from an R&B concert but the UAE is not the land of things that make sense so I usually just let it go. After awhile here we walked a few blocks down to another hotel rooftop bar (very nice!). A guy started following Liana and she kindly tells him that he might want to make a U-turn as he wasn’t going to get anywhere with her. HA!. Oliver and I had a heart to heart about life and love at 2am which was not exactly what I wanted to do when I could barely keep my eyes open but it happened anyway. Liana had been doing her typical rounds (she doesn’t sit still for long!) so we went and found her chatting up two guys and I made her leave with me as I was sooo tired! I woke up Friday morning feeling like death but thankfully got to sleep in. One of Liana’s friends from Qatar was in Dubai so we were meeting her for brunch. Went down near the beach in Dubai and found a place that was still serving breakfast at 2pm. Lol. Thank god places like that exist right? So the three of us are sitting there eating and they are catching up…I am still not really with it yet…still partly pissed off from my bad news and very hungover. It took me about 2 hours to question why Dolly said she was an only child and then talked about her brother for the next hour. Lol. So there are two guys sitting at the table next to us (well it was one guy and his date, and the next I looked over she had been replaced with a dude…speed dating style). So they start telling us about a big MMA (mixed martial arts) fight in Abu Dhabi. I had heard about it earlier in the week but hadn’t planned on being around so didn’t really pay attention. Since we decided not to stay in Dubai and to go back to AD anyway, we figured why not. Got home, napped, went to the gym, did maintenance (Liana and I walked into the salon and clearly there had been no customers for hours….the salon is conveniently in the gym and we were really 2 of 5 ppl at the gym so I guess this makes sense!...Anyway was pretty sweet to have one woman doing my mani, one my pedi and one thredding my eyebrows. Talk about making the most of ones time!). Liana also got her arms waxed for the first time (she thinks they are hairy when really you can barely see anything on her) but the result was super smooth arms and watching her face was quite amusing as well.
By the time we got home, ate and got ready, we had missed the fights so we just went to the after party instead. It was at a hotel I haven’t been too yet and the venue was really nice, big outdoor area and the weather was phenomenal. Both Friday and Saturday were outrageously hot days but the nights were gorgeous. So we walk in and Liana is in heaven….big muscly guys all over the place, the largest group of good looking guys in one place that she had ever seen. So we walk around, talk to some people (including one that after 15 minutes of talking to, tells Liana that they have kissed before, apparently the very first night her and I ever went out…she doesn’t remember and I had lost her by this point so I didn’t know either…was very funny!), get some drinks and then Liana lays her eye on the prize. Bob Sapp. Big black guy. Just her type. We had no idea who he was as neither of us really follows fighting but the guys at the bar next to us kindly filled us in. So Liana gets me to take a picture of them and we start chatting with him. He is not amused by the millions of people who keep interrupting to take photos but seemed quite happy to have found Liana to chat with. And this is where wingwoman of the year starts. First I had to talk to his trainer, Pedro or something for like 30 minutes who was not interesting or maybe I was just not in the mood. He finally realizes I am not interested and leaves..although this was maybe bad because then I was the 3rd wheel and not trying to involve myself in their conversation so I ended up kind of sitting there by myself. Cue the line of men who start making their moves. There were fighters, and trainers and Marines and consultants. It was exhausting as none of them seemed to get the fact that I was not interested. At one point when this especially boring guy was just hanging around forever when I kept looking away, was not starting convo and giving sh*tty one word answers (newsflash guys…this means a girl is not interested)..anyway….I go to Liana loudly, please get me a gun so I can blow my head off. You would think this would solidify that I do not want to talk to him anymore…nope. So all his friends leave and I’m like….go with them. Oh no..I couldn’t possibly leave you alone here. Yes, yes you could, I have survived my life without you to this point and I will survive the rest of my night, even if I sit here and watch drunk ppl do dumb things and talk to no one. It’s better than trying to pretend I want to talk to you. Anyway, I think Liana got the point after that and told her famous fighter dude that she was going to go. FINALLY!!! I was glad she was having a good time with this guy but after hours of nonsense, I couldn’t do it any longer. She may have scored us an invite to his next fight in Austria next month so if that’s the case, will be payment enough for my duties. Ha.
