So I was just checking my blog stats...I didn't even know how to do this until fairly recently, and my blog gets checked by a pretty large range of countries. The US and UAE I get, these are likely people I know who are following my trip. But for all those of you reading this that do not know me.....who are you and are you enjoying the blog? I feel like it would be really boring to anyone who doesn't know me but I know I can't know all of you who are following!
Leave some comments...I'm curious!!!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
A bit of paradise, Oman style!
Happy Memorial Day to all those in the US. You all are at the end of a long weekend and I’m almost half way through my work week! I would normally spend Memorial Day weekend in Ocean City, MD but have to say, Oman kicked it’s a** even though I only had two days!
I’m down to the 4 week mark and feeling like it’s going to fly by. In some ways I’m really excited, in others I’m sad that this journey is coming to an end. I just returned from my last weekend trip and it was probably the perfect end. I have now done five countries in five months and feeling like while there was much more I would have liked to have seen, I’m happy with what I’ve gotten to do given the political unrest in this part of the world and the fact that I can’t take time off.
The past week was my first week off from boot camp in 2 months and it was a nice break. I got to leave work around 6 everyday instead of waiting around to go to boot camp at 7. Got a few good workouts in at my hotel gym and let my body rest some. A recap:
Monday I was conned (no, not really) into attending Monday Club. Monday Club is something I may have mentioned months ago but that I never actually attended. Liana told me about it right after we met, Katie used to go, Alice as well, but for whatever reason I just never made it to one. It hasn’t really been anything since January but one of the guys who usually organized was back in town from Singapore for one night so we all agreed to dinner/drinks at Sax (I used to spend many Wednesday nights here..hadn’t been since my birthday!). I was able to sneak in an hour nap after work so figured I could handle one night out during the week and Alice and I both agreed we were not staying out late so it wasn’t so bad. We did dinner at Cho Gao which is right down the street from my old hotel. Had some delicious vegetable tempura and pad thai. Last time they refused to switch the peanuts for cashews even though everything else on the menu had cashews in it but I got someone sane this time who said it was not a problem! Dinner provided for some interesting conversation in which this one guy that was with us apparently full on made out with another guy the weekend before when they were trying to convince two girls to kiss. These guys are straight which is why it was disturbing. First off, girls don’t want to see that. Secondly, don’t be so proudly touting that especially here! Anyways..we went to Sax after and I had always been told that Sax on a Monday was really good although I had only ever been on Wednesdays and thought they were pretty fab. The music at the beginning wasn’t great but def started to pick up right around the time Alice and I decided to leave. I’m glad we did, as I heard the night went downhill fast and the ones that stayed woke up feeling pretty poorly. I was home and asleep around the time I would have if I had stayed in anyway.
I woke up not feeling the best on Tuesday…..had way too much wine the night before but got through work and then went home and hit the gym. It’s def. hard to motivate myself to go (why I like boot camp so much, I just do it!) but I went and had a fab workout. I was gonna do a spin class but the girl that was gonna maybe join me decided not to and I am not a huge fan of spinning so just did a bike on my own and then ran 4 miles. I know last week I was excited that 3 was easy, but 4 seemed even easier and it felt great. My goal is to do a 10K (or 6.4) before I leave. I think the max I’ve ever run is an 8K (5ish miles). Went home and watched My Best Friends Girl and had a nice healthy chicken caesar from room service.
Wednesday there was a circuit class at the gym which I thought might be good…I hit the gym first to warm up on the elliptical and then joined the class. It was….interesting. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be coming from boot camp but I think that’s because at BC, we prob do a max 40 minutes of exercise, just at a very high intensity, whereas circuit was a full hour of nonstop. I was the only new person and the instructor knew I wasn’t a newbie to the gym (he guessed body pumper…I said used to do that..now a boot camper) and then he pushed me pretty hard. When we went outside to run sprints on the roof, all the other chicks had these well..chick weights that slide nicely on their hands and weighed nothing. When I went to grab them he was like, I don’t think so boot camp. So then he made me sprint with 2.5KG (5.5lbs) plates in each hand. Good times. The only part of the class I wasn’t a big fan of was the umm….how to describe…goofiness he threw in between circuit sets…so we’d do 2 or 3 stations and then the whole class would meet in the middle and do some form of jumping around like fools. It reminded me of the class Liana and I did a few months back where I was doubled over in the back laughing because I couldn’t take it seriously. Thankfully Liana wasn’t with me and I just tried to pretend like we didn’t all look like complete fools. Also, my hand eye coordination sucks. So most of the time I was just staring at him trying to figure out what he was doing. Anyways..I was sore the next day so it was good. After gym I did some laundry, had dinner (does popcorn and cheese count as dinner?), and then packed for Oman. Oh..and watched The Bachelor, the movie. There are an infinite amount of dumb movies on here and I end up watching a lot of them as I have nothing else to do.
Thursday seemed to take FOREVER to arrive. It was just one of those really slow weeks. Alice and I were supposed to be going to this shoe/bag trunk show at the Fairmont prior to heading to the airport as she got the invite from someone she worked with but I didn’t get out of work in time so she went and I went home to finish packing. It worked out because she said the sale was “rubbish” so I just picked her up in a cab and we went to the airport. Her friend Niamh was flying in from London and then turning around and going straight to Oman with us (she is a trooper!) so we met up with her at the airport. Funny when we got to Terminal 1 (the crappy terminal), the line to go through initial security (before you even check in) was huge in the economy line and no one was in the business side so we just pulled the, roll up like we own the place, method and it worked beautifully. I mean really..you haven’t checked in yet, how can you even prove that we aren’t flying business or first? We looked the part so that saved us a ton of time. Alice has some special card that gets her lounge access anywhere (oh…side note…I checked my HSBC card and it gets me lounge access at about 10 random airports around the world….Abu Dhabi is not one….Bahrain and Doha however are….too bad my trips to those places ended months ago!). Anyways….she was able to get us all in so we had free dinner and wine and just chilled before our flight. Flight was quick and easy. People kept asking why we didn’t drive. Well let’s weigh the options. Drive 4-5 hours to a place none of us are familiar with, deal with border crossing, one of us would have to drive and therefore not enjoy, it would take forever, oh and we’d have to drive back which you know no one wants to do after a weekend. Or we could fly….get to the airport an hour early, sit in a lounge and eat and drink for free, fly 40 minutes, breeze through immigration and take a 15 minute taxi to hotel. Yeah, stop asking why we didn’t drive! Oh so on the plane they were serving these sandwich things and I was tired and wanted to take a nap but stayed awake to find out what it was. Well, we have chicken and mushrooms or mushrooms, yeah no thanks. Why not? I don’t like mushrooms. Well we have chicken…and mushrooms….yeah, still has mushrooms in it. Then I had to attempt sleep with my head on the tray because the guy behind me was playing bowling or something else obnoxious on the tv that was in the back of my headrest. Why the h*ll do they have games on these screens that are certain to piss off the passenger in that seat?!?! Anyways..got to Muscat, got our bags, breezed through immigration (well that’s a lie..it took a while…the immigration guy was trying to get my phone number, ha!), and then got a cab. The cabs in Oman are much nicer than Abu Dhabi and we were to the hotel in 15 minutes.
It was fairly late when we got in..probably 11:30pm but they gave us some cool cloths and some drink concoction and had us sit while they did what they needed to check us in. We had two rooms as they wouldn’t allow 3 of us in one room and it would be hard to hide at a place like this! Alice and Niamh had one and I had the other. So we noticed two things when we got there. It was insanely quiet….like we felt bad talking quiet. And hot. Disgustingly hot. Away from the water it was much hotter than Abu Dhabi, but by the water with a breeze it was a bit cooler I think. Anyway…we start following the guy to our rooms which were two doors down from each other and see plenty of people sitting around outside but it was just still so quiet. We figured people hated us for talking. They upgraded us for free because Alice is a smooth talker so that was nice. The hotel was very subdued, the rooms were quite bland, but very nice and the beds were super comfy. They went straight to bed, I went out and had a glass of water on one of the many patio type places at the resort (everything looks the same…I got lost a lot!) and it was so peaceful. Me, my wine and the stars, was super nice. Breakfast was included in our rooms and only served til 10:30am so we decided to go at 10ish…I set my alarm to get up and go to the gym but when it went off, I figured I came here to relax, that would be going against my plans and skipped it the whole weekend (although I did at least set the alarm for both mornings and then made the decision to can it!!).
