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.
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