Saturday I slept in pretty late..woke up at 11:45 and meant to get up a few minutes after but fell back to sleep and woke up again at 1:45…oops! Went straight to pool as the sun used to be pretty much done at 3:30ish but that is no longer the case! At 4:15 I left and the sun was still high and bright. It was about 95 deg out and hard to do anything but lay there. Even that had me drenched in sweat. Got a couple good hours of sun and decided it was time to go back to sleep..lol. Took a 2 hour nap..then hit the gym and walked over to Liana’s for take out and a chick flick (that we couldn’t find on tv so mostly just gossiped!) Was home by 11 and completely worn out..got in bed…..was still tossing and turning at 2:45am. Was very frustrating but I guess that’s what I get for sleeping for most of the day!
Headed to pump now..then a chill night. Tonight and tomorrow night are the only nights without plans for the rest of the week so must take advantage. Sorry this was a novel….expect the same next week! I’m capping off the birthday celebrations with skydiving on Saturday so hopefully there is another one. Lol.
As I mentioned in my short hiatus post, I was sick all last week (and the week before) so I didn’t do much during the week. I did make myself struggle through the gym every night but that was about it. Liana was in Kazakhstan all week for work so not only was I sick but the days went by sooooo slow! She is from Australia and has spent the last 5 years in the Gulf…she is not used to cold weather. Our first convo about her trip went something like this: C “How cold is it?”, L “-18 deg”, C “Holy sh*t that’s cold, what are you going to wear?” L “I have a leather jacket, you reckon that’s enough?” HAHAHAHAH. I let her borrow my ski coat which came back from me after my X-mas trip home and quite possibly saved her life. She said she did want to buy one of the gorgeous big furry coats and hats but got realistic as she knew she’d likely never need it again.
Anyway, she flew in Thursday night and by then I was starting to feel like a normal person again (although the cough and crap lasted another 8 or so days…that seems to be what happens when y ou get sick here..sand in the lungs, not good for my asthma, etc). We met at Level for drinks (great rooftop bar very close to both our places) and caught up on the week. She dumped this guy she was seeing while she picked up her bags at the airport, figured she’d kill two birds with one stone. They weren’t exactly dating…they had been on like two proper dates and other than that he just BBM’d her every 2 seconds about how wonderful she was and the only girl for him. The best part was that her dumba** agreed to go out with him to have a face to face break up (she fell for this 2 weeks ago with a different guy) and had to suffer through an hour of monologue about what a great guy he was. After dinner he posted on his facebook about how if you treat a girl like sh*t she loves you and he found one he really cared about and she dumped him. Liana proceeded to “like” his status. Nothing like a good stab in the heart to make it final right? Although he’s still bbming her so maybe she should have stabbed and twisted. I went to Bahrain first thing Friday morning for a friend’s birthday celebration and proceeded to drink a lot for the next two days. Friday started off with a brunch at Ric’s…was supposed to be at the nice hotel in town but it got cancelled due to protestors (I didn’t see much of anything going on…the locals figure it was really due to the large amount of construction occurring.). Anyway…I love Rics so was happy with that, plus it was essentially unlimited mimosas for a few hours. Took a sober up nap after this and then went out for bday dinner where we proceeded to get drunk again, but this time on Sangria. Saturday was a lazy morning/early afternoon followed by an afternoon of drinking and one of my favorite omelet’s. Oh..side note…I gave up cheese for the month of March. I am on day 14 right now and have not cheated once. It hasn’t been as hard as I thought (I eat a LOT of cheese) but the omelet’s without cheese just aren’t the same . I’m thinking I’ll lose at least a pound of two by giving it up for the whole month. I flew back way too early Sunday morning and tried not to die at work. At this point, the normalcy that had returned from being sick was all lost and I felt terrible again…tired and crappy.
Monday I met Oliver for dinner since it had been over a month since I had seen him and wanted to get his thoughts on my future with the firm, what location would be good for me, etc and nice to catch up on each other’s lives. We went to Finz which is a fab seafood restaurant on the water at the Beach Rotana….they had some award winning Australian chef in town for the week that we didn’t know about but was a def bonus. Had some great prawns and called it a night. Since he lives in Dubai now we can’t really do our traditional after dinner Mai Tai at Trader Vic’s which is prob a blessing!