We went down to the pool to secure chairs in a good spot and then hit breakfast. The buffet was great and you could order other stuff off the menu. I did something super crazy and had an egg white omelette…ha..jk…this is so typical me. Breakfast was also when we started to realize we were probably the only single folks at this place. Anyway…we hit the pool about 11am and the pool boys were great to get our stuff all set up and bring us waters (it was much needed……even by the water was still really hot). I bought a new John Grisham book at the airport and that kept me occupied most of the weekend (I finished it about 5pm on Saturday!) It was funny with the three of us as I’m by far the brownest and spent the entire weekend in the sun, Alice can handle some sun but tried to keep her face in the shade, and poor Niamh is anti sun. She was barely in it at all and ended up with very burned feet and various other random places. Splotchy is a good description and a word we used a lot over the weekend. So after laying there for about an hour Niamh (who remember has come all the way from London for a weekend away) thinks she recognizes someone she works with. We are at this small boutique hotel in Oman and sure enough, it’s her. Then we go sit at the food area by the pool and within 10 minutes sees someone else she used to work with. It was crazy. She said if she saw one more person she was going home but thankfully that didn’t happen! We were slightly annoyed on Friday as due to religious reasons you couldn’t drink until after 2pm. I don’t get rules like that…is there really a difference between noon and 2? Or anytime and 2? If you allow drinking, just allow it. Thankfully this was just a Friday rule and it was 1:30 when we figured it out! We had a nice light lunch, got some drinks and then returned to doing nothing for another couple hours. We all had booked spa packages, Niamh was first at 3:30 and then Alice and I followed at 5pm. 5pm was perfect as I was done with the sun, got a shower in and hit the spa. Alice and I were in the same room as they could only accommodate us both at that time if we did it together and we didn’t care. We did 2 separate packages so were joking that there was no way I was going to have my Ocean type massage music since hers was something different…it all worked out just fine though. Mine was the longest package possible..3 hours and it was amazing. The Ocean bath was a bit boring and super hot, especially since I had just left the pool about an hour before. Next up was a full body scrub (not so nice on my burned back and chest, but otherwise great!). I was quite surprised when she asked if she could do my chest and I assumed she meant my chest where I was burned but nope, she meant everything. Ha. No one in this part of the world has come close to even exposing my chest during massages so I was pretty surprised, but hey, I’m up for whatever. And I told the girls after..the three hours with my therapist was the most action I’ve gotten in three months!!! Yes yes, TMI, but it was funny. After the scrub was a seaweed wrap….I wasn’t actually wrapped in seaweed, it was more of a seaweed scrub and then I was wrapped up in all these towels and blankets to keep the heat in. I laid like that for 30 minutes and my body was on fire. She had me shower after that and the reflection in the mirror almost made me bust out laughing. Alice was face up but with her eyes covered, or else she prob would have laughed as well. After I was as soft as could possibly be, I had a very nice long massage and was quite sad when the whole thing was over!!!
After spa I hit their room for some champagne and snacks (my stomach was growling during most of the spa time!) and we chatted a bunch while taking our sweet time getting ready. Although getting ready essentially involved drinking champagne and throwing on my dress and tying my hair up so it was mostly drinking! Oh forgot….on the plane ride over they were kind enough to introduce me to Curly Wurly’s which were a childhood candy for them. It was delicious but I ended up with flakes all over me…clearly I don’t know the correct way to eat it! They also had me try Pimm’s which Naimh had picked up at duty free on the way over. We were late to dinner but was no biggie since our table wasn’t ready anyways since we requested one by the window…thankfully we only had to wait like 5 minutes as we were all pretty hungry. Had some champagne cocktails and a delicious meal (lobster risotto, salad, coconut sorbet, YUM!). We could all barely move when we were finished but it was well worth it. I had another glass of wine under the stars and was in bed by midnight. Oh also funny…the first night, when I checked in they had the decorative pillows on the bed…but one sort of looked like a regular pillow just definitely not in a pillow case so I slept with that the first night. After the spa I happened to walk in while they were doing turn down service and were putting 4 nice normal pillows on my bed….oops! They had been in the closet area the night before but I didn’t even realize…Alice proceeded to make fun of me greatly. The other thing about the turn down service…pretty sure they stole my favorite earrings that I wear everyday. This is now the second pair of Tiffany earrings I have “lost”. The first time was last summer when I went to Maine, I managed to lose one. I got a new pair for X-mas and now have lost the full set so I still have one out of four. Both pairs were gifts from my ex…maybe a sign? I wonder if I buy them myself if I’ll lose those too. Very frustrating but nothing I can do about it. I hope the wife or girlfriend enjoys them (both turndown folks were men).
Saturday morning I got up to my alarm again and immediately re-set it with just enough time for breakfast and then we did a repeat of day 1. Breakfast, beach/pool, lunch, more beach pool. Just no spa this day! I finished my book at about 5pm and then went back to our suite to get ready to go. Oh yeah…so we asked for late checkout til 6 since our flight wasn’t until 8:15…there were people checking into our rooms but they gave us a suite for the day instead and moved all our stuff for us. Fabulous place!! We took off for the airport right around 6 and had tons of time to kill when we got there. The Muscat airport was much larger than I thought and not sure why as no one was there! We went through about 8 security checks and then I saw something amazing…..a Dairy Queen sign!!!! Two things I really miss from the US are Chipotle and DQ Blizzards so you can imagine how elated I was to realize I could have a blizzard for dinner. I introduced Alice and Niamh to a bit of my child (I mean adult) hood and Niamh and I had blizzards for dinner. Alice had real food but did try some of ours as they screwed up our order and gave Niamh 2 (one with Oreo and one with Butterfinger) instead of 1 with both. I was a bit bummed they didn’t have Reece’s since that is my favorite but settled for snickers and Butterfinger. Then we went to Duty free and shopped for perfume. I’ve been wanting to get new perfume for ages but anytime I go to look/smell, I get a headache after about 2 minutes and give up. I persevered and found one I loved and also got my nephew something cuz I’m such a fab Auntie! Flight was easy, I tried to sleep but couldn’t but we were back at home by 10pm which was great so I could get in bed at a normal hour.
It was sad to go back to work yesterday but I also felt like we had a really long weekend. Funny when we landed Saturday night I couldn’t really remember getting on the plane Thursday night which was 48 hours earlier! I love when weekends feel like that. Was the first night back at bootcamp so stayed a bit late at work, went over there and got ready for the fitness assessment. The class was HUGE. 46 ppl. It’s the most they’ve ever had and it’s June….makes absolutely no sense! I figured it would be those of us who are addicted already but not soooo many newbies. Anyways…I was hoping to hit the 7 minute mile mark and came close…7:12. 17 seconds better than last month so I was happy with that. It was hot so I’m sure that doesn’t help. We did everything else and I beat all my prior month scores (some considerably) except for the plank. I did 3 min first month, 3:29 last month and 3:02 yesterday. I pushed it much more on the squats/push ups so my body was pretty dead by the time I got to the plank. So of course we finished about 30 minutes late and I had somewhere to be. I was meeting Alice and the girls to see The Hangover 2 at a sweet movie theatre in the Marina Mall. I had to go home from BC (which was close to the mall already!), run in, quick shower, change, throw hair up and head back down to get cab. Thankfully I made it back and only missed the previews and…in the Gold Class theatre which we bought tickets for, you can order food and they bring it to you..plus you get these big comfy leather recliners. Not sure how I’ll ever watch a movie normally again! The movie was good….the other 3 liked it better than 1…I think I liked 1 better only because 2 was fairly predictable after seeing 1 yet still very funny and it didn’t seem like too much was edited for showing here. How’s this for bizarre? Its PG-15 here in the UAE….and R in the states. Pretty sure it should be R.
I got home about 12:15 and figured I’d pass out since I had been running around all night. No such luck. The last time I looked at my phone it was 3:30. I was sooooo frustrated by that point knowing I was going to get 3.5 hours sleep max. My mind just wouldn’t stop last night as much as I tried. I’m exhausted today and pretty glad Oliver cancelled our steak date. He’s headed to the US on Thursday to find out if he made partner or not (pretty sure he did) so we were gonna do an early celebration dinner before he left (and I haven’t had steak in about a month) but now I’m gonna go home, order room service, call Maria who I have flaked on two weeks in a row and go to bed early. Ideally asleep by 9:30. We shall see!
I’m down to the 4 week mark and feeling like it’s going to fly by. In some ways I’m really excited, in others I’m sad that this journey is coming to an end. I just returned from my last weekend trip and it was probably the perfect end. I have now done five countries in five months and feeling like while there was much more I would have liked to have seen, I’m happy with what I’ve gotten to do given the political unrest in this part of the world and the fact that I can’t take time off.
The past week was my first week off from boot camp in 2 months and it was a nice break. I got to leave work around 6 everyday instead of waiting around to go to boot camp at 7. Got a few good workouts in at my hotel gym and let my body rest some. A recap:
Monday I was conned (no, not really) into attending Monday Club. Monday Club is something I may have mentioned months ago but that I never actually attended. Liana told me about it right after we met, Katie used to go, Alice as well, but for whatever reason I just never made it to one. It hasn’t really been anything since January but one of the guys who usually organized was back in town from Singapore for one night so we all agreed to dinner/drinks at Sax (I used to spend many Wednesday nights here..hadn’t been since my birthday!). I was able to sneak in an hour nap after work so figured I could handle one night out during the week and Alice and I both agreed we were not staying out late so it wasn’t so bad. We did dinner at Cho Gao which is right down the street from my old hotel. Had some delicious vegetable tempura and pad thai. Last time they refused to switch the peanuts for cashews even though everything else on the menu had cashews in it but I got someone sane this time who said it was not a problem! Dinner provided for some interesting conversation in which this one guy that was with us apparently full on made out with another guy the weekend before when they were trying to convince two girls to kiss. These guys are straight which is why it was disturbing. First off, girls don’t want to see that. Secondly, don’t be so proudly touting that especially here! Anyways..we went to Sax after and I had always been told that Sax on a Monday was really good although I had only ever been on Wednesdays and thought they were pretty fab. The music at the beginning wasn’t great but def started to pick up right around the time Alice and I decided to leave. I’m glad we did, as I heard the night went downhill fast and the ones that stayed woke up feeling pretty poorly. I was home and asleep around the time I would have if I had stayed in anyway.
I woke up not feeling the best on Tuesday…..had way too much wine the night before but got through work and then went home and hit the gym. It’s def. hard to motivate myself to go (why I like boot camp so much, I just do it!) but I went and had a fab workout. I was gonna do a spin class but the girl that was gonna maybe join me decided not to and I am not a huge fan of spinning so just did a bike on my own and then ran 4 miles. I know last week I was excited that 3 was easy, but 4 seemed even easier and it felt great. My goal is to do a 10K (or 6.4) before I leave. I think the max I’ve ever run is an 8K (5ish miles). Went home and watched My Best Friends Girl and had a nice healthy chicken caesar from room service.
Wednesday there was a circuit class at the gym which I thought might be good…I hit the gym first to warm up on the elliptical and then joined the class. It was….interesting. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be coming from boot camp but I think that’s because at BC, we prob do a max 40 minutes of exercise, just at a very high intensity, whereas circuit was a full hour of nonstop. I was the only new person and the instructor knew I wasn’t a newbie to the gym (he guessed body pumper…I said used to do that..now a boot camper) and then he pushed me pretty hard. When we went outside to run sprints on the roof, all the other chicks had these well..chick weights that slide nicely on their hands and weighed nothing. When I went to grab them he was like, I don’t think so boot camp. So then he made me sprint with 2.5KG (5.5lbs) plates in each hand. Good times. The only part of the class I wasn’t a big fan of was the umm….how to describe…goofiness he threw in between circuit sets…so we’d do 2 or 3 stations and then the whole class would meet in the middle and do some form of jumping around like fools. It reminded me of the class Liana and I did a few months back where I was doubled over in the back laughing because I couldn’t take it seriously. Thankfully Liana wasn’t with me and I just tried to pretend like we didn’t all look like complete fools. Also, my hand eye coordination sucks. So most of the time I was just staring at him trying to figure out what he was doing. Anyways..I was sore the next day so it was good. After gym I did some laundry, had dinner (does popcorn and cheese count as dinner?), and then packed for Oman. Oh..and watched The Bachelor, the movie. There are an infinite amount of dumb movies on here and I end up watching a lot of them as I have nothing else to do.
Thursday seemed to take FOREVER to arrive. It was just one of those really slow weeks. Alice and I were supposed to be going to this shoe/bag trunk show at the Fairmont prior to heading to the airport as she got the invite from someone she worked with but I didn’t get out of work in time so she went and I went home to finish packing. It worked out because she said the sale was “rubbish” so I just picked her up in a cab and we went to the airport. Her friend Niamh was flying in from London and then turning around and going straight to Oman with us (she is a trooper!) so we met up with her at the airport. Funny when we got to Terminal 1 (the crappy terminal), the line to go through initial security (before you even check in) was huge in the economy line and no one was in the business side so we just pulled the, roll up like we own the place, method and it worked beautifully. I mean really..you haven’t checked in yet, how can you even prove that we aren’t flying business or first? We looked the part so that saved us a ton of time. Alice has some special card that gets her lounge access anywhere (oh…side note…I checked my HSBC card and it gets me lounge access at about 10 random airports around the world….Abu Dhabi is not one….Bahrain and Doha however are….too bad my trips to those places ended months ago!). Anyways….she was able to get us all in so we had free dinner and wine and just chilled before our flight. Flight was quick and easy. People kept asking why we didn’t drive. Well let’s weigh the options. Drive 4-5 hours to a place none of us are familiar with, deal with border crossing, one of us would have to drive and therefore not enjoy, it would take forever, oh and we’d have to drive back which you know no one wants to do after a weekend. Or we could fly….get to the airport an hour early, sit in a lounge and eat and drink for free, fly 40 minutes, breeze through immigration and take a 15 minute taxi to hotel. Yeah, stop asking why we didn’t drive! Oh so on the plane they were serving these sandwich things and I was tired and wanted to take a nap but stayed awake to find out what it was. Well, we have chicken and mushrooms or mushrooms, yeah no thanks. Why not? I don’t like mushrooms. Well we have chicken…and mushrooms….yeah, still has mushrooms in it. Then I had to attempt sleep with my head on the tray because the guy behind me was playing bowling or something else obnoxious on the tv that was in the back of my headrest. Why the h*ll do they have games on these screens that are certain to piss off the passenger in that seat?!?! Anyways..got to Muscat, got our bags, breezed through immigration (well that’s a lie..it took a while…the immigration guy was trying to get my phone number, ha!), and then got a cab. The cabs in Oman are much nicer than Abu Dhabi and we were to the hotel in 15 minutes.
It was fairly late when we got in..probably 11:30pm but they gave us some cool cloths and some drink concoction and had us sit while they did what they needed to check us in. We had two rooms as they wouldn’t allow 3 of us in one room and it would be hard to hide at a place like this! Alice and Niamh had one and I had the other. So we noticed two things when we got there. It was insanely quiet….like we felt bad talking quiet. And hot. Disgustingly hot. Away from the water it was much hotter than Abu Dhabi, but by the water with a breeze it was a bit cooler I think. Anyway…we start following the guy to our rooms which were two doors down from each other and see plenty of people sitting around outside but it was just still so quiet. We figured people hated us for talking. They upgraded us for free because Alice is a smooth talker so that was nice. The hotel was very subdued, the rooms were quite bland, but very nice and the beds were super comfy. They went straight to bed, I went out and had a glass of water on one of the many patio type places at the resort (everything looks the same…I got lost a lot!) and it was so peaceful. Me, my wine and the stars, was super nice. Breakfast was included in our rooms and only served til 10:30am so we decided to go at 10ish…I set my alarm to get up and go to the gym but when it went off, I figured I came here to relax, that would be going against my plans and skipped it the whole weekend (although I did at least set the alarm for both mornings and then made the decision to can it!!).
We went down to the pool to secure chairs in a good spot and then hit breakfast. The buffet was great and you could order other stuff off the menu. I did something super crazy and had an egg white omelette…ha..jk…this is so typical me. Breakfast was also when we started to realize we were probably the only single folks at this place. Anyway…we hit the pool about 11am and the pool boys were great to get our stuff all set up and bring us waters (it was much needed……even by the water was still really hot). I bought a new John Grisham book at the airport and that kept me occupied most of the weekend (I finished it about 5pm on Saturday!) It was funny with the three of us as I’m by far the brownest and spent the entire weekend in the sun, Alice can handle some sun but tried to keep her face in the shade, and poor Niamh is anti sun. She was barely in it at all and ended up with very burned feet and various other random places. Splotchy is a good description and a word we used a lot over the weekend. So after laying there for about an hour Niamh (who remember has come all the way from London for a weekend away) thinks she recognizes someone she works with. We are at this small boutique hotel in Oman and sure enough, it’s her. Then we go sit at the food area by the pool and within 10 minutes sees someone else she used to work with. It was crazy. She said if she saw one more person she was going home but thankfully that didn’t happen! We were slightly annoyed on Friday as due to religious reasons you couldn’t drink until after 2pm. I don’t get rules like that…is there really a difference between noon and 2? Or anytime and 2? If you allow drinking, just allow it. Thankfully this was just a Friday rule and it was 1:30 when we figured it out! We had a nice light lunch, got some drinks and then returned to doing nothing for another couple hours. We all had booked spa packages, Niamh was first at 3:30 and then Alice and I followed at 5pm. 5pm was perfect as I was done with the sun, got a shower in and hit the spa. Alice and I were in the same room as they could only accommodate us both at that time if we did it together and we didn’t care. We did 2 separate packages so were joking that there was no way I was going to have my Ocean type massage music since hers was something different…it all worked out just fine though. Mine was the longest package possible..3 hours and it was amazing. The Ocean bath was a bit boring and super hot, especially since I had just left the pool about an hour before. Next up was a full body scrub (not so nice on my burned back and chest, but otherwise great!). I was quite surprised when she asked if she could do my chest and I assumed she meant my chest where I was burned but nope, she meant everything. Ha. No one in this part of the world has come close to even exposing my chest during massages so I was pretty surprised, but hey, I’m up for whatever. And I told the girls after..the three hours with my therapist was the most action I’ve gotten in three months!!! Yes yes, TMI, but it was funny. After the scrub was a seaweed wrap….I wasn’t actually wrapped in seaweed, it was more of a seaweed scrub and then I was wrapped up in all these towels and blankets to keep the heat in. I laid like that for 30 minutes and my body was on fire. She had me shower after that and the reflection in the mirror almost made me bust out laughing. Alice was face up but with her eyes covered, or else she prob would have laughed as well. After I was as soft as could possibly be, I had a very nice long massage and was quite sad when the whole thing was over!!!
After spa I hit their room for some champagne and snacks (my stomach was growling during most of the spa time!) and we chatted a bunch while taking our sweet time getting ready. Although getting ready essentially involved drinking champagne and throwing on my dress and tying my hair up so it was mostly drinking! Oh forgot….on the plane ride over they were kind enough to introduce me to Curly Wurly’s which were a childhood candy for them. It was delicious but I ended up with flakes all over me…clearly I don’t know the correct way to eat it! They also had me try Pimm’s which Naimh had picked up at duty free on the way over. We were late to dinner but was no biggie since our table wasn’t ready anyways since we requested one by the window…thankfully we only had to wait like 5 minutes as we were all pretty hungry. Had some champagne cocktails and a delicious meal (lobster risotto, salad, coconut sorbet, YUM!). We could all barely move when we were finished but it was well worth it. I had another glass of wine under the stars and was in bed by midnight. Oh also funny…the first night, when I checked in they had the decorative pillows on the bed…but one sort of looked like a regular pillow just definitely not in a pillow case so I slept with that the first night. After the spa I happened to walk in while they were doing turn down service and were putting 4 nice normal pillows on my bed….oops! They had been in the closet area the night before but I didn’t even realize…Alice proceeded to make fun of me greatly. The other thing about the turn down service…pretty sure they stole my favorite earrings that I wear everyday. This is now the second pair of Tiffany earrings I have “lost”. The first time was last summer when I went to Maine, I managed to lose one. I got a new pair for X-mas and now have lost the full set so I still have one out of four. Both pairs were gifts from my ex…maybe a sign? I wonder if I buy them myself if I’ll lose those too. Very frustrating but nothing I can do about it. I hope the wife or girlfriend enjoys them (both turndown folks were men).