Tuesday night I hit the gym and then met a bunch of people at the Laughter Factory to celebrate another birthday (its birthday month around here!). Once a month, they have a comedy show at the hotel right next to mine and I’ve wanted to go for months but always end up with a conflict or something better. I was really glad I went, they were hysterical. Same format as US..3 acts…however all of them were British and that made it a bit tougher for me. Some of the jokes I did not get, and sometimes the accents were so hard to understand that I missed the jokes. All in all, I caught enough of it to be worth it. The chick that was up second was a riot…..you didn’t expect half of what came out of her mouth to. She started with something like this…..”I usually don’t start out feeling disdain for my audience….but all of you are tan and rich and I f*ckin hate you”. Lol. Good night.
Wednesday was a chill out night..went to Pump (it had been about 10 days and my legs still aren’t completely back to normal! I am going back tonight…we’ll see how I feel tomorrow!) and went to bed early.
Thursday was the start of my 10 day birthday celebration and the night of Usher in Dubai. Work was going really well, day was going by fast and we were getting to leave early (so we wouldn’t miss the concert like the last one in Dubai on a Thursday night) and then at 5:30 I got some really sh*t news that started my weekend on the wrong foot. I’m over it now so don’t want to talk about it but it resulted in a bit of improvising which in the end, turned out okay. I realize this will only make sense to like 3 people but oh well.
So we head up to Dubai around 5:40 and actually make it to our hotel by 7 without getting lost once. VICTORY! We had enough time to eat, down a bottle of wine, get ready and make it to the concert about 5 minutes before it started. It also started right on time at 9pm. This is a first for both of these happening at the same time and I’ve been to about 10 concerts since I’ve been here! The show was amazing….he played some new stuff and some really old stuff (stuff I knew every word to and Liana was like what is that? Who’s the real Usher fan huh?!). The place was packed too. Completely sold out concert which usually doesn’t happen here. We had some friends there but you couldn’t really find anyone so we just watched from the first spot we found and had a great time. Oh…they had a contest on the local radio station for a slogan to put on this guy Flo’s T-Shirt…well Liana’s won! It said “OMG, I have a crusher on Usher”. We saw the printed shirt online and then as I’m standing there taking pics of the stage, this guy walks right in front of me and I was like..no sh*t! It was Flo! So Liana told him he was wearing her idea and got some pics with him. We both though she deserved some sort of prize for the winning entry but she was told his embarrassment for having to wear the shirt was her prize. What kind of crap is that? So when the show let out at 11 there were ppl everywhere and we figured trying to get anywhere in a cab was gonna be impossible. Oliver was unable to get tickets cuz he’s a procrastinator so we went and met him at the Radisson rooftop bar that was about a block away. The rest of the ppl we knew from the show came too. Had a number of drinks here and jammed to the crappy music, I still don’t get why you would play techno when you have a ton of ppl coming from an R&B concert but the UAE is not the land of things that make sense so I usually just let it go. After awhile here we walked a few blocks down to another hotel rooftop bar (very nice!). A guy started following Liana and she kindly tells him that he might want to make a U-turn as he wasn’t going to get anywhere with her. HA!. Oliver and I had a heart to heart about life and love at 2am which was not exactly what I wanted to do when I could barely keep my eyes open but it happened anyway. Liana had been doing her typical rounds (she doesn’t sit still for long!) so we went and found her chatting up two guys and I made her leave with me as I was sooo tired! I woke up Friday morning feeling like death but thankfully got to sleep in. One of Liana’s friends from Qatar was in Dubai so we were meeting her for brunch. Went down near the beach in Dubai and found a place that was still serving breakfast at 2pm. Lol. Thank god places like that exist right? So the three of us are sitting there eating and they are catching up…I am still not really with it yet…still partly pissed off from my bad news and very hungover. It took me about 2 hours to question why Dolly said she was an only child and then talked about her brother for the next hour. Lol. So there are two guys sitting at the table next to us (well it was one guy and his date, and the next I looked over she had been replaced with a dude…speed dating style). So they start telling us about a big MMA (mixed martial arts) fight in Abu Dhabi. I had heard about it earlier in the week but hadn’t planned on being around so didn’t really pay attention. Since we decided not to stay in Dubai and to go back to AD anyway, we figured why not. Got home, napped, went to the gym, did maintenance (Liana and I walked into the salon and clearly there had been no customers for hours….the salon is conveniently in the gym and we were really 2 of 5 ppl at the gym so I guess this makes sense!...Anyway was pretty sweet to have one woman doing my mani, one my pedi and one thredding my eyebrows. Talk about making the most of ones time!). Liana also got her arms waxed for the first time (she thinks they are hairy when really you can barely see anything on her) but the result was super smooth arms and watching her face was quite amusing as well.