Saturday morning I got up to my alarm again and immediately re-set it with just enough time for breakfast and then we did a repeat of day 1. Breakfast, beach/pool, lunch, more beach pool. Just no spa this day! I finished my book at about 5pm and then went back to our suite to get ready to go. Oh yeah…so we asked for late checkout til 6 since our flight wasn’t until 8:15…there were people checking into our rooms but they gave us a suite for the day instead and moved all our stuff for us. Fabulous place!! We took off for the airport right around 6 and had tons of time to kill when we got there. The Muscat airport was much larger than I thought and not sure why as no one was there! We went through about 8 security checks and then I saw something amazing…..a Dairy Queen sign!!!! Two things I really miss from the US are Chipotle and DQ Blizzards so you can imagine how elated I was to realize I could have a blizzard for dinner. I introduced Alice and Niamh to a bit of my child (I mean adult) hood and Niamh and I had blizzards for dinner. Alice had real food but did try some of ours as they screwed up our order and gave Niamh 2 (one with Oreo and one with Butterfinger) instead of 1 with both. I was a bit bummed they didn’t have Reece’s since that is my favorite but settled for snickers and Butterfinger. Then we went to Duty free and shopped for perfume. I’ve been wanting to get new perfume for ages but anytime I go to look/smell, I get a headache after about 2 minutes and give up. I persevered and found one I loved and also got my nephew something cuz I’m such a fab Auntie! Flight was easy, I tried to sleep but couldn’t but we were back at home by 10pm which was great so I could get in bed at a normal hour.
It was sad to go back to work yesterday but I also felt like we had a really long weekend. Funny when we landed Saturday night I couldn’t really remember getting on the plane Thursday night which was 48 hours earlier! I love when weekends feel like that. Was the first night back at bootcamp so stayed a bit late at work, went over there and got ready for the fitness assessment. The class was HUGE. 46 ppl. It’s the most they’ve ever had and it’s June….makes absolutely no sense! I figured it would be those of us who are addicted already but not soooo many newbies. Anyways…I was hoping to hit the 7 minute mile mark and came close…7:12. 17 seconds better than last month so I was happy with that. It was hot so I’m sure that doesn’t help. We did everything else and I beat all my prior month scores (some considerably) except for the plank. I did 3 min first month, 3:29 last month and 3:02 yesterday. I pushed it much more on the squats/push ups so my body was pretty dead by the time I got to the plank. So of course we finished about 30 minutes late and I had somewhere to be. I was meeting Alice and the girls to see The Hangover 2 at a sweet movie theatre in the Marina Mall. I had to go home from BC (which was close to the mall already!), run in, quick shower, change, throw hair up and head back down to get cab. Thankfully I made it back and only missed the previews and…in the Gold Class theatre which we bought tickets for, you can order food and they bring it to you..plus you get these big comfy leather recliners. Not sure how I’ll ever watch a movie normally again! The movie was good….the other 3 liked it better than 1…I think I liked 1 better only because 2 was fairly predictable after seeing 1 yet still very funny and it didn’t seem like too much was edited for showing here. How’s this for bizarre? Its PG-15 here in the UAE….and R in the states. Pretty sure it should be R.
I got home about 12:15 and figured I’d pass out since I had been running around all night. No such luck. The last time I looked at my phone it was 3:30. I was sooooo frustrated by that point knowing I was going to get 3.5 hours sleep max. My mind just wouldn’t stop last night as much as I tried. I’m exhausted today and pretty glad Oliver cancelled our steak date. He’s headed to the US on Thursday to find out if he made partner or not (pretty sure he did) so we were gonna do an early celebration dinner before he left (and I haven’t had steak in about a month) but now I’m gonna go home, order room service, call Maria who I have flaked on two weeks in a row and go to bed early. Ideally asleep by 9:30. We shall see!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
5 weeks and counting.....
The title of the blog was 6 weeks and counting but that was when I started jotting down things..now we’re at 5 weeks and since I’m posting today…5 weeks it is!
Another glorious weekend has come and gone and this one was the most relaxing one I’ve had probably since last year. It was much needed as I’ve just been feeling over Abu Dhabi, exhausted from my social life, etc. I know I know…wah wah wah you are all thinking. Ha. But when every night of every week involves some type of activity, it gets really tiring. I’m feeling much better today, re -energized and ready to take on the last 5 weeks. I was also starting to really miss home but have decided to just get over that since there isn’t anything I can do about it. Okay..this week wasn’t terribly exciting as I started saying no but here goes:
Monday was the last night my boss was in town (or at least the last night I had to be available). We had dinner with my old client at the Hilton and it was a nice change of pace since I’d never been to any of the restaurants there before. It was me and 6 guys, I’m pretty sure I only get invited to these things to mix it up. Ha. Oliver was in a foul mood so he sat at the end of the table and didn’t say anything. I was in no mood to be there but put on a smile as that’s just what you have to sometimes. Client dinners always take FOREVER so it was a little past 10 when we got back to Beach Rotana. Dean of course wanted to go get a drink and since I knew Oliver didn’t want to be around just him, I stayed but switched to water. There was clearly tension between the two of them so that made it kind of awkward (doesn’t this sound like my guests from a few weeks back?!?!) but I managed to keep them talking which became the third degree about my love life. The three of us sitting there talking was quite funny actually. I’m the youngest, divorced and in no hurry to get married again (or have kids, if ever) although am in an annoying situation relationship wise and hence the 3rd degree from them. Anyways…that’s far too long of a story for this blog. Dean is divorced, hates his ex-wife and is having issues with his kids. Oliver is never married and feeling stressed about meeting “the one” and having kids soon as he doesn’t think “the one” exists and he’ll have to settle just so he’s not an old Dad. It was a pretty depressing conversation. Lol. Oh..and then I was like Dean..what am I doing next month. We’ve agreed on moving to Boston..but have yet to agree on what I’ll be doing for work and its driving me crazy. He said I’d know within 30 days……sooooo helpful. At least when I got home and got in bed I fell asleep quickly!
Tuesday I just felt completely run down and had no energy for boot camp but went anyway. It’s the one hour of my day that I just forget everything that’s bothering me and usually wake up once we start. It was great for clearing my head, but it was certainly not my best workout. It was the first time I considered not completing some of the tasks. When I got home I had a call with my Coach and unfortunately, can’t divulge the outcome of it just yet but it was certainly better for my mood which the boys trashed the night before! Pearl Harbor was on and I of course started watching that and at 12:30 forced myself to shut it off since it’s a long a** movie and I just couldn’t stay up any longer. I never get more than 6 or 7 hours of sleep (all my own fault) and even this past weekend when I tried, I couldn’t sleep!
Wednesday was great. It was the first day in a long time that I just said I was going to leave work and do absolutely nothing. Granted it was only an evening but to have no other job work, no calls, no dinners, no bootcamp, no nothing was glorious. One of my friends was like..what are you doing…me…nothing. Oh..you want to come to dinner with us. No…I am making a conscious effort to do nothing thank you! Alice came by after a mini shopping trip to show me her new purchases but that and watching Invictus was about all I accomplished. Invictus was great. I had heard from a bunch of rugby players that they didn’t love it..and I can see if you are super into rugby that you wouldn’t, but not caring all that much about rugby I thought it was a solid movie! Oh…I also talked to my mom (she doesn’t count as a “call”) and got to talk to Dylan too. As soon as he knew it was me and he wanted to talk and talk he did for a good 15 minutes! He is so sweet and I miss him so much. I told him I’ve been buying him stuff on my travels and he goes…”You’re awesome Auntie Tina”. Melt my heart. We talked about Maine and all the accidents he’s had (as well as any my mom has had and the dog, ha!). Also got the scoop on my sister who is getting married this weekend. Long story, but yes, she is getting married this weekend and I’m keeping my mouth shut on the matter. I wanted to be asleep by 10pm since I was going to bootcamp the next morning but of course that doesn’t happen so 5:15am came pretty fast and I was really contemplating the extra 2 hours of sleep.
Thursday was a long day. I got my a** up and went to bootcamp. It was HOT. It was the first morning session I did for the month and what a difference. By 7:30 at night, the sun has gone down and there is sometimes a breeze on the beach. At 6am the sun is shining and there is nothing even resembling a breeze. I was sweating so much it was dripping in my eyes and I couldn’t see..and of course I couldn’t wipe it off with my shirt cuz that was covered with sand. It was a great last session of the month but I finished a big sweaty disgusting mess. I ended up in the beach shower fully clothed and the cab driver was beyind thrilled that I soaked his cab. Sorry buddy. I gave him a good tip and did sit on the floor mat which made it a little better. Went home, got ready and then to work which I was hoping would be a shorter day since a lot of ppl leave earlier on Thursday. No such luck. I was still here at 6:45 and watching my nap time slip away! I managed to get like 20 minutes in before reception called to ask if I was okay….umm..yes I’m fine why? Well ma’am, your DND sign is on. Oh yeah……then leave me the f*** alone. Seriously what is wrong with people? She was like, its been up for 4 days..um no….it was up for 3 but Wednesday I let them clean AND had them bring me room service. Clearly I am alive and well and just don’t want you to bother me, but thank you for waking me up 20 minutes early when I’m tired. So I got ready and then went to meet Alice so we could head over to Yas. One of the girls she works with had 2 friends from London in town so a bunch of us went to Kazu, a Japanese restaurant at the Yas Hotel and ate at the teppenyaki tables. The meal was amazing. Prawn tempura, chicken/fillet teppanyaki with fried rice and veggies, topped off with tempura ice cream. I was in heaven….and insanely full! After this we went up to Skylite (the rooftop bar) and had a few drinks there but it was soooo hot and sticky. It was pretty dead (prob because its outside) and it was getting late although it seemed really early and not sure why. At about 12:30 Alice and I left the gang and went to Rush which is also in the hotel. Alice didn’t get to go with me the last time and wanted to check it out. Another girl, Sophie was meeting us and my new boot camp buddy Jill was supposed to as well although as it turns out, she took a nap Thursday after work and didn’t wake up til 4am. Oops! We had a good time, music was great again and a bunch of my other friends showed up so that was nice. Ohh…and Liana missed out big time. It was full of US NBA players who are here for 2 weeks or something and there are never tall black men here (her favorite!). She would have been in absolute heaven. Alice and I were joking that it would have been hysterical to watch her try to pick which one she liked best since there are never even tall people around, let alone numerous ones, who also play professional sports (another of her soft spots!). Agh well…she is in the Galapagos Islands which I’m sure is better. By 3 or so my feet were killing me so I went home, sucks that Yas is so far away when you just want to get home and in bed but I had no plans on Friday so didn’t mind too much.
Both Alice and Jill invited me to different brunch’s on Friday but I decided that I didn’t want to spend the day indoors drinking all day (has anyone counted the number of responsible things I’ve done this week? I think this is 3 or 4!). Instead I slept in, ordered room service and hit the pool around 2pm. It’s so hot in the afternoon and the sun stays til at least 4 so going at 2 is not a big deal. It was very close to almost too hot to tolerate hot but I persevered for the sake of my tan! Around 4 when the sun went down and the breeze started it was amazing. I passed out for a good hour and woke up all disoriented. Lol. Went back to my room and took a nap and then woke up and tried to decide whether I should see what people were doing, stay sleeping, or get up but chill out. I was pretty hungry so decided to get up and chill out for a bit but stay in. I actually ordered a proper meal from room service and tried to find a good movie to watch. Of course there was crap on so I watched American Idol instead and called my grams. She was very happy to hear from me and I know she’s not doing great right now so was glad I could help brighten her day. Alice and I were bbming and joking that we were both doing the exact same thing, 2 floors apart. It was great to just chill though. I got in bed around midnight and was quite excited for a full night of sleep but then of course couldn’t sleep. After hours of tossing and turning I finally managed to pass out.
Saturday I got up around 11 and hit the gym so I wouldn’t have to deal with it after hours at the pool when I very likely wouldn’t have gone! Had a great workout and then hit the pool. Go out a bit earlier then the day before and I’m pretty sure it was hotter. Plus I had just been at the gym and even though I took a cool shower, my body was still all pumped up so I was just dripping sweat (yummy huh?!). Alice came and met me about 30 minutes later and I ordered one of my favorite club sandwiches for lunch. I also decided that having every weekend at a beach resort is pretty much like a mini vacation. What am I gonna do when someone doesn’t bring me food pool side???? Because it’s been so hot, you kind of have to get in the pool ever 20-30 minutes although the pool was pretty hot, as was the shower. Last weekend it was chilled, not so much this weekend. We hit the pool swim up bar for a frozen margarita but called it a day at 1 since we’re both trying to be good (I swear this is like #6 or 7….who am I?!). Left around 4:45 after a quick nap and hit the coop with Alice. We were both totally inappropriately dressed and got lots of looks. I had a sweater on since my beach dress is completely open in the front..unfort. the sweater is also open in the front so it was either wear it backwards or walk around with it held shut. Was a bit annoying but at least I didn’t get thrown in jail! We decided as we were checking out that for being such responsible career women….we are like children when it comes to home life. Neither of us had purchased anything that could even begin to resemble a meal or an attempt at cooking. My usual is: nuts, cheese, cereal, diet coke, gum, chup chups w/gum (like a blow pop). I do normally buy turkey slices but they didn’t have any normal stuff (and by normal I mean American brands). I changed and then hit the mall so I could get a mani/pedi even though I really wanted a nap. They didn’t have room for 45 minutes so I walked around the mall…got a new workout top (since I ruined most of mine in the wash…at boot camp its been a non issue since we have t shirts we have to wear but if I’m at the gym all week, I need clothes!), found a cute day dress and then went to my appt. Some of the bball players were in the sports store..the employees were amazed that anyone could be that tall (cuz everyone here is so short!). Went home and had some dinner (part of the meal that I ordered the night before that was way too big for me) and watched some tv before hitting the sack. Of course I was exhausted, didn’t take a nap, and still slept like crap. I’ve just been tossing and turning for hours…I guess its cuz I have a lot on my mind but getting very frustrating. I eventually fell asleep at some point only to wake up to the call to prayer at 4:13am. Why does anyone need to pray this early?!?!
And now its Sunday again! No boot camp for the first time in 2 months (they are taking a week off between last session and next as the owner is on vaca) which is partly sad because I love it but partly good because 3 days a week I end up sitting at work for longer than I need to since there is no point in going home first. I hit the Rotana gym instead and got a good cardio workout. I ran on the treadmill for the first time in 2 months (well other than 2 or 3 1 mile cool downs) and a 3 mile run after spending the last 2 months running on the sand was like running on air! I have never been a runner, I just do it because it helps me lose weight, but it was amazingly easy tonight and I felt fit!!! Boot camp has been awesome, it never really gets easier since its always changing and I can def see a difference after two months. My body is pretty hard, especially my abs and legs. My arms are def more toned and my butt is getting bigger. I started noticing that a couple weeks ago when my pants weren’t quite as comfortable. Either my shoulders or back are also getting bigger since my suit coats don’t fit as well…that part I’m not terribly happy about, but I don’t think I look bulky or weird either so I guess it’s all for the best. I plan to spend this week doing cardio and abs since we do so much leg/arm work at bc and I’ll be back to that next Sunday.
This week should be fairly quiet….Alice has convinced me to go out tomorrow night for Monday Club which hasn’t happened in ages since people have moved away, etc, but one of the founding members (I believe) is in town from Singapore for one day and wants to revive it. I figured I can handle one night out right?!?! And then Thursday we head to Oman after work. The place we’re staying at looks amazing and its about 10 deg cooler so it will be a nice break from the AD heat. We plan to go snorkeling and do a dolphin watching trip so that should be really fun. It will be nice to take one last trip as well…and will mark country #5 this year (not including the US!). I’m also glad to be getting away from AD and having another peaceful weekend with the girls. Gotta save up some energy as I know my last couple weeks here will likely be full of activities and Maria comes so it will be jam packed.
Another glorious weekend has come and gone and this one was the most relaxing one I’ve had probably since last year. It was much needed as I’ve just been feeling over Abu Dhabi, exhausted from my social life, etc. I know I know…wah wah wah you are all thinking. Ha. But when every night of every week involves some type of activity, it gets really tiring. I’m feeling much better today, re -energized and ready to take on the last 5 weeks. I was also starting to really miss home but have decided to just get over that since there isn’t anything I can do about it. Okay..this week wasn’t terribly exciting as I started saying no but here goes:
Monday was the last night my boss was in town (or at least the last night I had to be available). We had dinner with my old client at the Hilton and it was a nice change of pace since I’d never been to any of the restaurants there before. It was me and 6 guys, I’m pretty sure I only get invited to these things to mix it up. Ha. Oliver was in a foul mood so he sat at the end of the table and didn’t say anything. I was in no mood to be there but put on a smile as that’s just what you have to sometimes. Client dinners always take FOREVER so it was a little past 10 when we got back to Beach Rotana. Dean of course wanted to go get a drink and since I knew Oliver didn’t want to be around just him, I stayed but switched to water. There was clearly tension between the two of them so that made it kind of awkward (doesn’t this sound like my guests from a few weeks back?!?!) but I managed to keep them talking which became the third degree about my love life. The three of us sitting there talking was quite funny actually. I’m the youngest, divorced and in no hurry to get married again (or have kids, if ever) although am in an annoying situation relationship wise and hence the 3rd degree from them. Anyways…that’s far too long of a story for this blog. Dean is divorced, hates his ex-wife and is having issues with his kids. Oliver is never married and feeling stressed about meeting “the one” and having kids soon as he doesn’t think “the one” exists and he’ll have to settle just so he’s not an old Dad. It was a pretty depressing conversation. Lol. Oh..and then I was like Dean..what am I doing next month. We’ve agreed on moving to Boston..but have yet to agree on what I’ll be doing for work and its driving me crazy. He said I’d know within 30 days……sooooo helpful. At least when I got home and got in bed I fell asleep quickly!
Tuesday I just felt completely run down and had no energy for boot camp but went anyway. It’s the one hour of my day that I just forget everything that’s bothering me and usually wake up once we start. It was great for clearing my head, but it was certainly not my best workout. It was the first time I considered not completing some of the tasks. When I got home I had a call with my Coach and unfortunately, can’t divulge the outcome of it just yet but it was certainly better for my mood which the boys trashed the night before! Pearl Harbor was on and I of course started watching that and at 12:30 forced myself to shut it off since it’s a long a** movie and I just couldn’t stay up any longer. I never get more than 6 or 7 hours of sleep (all my own fault) and even this past weekend when I tried, I couldn’t sleep!
Wednesday was great. It was the first day in a long time that I just said I was going to leave work and do absolutely nothing. Granted it was only an evening but to have no other job work, no calls, no dinners, no bootcamp, no nothing was glorious. One of my friends was like..what are you doing…me…nothing. Oh..you want to come to dinner with us. No…I am making a conscious effort to do nothing thank you! Alice came by after a mini shopping trip to show me her new purchases but that and watching Invictus was about all I accomplished. Invictus was great. I had heard from a bunch of rugby players that they didn’t love it..and I can see if you are super into rugby that you wouldn’t, but not caring all that much about rugby I thought it was a solid movie! Oh…I also talked to my mom (she doesn’t count as a “call”) and got to talk to Dylan too. As soon as he knew it was me and he wanted to talk and talk he did for a good 15 minutes! He is so sweet and I miss him so much. I told him I’ve been buying him stuff on my travels and he goes…”You’re awesome Auntie Tina”. Melt my heart. We talked about Maine and all the accidents he’s had (as well as any my mom has had and the dog, ha!). Also got the scoop on my sister who is getting married this weekend. Long story, but yes, she is getting married this weekend and I’m keeping my mouth shut on the matter. I wanted to be asleep by 10pm since I was going to bootcamp the next morning but of course that doesn’t happen so 5:15am came pretty fast and I was really contemplating the extra 2 hours of sleep.