By the time we got home, ate and got ready, we had missed the fights so we just went to the after party instead. It was at a hotel I haven’t been too yet and the venue was really nice, big outdoor area and the weather was phenomenal. Both Friday and Saturday were outrageously hot days but the nights were gorgeous. So we walk in and Liana is in heaven….big muscly guys all over the place, the largest group of good looking guys in one place that she had ever seen. So we walk around, talk to some people (including one that after 15 minutes of talking to, tells Liana that they have kissed before, apparently the very first night her and I ever went out…she doesn’t remember and I had lost her by this point so I didn’t know either…was very funny!), get some drinks and then Liana lays her eye on the prize. Bob Sapp. Big black guy. Just her type. We had no idea who he was as neither of us really follows fighting but the guys at the bar next to us kindly filled us in. So Liana gets me to take a picture of them and we start chatting with him. He is not amused by the millions of people who keep interrupting to take photos but seemed quite happy to have found Liana to chat with. And this is where wingwoman of the year starts. First I had to talk to his trainer, Pedro or something for like 30 minutes who was not interesting or maybe I was just not in the mood. He finally realizes I am not interested and leaves..although this was maybe bad because then I was the 3rd wheel and not trying to involve myself in their conversation so I ended up kind of sitting there by myself. Cue the line of men who start making their moves. There were fighters, and trainers and Marines and consultants. It was exhausting as none of them seemed to get the fact that I was not interested. At one point when this especially boring guy was just hanging around forever when I kept looking away, was not starting convo and giving sh*tty one word answers (newsflash guys…this means a girl is not interested)..anyway….I go to Liana loudly, please get me a gun so I can blow my head off. You would think this would solidify that I do not want to talk to him anymore…nope. So all his friends leave and I’m like….go with them. Oh no..I couldn’t possibly leave you alone here. Yes, yes you could, I have survived my life without you to this point and I will survive the rest of my night, even if I sit here and watch drunk ppl do dumb things and talk to no one. It’s better than trying to pretend I want to talk to you. Anyway, I think Liana got the point after that and told her famous fighter dude that she was going to go. FINALLY!!! I was glad she was having a good time with this guy but after hours of nonsense, I couldn’t do it any longer. She may have scored us an invite to his next fight in Austria next month so if that’s the case, will be payment enough for my duties. Ha.
Saturday I slept in pretty late..woke up at 11:45 and meant to get up a few minutes after but fell back to sleep and woke up again at 1:45…oops! Went straight to pool as the sun used to be pretty much done at 3:30ish but that is no longer the case! At 4:15 I left and the sun was still high and bright. It was about 95 deg out and hard to do anything but lay there. Even that had me drenched in sweat. Got a couple good hours of sun and decided it was time to go back to sleep..lol. Took a 2 hour nap..then hit the gym and walked over to Liana’s for take out and a chick flick (that we couldn’t find on tv so mostly just gossiped!) Was home by 11 and completely worn out..got in bed…..was still tossing and turning at 2:45am. Was very frustrating but I guess that’s what I get for sleeping for most of the day!
Headed to pump now..then a chill night. Tonight and tomorrow night are the only nights without plans for the rest of the week so must take advantage. Sorry this was a novel….expect the same next week! I’m capping off the birthday celebrations with skydiving on Saturday so hopefully there is another one. Lol.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Blog is on Hiatus this week.....
Sorry folks...its Wednesday and at this point I've just decided I'm not blogging this week. I was pretty sick all last week so other than feeling like crap and working out there wasn't much to report. I'll pick up again on Sunday with a full post of last weekend, this week, and this weekend since there will actually be some things to talk about, namely going to see Usher tomorrow in Dubai! That is kicking off 10 days of birthday celebrations for me. When your birthday is on Tuesday (right in the middle of my AD work week), it only makes sense to claim both the weekend before and after right? Lots of events planned. Will def make up for my lack of blog this week.
Thanks for your patience all :)
Thanks for your patience all :)
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