Thursday was a long day. I got my a** up and went to bootcamp. It was HOT. It was the first morning session I did for the month and what a difference. By 7:30 at night, the sun has gone down and there is sometimes a breeze on the beach. At 6am the sun is shining and there is nothing even resembling a breeze. I was sweating so much it was dripping in my eyes and I couldn’t see..and of course I couldn’t wipe it off with my shirt cuz that was covered with sand. It was a great last session of the month but I finished a big sweaty disgusting mess. I ended up in the beach shower fully clothed and the cab driver was beyind thrilled that I soaked his cab. Sorry buddy. I gave him a good tip and did sit on the floor mat which made it a little better. Went home, got ready and then to work which I was hoping would be a shorter day since a lot of ppl leave earlier on Thursday. No such luck. I was still here at 6:45 and watching my nap time slip away! I managed to get like 20 minutes in before reception called to ask if I was okay….umm..yes I’m fine why? Well ma’am, your DND sign is on. Oh yeah……then leave me the f*** alone. Seriously what is wrong with people? She was like, its been up for 4 days..um no….it was up for 3 but Wednesday I let them clean AND had them bring me room service. Clearly I am alive and well and just don’t want you to bother me, but thank you for waking me up 20 minutes early when I’m tired. So I got ready and then went to meet Alice so we could head over to Yas. One of the girls she works with had 2 friends from London in town so a bunch of us went to Kazu, a Japanese restaurant at the Yas Hotel and ate at the teppenyaki tables. The meal was amazing. Prawn tempura, chicken/fillet teppanyaki with fried rice and veggies, topped off with tempura ice cream. I was in heaven….and insanely full! After this we went up to Skylite (the rooftop bar) and had a few drinks there but it was soooo hot and sticky. It was pretty dead (prob because its outside) and it was getting late although it seemed really early and not sure why. At about 12:30 Alice and I left the gang and went to Rush which is also in the hotel. Alice didn’t get to go with me the last time and wanted to check it out. Another girl, Sophie was meeting us and my new boot camp buddy Jill was supposed to as well although as it turns out, she took a nap Thursday after work and didn’t wake up til 4am. Oops! We had a good time, music was great again and a bunch of my other friends showed up so that was nice. Ohh…and Liana missed out big time. It was full of US NBA players who are here for 2 weeks or something and there are never tall black men here (her favorite!). She would have been in absolute heaven. Alice and I were joking that it would have been hysterical to watch her try to pick which one she liked best since there are never even tall people around, let alone numerous ones, who also play professional sports (another of her soft spots!). Agh well…she is in the Galapagos Islands which I’m sure is better. By 3 or so my feet were killing me so I went home, sucks that Yas is so far away when you just want to get home and in bed but I had no plans on Friday so didn’t mind too much.
Both Alice and Jill invited me to different brunch’s on Friday but I decided that I didn’t want to spend the day indoors drinking all day (has anyone counted the number of responsible things I’ve done this week? I think this is 3 or 4!). Instead I slept in, ordered room service and hit the pool around 2pm. It’s so hot in the afternoon and the sun stays til at least 4 so going at 2 is not a big deal. It was very close to almost too hot to tolerate hot but I persevered for the sake of my tan! Around 4 when the sun went down and the breeze started it was amazing. I passed out for a good hour and woke up all disoriented. Lol. Went back to my room and took a nap and then woke up and tried to decide whether I should see what people were doing, stay sleeping, or get up but chill out. I was pretty hungry so decided to get up and chill out for a bit but stay in. I actually ordered a proper meal from room service and tried to find a good movie to watch. Of course there was crap on so I watched American Idol instead and called my grams. She was very happy to hear from me and I know she’s not doing great right now so was glad I could help brighten her day. Alice and I were bbming and joking that we were both doing the exact same thing, 2 floors apart. It was great to just chill though. I got in bed around midnight and was quite excited for a full night of sleep but then of course couldn’t sleep. After hours of tossing and turning I finally managed to pass out.
Saturday I got up around 11 and hit the gym so I wouldn’t have to deal with it after hours at the pool when I very likely wouldn’t have gone! Had a great workout and then hit the pool. Go out a bit earlier then the day before and I’m pretty sure it was hotter. Plus I had just been at the gym and even though I took a cool shower, my body was still all pumped up so I was just dripping sweat (yummy huh?!). Alice came and met me about 30 minutes later and I ordered one of my favorite club sandwiches for lunch. I also decided that having every weekend at a beach resort is pretty much like a mini vacation. What am I gonna do when someone doesn’t bring me food pool side???? Because it’s been so hot, you kind of have to get in the pool ever 20-30 minutes although the pool was pretty hot, as was the shower. Last weekend it was chilled, not so much this weekend. We hit the pool swim up bar for a frozen margarita but called it a day at 1 since we’re both trying to be good (I swear this is like #6 or 7….who am I?!). Left around 4:45 after a quick nap and hit the coop with Alice. We were both totally inappropriately dressed and got lots of looks. I had a sweater on since my beach dress is completely open in the front..unfort. the sweater is also open in the front so it was either wear it backwards or walk around with it held shut. Was a bit annoying but at least I didn’t get thrown in jail! We decided as we were checking out that for being such responsible career women….we are like children when it comes to home life. Neither of us had purchased anything that could even begin to resemble a meal or an attempt at cooking. My usual is: nuts, cheese, cereal, diet coke, gum, chup chups w/gum (like a blow pop). I do normally buy turkey slices but they didn’t have any normal stuff (and by normal I mean American brands). I changed and then hit the mall so I could get a mani/pedi even though I really wanted a nap. They didn’t have room for 45 minutes so I walked around the mall…got a new workout top (since I ruined most of mine in the wash…at boot camp its been a non issue since we have t shirts we have to wear but if I’m at the gym all week, I need clothes!), found a cute day dress and then went to my appt. Some of the bball players were in the sports store..the employees were amazed that anyone could be that tall (cuz everyone here is so short!). Went home and had some dinner (part of the meal that I ordered the night before that was way too big for me) and watched some tv before hitting the sack. Of course I was exhausted, didn’t take a nap, and still slept like crap. I’ve just been tossing and turning for hours…I guess its cuz I have a lot on my mind but getting very frustrating. I eventually fell asleep at some point only to wake up to the call to prayer at 4:13am. Why does anyone need to pray this early?!?!
And now its Sunday again! No boot camp for the first time in 2 months (they are taking a week off between last session and next as the owner is on vaca) which is partly sad because I love it but partly good because 3 days a week I end up sitting at work for longer than I need to since there is no point in going home first. I hit the Rotana gym instead and got a good cardio workout. I ran on the treadmill for the first time in 2 months (well other than 2 or 3 1 mile cool downs) and a 3 mile run after spending the last 2 months running on the sand was like running on air! I have never been a runner, I just do it because it helps me lose weight, but it was amazingly easy tonight and I felt fit!!! Boot camp has been awesome, it never really gets easier since its always changing and I can def see a difference after two months. My body is pretty hard, especially my abs and legs. My arms are def more toned and my butt is getting bigger. I started noticing that a couple weeks ago when my pants weren’t quite as comfortable. Either my shoulders or back are also getting bigger since my suit coats don’t fit as well…that part I’m not terribly happy about, but I don’t think I look bulky or weird either so I guess it’s all for the best. I plan to spend this week doing cardio and abs since we do so much leg/arm work at bc and I’ll be back to that next Sunday.
This week should be fairly quiet….Alice has convinced me to go out tomorrow night for Monday Club which hasn’t happened in ages since people have moved away, etc, but one of the founding members (I believe) is in town from Singapore for one day and wants to revive it. I figured I can handle one night out right?!?! And then Thursday we head to Oman after work. The place we’re staying at looks amazing and its about 10 deg cooler so it will be a nice break from the AD heat. We plan to go snorkeling and do a dolphin watching trip so that should be really fun. It will be nice to take one last trip as well…and will mark country #5 this year (not including the US!). I’m also glad to be getting away from AD and having another peaceful weekend with the girls. Gotta save up some energy as I know my last couple weeks here will likely be full of activities and Maria comes so it will be jam packed.
Monday, May 16, 2011
A busy work week, with some fun weaved in!
Well another Sunday is here and I’m exhausted! I ended up talking to a friend from home who I haven’t spoken to in months so that went about 2 hours…at 12:45am I had to put an end to it so I could get some sleep! So much for an early night. Agh well. Last week was long and a bit stressful trying to keep up with my job here, my job at home, boot camp, etc.
Monday was work and then I hit Nails for a much needed mani/pedi (they had been full the last 3 times I tried!). After I finished I went down to the pool bar armed with US work, had a delicious club sandwich and got through ARC files (ARC is our year end annual review which is going on now and there is so much to do to prepare for it). It was pretty warm but was nice to be out of the house. After I finished with that I went back upstairs and Alice had just landed from London so she came by to debrief me on her sisters hen weekend which sounded fab. She is such a good planner and her sister is very lucky to have her! She also brought me truffles which she made herself at a truffle class they did. I had one and then took the rest to work so I didn’t get stuck eating them all!!! We all agreed they were delicious and she could have a side business!
Tuesday was work and then BC. At this point I had about a thousand bug bites on my legs from Sunday (as I wore shorts) and the bugs seem to have gotten much worse as the temp has risen. Speaking of that. It’s hot. It seemed to have gone from nice to blazing with no warning. If you look at the 10 day forecast no day is under 100 degrees and I’m pretty sure it’s only going to get worse. Anyway, hell week arm day was good..I wish every week we got pushed as much as hell week. I got home and then ended up on a US work call til about 11 (my phone bill is going to be horrendous this month!) and then hit the sack.
Wednesday I had a date with Liana so I could see her before she took off for her next adventure for 2.5 weeks. She picked me up and we went to Hanoi, one of her favorites and it was delicious. Then we walked around that area as she had errands to do..played the..how many pharmacies do I have to go in to before they’ll sell me something without a script game. Ha. Thankfully there are pharmacies (or chemists as she calls them, everywhere). I was saying how funny chemist sounds and she was like, yeah well you flat out call them drug stores. Touche. She needed some other stuff for her trip but finding rain coats and long underwear in Abu Dhabi is not exactly easy, esp when its in the 100’s! I went home exhausted and so ready to pass out and then slept terrible. Just a lot on my mind, stressed out and did a lot of tossing and turning.
Thursday morning I woke up feeling like a zombie but thankfully it was the last day of the week. I had planned to do morning BC so that I could leave work a little early (as most ppl do on Thursdays) and take a nap before all my work stuff hit. Since I couldn’t sleep Wed night..there was just no chance of that happening. I conveniently left my sweater in Liana’s car the night before and forgot to bring her the papers she needed so we decided to meet for lunch at the place where we used to do our Thursday lunches (Jk..it was accidental..but nice to have my lunch buddy back!)
I suffered through work, stayed way later than needed to because I just go straight to BC from here. Well then BC turned out to just be a ton of running for an hour. I was so irritated cuz I was thinking I could have gone home 2 hours ago and done that myself!!! We essentially went to this massive car park and ran around it, first one lap at 90% capacity, then 1.5, then 2, then 2.5, etc. It was rough. It was hot, I was in pants cuz of the bug bite issue and thinking we’d be in the sand/grass like usual, and there was no breeze. Oh and I’m not a huge fan of just running in squares. One of the guys in the class was funny..as it was me and this other chick that “won” every time…her half the rounds, me the other half. So finally he goes….can we get a lap head start or something…I hate chasing women! Ha. The other obnoxious thing was that there were these two cars full of local guys that kept circling me as I was running. They stayed in the lot driving around and/or parked staring at me the whole time. A couple times I was running solo and way off in one corner of this massive lot and felt a bit creeped out. That’s prob a first for Abu Dhabi. It ended up being fine…just weird. I raced home as I had a webcast I was supposed to be on that started at 9 and I was just getting in then. Of course because I was in a hurry my internet decided to be slow and trying to do anything took forever. At the end of the day, I couldn’t get on because something is wrong with my webcast database so that was sort of a waste! It did give me time to eat and shower before my next call so that was good. Alice had just landed from Doha (yes, she travels a lot!) so she stopped by for a quick catch up. I love having her in the building..its so nice to have someone to stop in or me swing by. The ARC call was supposed to start at 10:15, which became 10:30, then 10:45, finally 11 which really didn’t start til 11:15. Thanks guys. I had already written the night off and planned to stay in for the first time since I can’t even remember when. I was so beat from the week and in no mood to go out after my call ended at midnight.
Friday was great to sleep in. I should have gotten up and gone to the gym but I was pretty sore from running so much and wanted as much sleep as possible. Talked to a friend from home first thing which started the day out well! Alice and I were doing brunch for one of her friends and she wanted a Plus 1. I had met Paul once awhile back so agreed to go and it made for a nice afternoon. Paul is 47..his girlfriend who was super sweet is 22. Rock on buddy, rock on! We had lots of mojitos and sparkling wine, as well as an enormous amount of food and they had a white chocolate fountain. YUM! I love white chocolate so ended up with white chocolate soup…a bowl of white choc with various diced nuts mixed in. Hey, whatever makes me happy right? They didn’t have as cool of candy as Yalumba did, but the white chocolate made up for it! Oh….this one couple brought their 5 day old baby to brunch. 5 DAYS! Crazy. She seemed to calm and relaxed too as they passed her baby around. I was thinking you realize its all you can drink right…these people prob shouldn’t be anywhere near your kid! We were joking too as I was saying it took me 6 months to get to my first Abu Dhabi brunch, and it took this kid 5 days…ha. When brunch ended we went out to the beach club for a bit but it was soooo hot and neither of us brought our bathing suits. Just doesn’t seem right to eat and drink for hours and then want to put on a bikini. We stayed for about an hour and then were both beat and needed naps so we went home. I wish I could have just slept until the next morning but my boss was flying in at 8:30 so I had to be a good employee and get my a** up. At that point I had a decent hangover headache and wanted to do nothing! I went and met him for dinner (an hour of which was spent with him on a conference call and me admiring the fish in the water…ha…that is what happens when you do meals with work people..it has happened to me way too many times!). After the call he wanted to go grab another drink so we went to Trader Vics which I haven’t been too in ages. Their Mai Tais…or rather all their drinks…are lethal. None of them taste that strong…..but the next morning you feel it. It was good to have the night with him to chat about work stuff, plans, etc and at this point I know that Boston is a go! Wooohooo! Nice to have some finality to all the maybe’s. I even just booked my bachelorette party tickets for Miami since now I know I’ll be flying from Boston! Anyway…..got home and in bed around 2 so not as bad as a normal night out which was a plus. Dean has been coming to AD once a month for about 15 months….and has never had a day to do anything. He always flys in late, has work for a few days, then flys out early. We keep bugging him to fit a weekend day into his schedule so he can actually enjoy the city and stop complaining about working so much and he finally did! It was funny because he stays at the Beach Rotana everytime…and on Friday night asked me how to get to the pool for the next day. Lol.
Saturday was hot……really hot…minimum of 110 deg. Dean got out to the pool early….I slept in a bit and went around 11:30. Alice came down shortly after and then Oliver showed up a bit after that…although he was being a baby about the heat and went to the office for a couple hours instead. Day at pool, sitting at pool bar, strawberry margaritas in hand vs the office. I can see how that is a really tough decision! Most of the day was spent in the pool as it was just ridiculously hot. My dumba** didn’t put lotion on my face or back and I’m paying for it now. I think I even burned my lips!!! At about 3:30, Alice and I had had enough and hit the coop for some groceries before heading up to our rooms. Dean had wanted to go to Ferrari World which I was all for since I haven’t been yet, but Oliver clearly didn’t want to go (hanging out with these two is like babysitting 5 year olds sometimes…seriously…they even had an argument about who was more high maintenance, I think they both are and I’m the only sane one!). Alice decided to bow out (smart girl…wish I had a choice!!!) We ended up skipping FW but taking Dean over to Yas since he had never been. Hit up the Skylite bar at the Yas Hotel which was dead since we got there about 6pm on a Saturday but he was glad to see it since he had heard a lot about it and you can see the Formula 1 track. We had a couple drinks here, they nit picked at each other some more, and then we went to Cirpriani’s for dinner. I’ve wanted to go there since I got to AD but it’s just never worked out. My birthday was the last time we tried to go but there was a private party. The venue is beautiful and we sat outside with a great view of the Yas Hotel. The food was okay. I wasn’t overly impressed but it was still good. If a restaurant has buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes, I’m usually pretty happy! At this point I was really tired…..after being in the sun all day, entertaining, etc..I couldn’t wait for bed. I politely excused myself as they went for another drink back at the hotel as I had my phone date but then that ended up going so late that the early bed plan didn’t happen anyway. I was not thrilled when my alarm went off but what can ya do? Duty calls!
It’s Monday evening and I’m gonna finish this off and post. Yesterday was a decent day at work but I was very tired and was dreading bc. That’s the great thing about bc..the workdays that I’m exhausted and would otherwise go home and sit around, I go to bc and get my a** kicked instead! Once we get going I wake up and am fine so I’m always glad I went. It was not hell week anymore but mine as well have been and judging by the fact that I burned more calories than last week, I’d say it was unofficial hell week. We did 50 sprints in the sand, along with a variety of other horribly awesome things. I am pretty sore today and loving it! Went home, watched Invincible (or Invisible…something with Mark Wahlberg) and it was a really good movie. Had some wine and passed out as soon as I got in bed!
I’m headed to a client dinner tonight and really in no mood for it. Oh well..gotta do what I gotta do. My promotion fate is being decided right now. Oh and Alice, her friend and I just booked a trip to Oman for next weekend. SOOO excited for a relaxing, pool/beach filled girls weekend. Oh and its 10 degrees cooler than AD so that will be very nice. We’re trying to get DC Maria to come with us but shes still unsure.
Ohh…and as of tonight, I officially only have 6 weeks left. CRAZY!!!!!
Monday was work and then I hit Nails for a much needed mani/pedi (they had been full the last 3 times I tried!). After I finished I went down to the pool bar armed with US work, had a delicious club sandwich and got through ARC files (ARC is our year end annual review which is going on now and there is so much to do to prepare for it). It was pretty warm but was nice to be out of the house. After I finished with that I went back upstairs and Alice had just landed from London so she came by to debrief me on her sisters hen weekend which sounded fab. She is such a good planner and her sister is very lucky to have her! She also brought me truffles which she made herself at a truffle class they did. I had one and then took the rest to work so I didn’t get stuck eating them all!!! We all agreed they were delicious and she could have a side business!
Tuesday was work and then BC. At this point I had about a thousand bug bites on my legs from Sunday (as I wore shorts) and the bugs seem to have gotten much worse as the temp has risen. Speaking of that. It’s hot. It seemed to have gone from nice to blazing with no warning. If you look at the 10 day forecast no day is under 100 degrees and I’m pretty sure it’s only going to get worse. Anyway, hell week arm day was good..I wish every week we got pushed as much as hell week. I got home and then ended up on a US work call til about 11 (my phone bill is going to be horrendous this month!) and then hit the sack.
Wednesday I had a date with Liana so I could see her before she took off for her next adventure for 2.5 weeks. She picked me up and we went to Hanoi, one of her favorites and it was delicious. Then we walked around that area as she had errands to do..played the..how many pharmacies do I have to go in to before they’ll sell me something without a script game. Ha. Thankfully there are pharmacies (or chemists as she calls them, everywhere). I was saying how funny chemist sounds and she was like, yeah well you flat out call them drug stores. Touche. She needed some other stuff for her trip but finding rain coats and long underwear in Abu Dhabi is not exactly easy, esp when its in the 100’s! I went home exhausted and so ready to pass out and then slept terrible. Just a lot on my mind, stressed out and did a lot of tossing and turning.
Thursday morning I woke up feeling like a zombie but thankfully it was the last day of the week. I had planned to do morning BC so that I could leave work a little early (as most ppl do on Thursdays) and take a nap before all my work stuff hit. Since I couldn’t sleep Wed night..there was just no chance of that happening. I conveniently left my sweater in Liana’s car the night before and forgot to bring her the papers she needed so we decided to meet for lunch at the place where we used to do our Thursday lunches (Jk..it was accidental..but nice to have my lunch buddy back!)
I suffered through work, stayed way later than needed to because I just go straight to BC from here. Well then BC turned out to just be a ton of running for an hour. I was so irritated cuz I was thinking I could have gone home 2 hours ago and done that myself!!! We essentially went to this massive car park and ran around it, first one lap at 90% capacity, then 1.5, then 2, then 2.5, etc. It was rough. It was hot, I was in pants cuz of the bug bite issue and thinking we’d be in the sand/grass like usual, and there was no breeze. Oh and I’m not a huge fan of just running in squares. One of the guys in the class was funny..as it was me and this other chick that “won” every time…her half the rounds, me the other half. So finally he goes….can we get a lap head start or something…I hate chasing women! Ha. The other obnoxious thing was that there were these two cars full of local guys that kept circling me as I was running. They stayed in the lot driving around and/or parked staring at me the whole time. A couple times I was running solo and way off in one corner of this massive lot and felt a bit creeped out. That’s prob a first for Abu Dhabi. It ended up being fine…just weird. I raced home as I had a webcast I was supposed to be on that started at 9 and I was just getting in then. Of course because I was in a hurry my internet decided to be slow and trying to do anything took forever. At the end of the day, I couldn’t get on because something is wrong with my webcast database so that was sort of a waste! It did give me time to eat and shower before my next call so that was good. Alice had just landed from Doha (yes, she travels a lot!) so she stopped by for a quick catch up. I love having her in the building..its so nice to have someone to stop in or me swing by. The ARC call was supposed to start at 10:15, which became 10:30, then 10:45, finally 11 which really didn’t start til 11:15. Thanks guys. I had already written the night off and planned to stay in for the first time since I can’t even remember when. I was so beat from the week and in no mood to go out after my call ended at midnight.
Friday was great to sleep in. I should have gotten up and gone to the gym but I was pretty sore from running so much and wanted as much sleep as possible. Talked to a friend from home first thing which started the day out well! Alice and I were doing brunch for one of her friends and she wanted a Plus 1. I had met Paul once awhile back so agreed to go and it made for a nice afternoon. Paul is 47..his girlfriend who was super sweet is 22. Rock on buddy, rock on! We had lots of mojitos and sparkling wine, as well as an enormous amount of food and they had a white chocolate fountain. YUM! I love white chocolate so ended up with white chocolate soup…a bowl of white choc with various diced nuts mixed in. Hey, whatever makes me happy right? They didn’t have as cool of candy as Yalumba did, but the white chocolate made up for it! Oh….this one couple brought their 5 day old baby to brunch. 5 DAYS! Crazy. She seemed to calm and relaxed too as they passed her baby around. I was thinking you realize its all you can drink right…these people prob shouldn’t be anywhere near your kid! We were joking too as I was saying it took me 6 months to get to my first Abu Dhabi brunch, and it took this kid 5 days…ha. When brunch ended we went out to the beach club for a bit but it was soooo hot and neither of us brought our bathing suits. Just doesn’t seem right to eat and drink for hours and then want to put on a bikini. We stayed for about an hour and then were both beat and needed naps so we went home. I wish I could have just slept until the next morning but my boss was flying in at 8:30 so I had to be a good employee and get my a** up. At that point I had a decent hangover headache and wanted to do nothing! I went and met him for dinner (an hour of which was spent with him on a conference call and me admiring the fish in the water…ha…that is what happens when you do meals with work people..it has happened to me way too many times!). After the call he wanted to go grab another drink so we went to Trader Vics which I haven’t been too in ages. Their Mai Tais…or rather all their drinks…are lethal. None of them taste that strong…..but the next morning you feel it. It was good to have the night with him to chat about work stuff, plans, etc and at this point I know that Boston is a go! Wooohooo! Nice to have some finality to all the maybe’s. I even just booked my bachelorette party tickets for Miami since now I know I’ll be flying from Boston! Anyway…..got home and in bed around 2 so not as bad as a normal night out which was a plus. Dean has been coming to AD once a month for about 15 months….and has never had a day to do anything. He always flys in late, has work for a few days, then flys out early. We keep bugging him to fit a weekend day into his schedule so he can actually enjoy the city and stop complaining about working so much and he finally did! It was funny because he stays at the Beach Rotana everytime…and on Friday night asked me how to get to the pool for the next day. Lol.
Saturday was hot……really hot…minimum of 110 deg. Dean got out to the pool early….I slept in a bit and went around 11:30. Alice came down shortly after and then Oliver showed up a bit after that…although he was being a baby about the heat and went to the office for a couple hours instead. Day at pool, sitting at pool bar, strawberry margaritas in hand vs the office. I can see how that is a really tough decision! Most of the day was spent in the pool as it was just ridiculously hot. My dumba** didn’t put lotion on my face or back and I’m paying for it now. I think I even burned my lips!!! At about 3:30, Alice and I had had enough and hit the coop for some groceries before heading up to our rooms. Dean had wanted to go to Ferrari World which I was all for since I haven’t been yet, but Oliver clearly didn’t want to go (hanging out with these two is like babysitting 5 year olds sometimes…seriously…they even had an argument about who was more high maintenance, I think they both are and I’m the only sane one!). Alice decided to bow out (smart girl…wish I had a choice!!!) We ended up skipping FW but taking Dean over to Yas since he had never been. Hit up the Skylite bar at the Yas Hotel which was dead since we got there about 6pm on a Saturday but he was glad to see it since he had heard a lot about it and you can see the Formula 1 track. We had a couple drinks here, they nit picked at each other some more, and then we went to Cirpriani’s for dinner. I’ve wanted to go there since I got to AD but it’s just never worked out. My birthday was the last time we tried to go but there was a private party. The venue is beautiful and we sat outside with a great view of the Yas Hotel. The food was okay. I wasn’t overly impressed but it was still good. If a restaurant has buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes, I’m usually pretty happy! At this point I was really tired…..after being in the sun all day, entertaining, etc..I couldn’t wait for bed. I politely excused myself as they went for another drink back at the hotel as I had my phone date but then that ended up going so late that the early bed plan didn’t happen anyway. I was not thrilled when my alarm went off but what can ya do? Duty calls!
It’s Monday evening and I’m gonna finish this off and post. Yesterday was a decent day at work but I was very tired and was dreading bc. That’s the great thing about bc..the workdays that I’m exhausted and would otherwise go home and sit around, I go to bc and get my a** kicked instead! Once we get going I wake up and am fine so I’m always glad I went. It was not hell week anymore but mine as well have been and judging by the fact that I burned more calories than last week, I’d say it was unofficial hell week. We did 50 sprints in the sand, along with a variety of other horribly awesome things. I am pretty sore today and loving it! Went home, watched Invincible (or Invisible…something with Mark Wahlberg) and it was a really good movie. Had some wine and passed out as soon as I got in bed!
I’m headed to a client dinner tonight and really in no mood for it. Oh well..gotta do what I gotta do. My promotion fate is being decided right now. Oh and Alice, her friend and I just booked a trip to Oman for next weekend. SOOO excited for a relaxing, pool/beach filled girls weekend. Oh and its 10 degrees cooler than AD so that will be very nice. We’re trying to get DC Maria to come with us but shes still unsure.
Ohh…and as of tonight, I officially only have 6 weeks left. CRAZY!!!!!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Cristina & Liana (and Alice) reunite in London!
Aggh…It’s Sunday and I’m exhausted. I took the red eye back from London last night, worked all day and now am getting ready to hit BC. Tonight starts hell week so it’s going to be a bit of a challenge in my half awake state (not to mention my sore legs from walking around London/working out the last two days). It was a full week…..I feel like lots of events plus just lots of stuff (Osama was killed, my Sirius stock not only went above $2 for the first time in years, is currently sitting at $2.22 and I’m finally at a net gain!, I fully vested in my 401K sometime in the last two months and didn’t even realize it til last week, etc etc.
Sunday was a full day of work, followed by BC legs and then I rushed home to shower and change for my dinner date with Liana at Pregos! It had been 10 days and I think we were both having withdrawals. HA! I joked that we’re working up to the ultimate separation when I leave…she was gone 10 days…saw her for 1, then a few days, saw her for 3, then a few more, will see her once or twice, then she is gone 2.5 weeks then she’s back but moving to Dubai and then I’m out. Anyways…she was a bit out of it all day as she had come back from her African adventure that morning and I don’t think had slept in days. My first indication that something was off when she asked if she should pick me up in a cab for dinner where I live. She was very tan, looked super relaxed but just tired which I totally get. It sounds like she had a great time and I am glad she was able to get away from work drama, etc and just chill out for awhile, far away from reality (although this area isn’t really like reality either!). Our server was an idiot and Liana ordered wine 3 times before getting up and going to the bar to get it herself. I just said, didn’t you miss the UAE and had her laughing. She went home to re pack as she was going to London the next day to hang for a few days before I met up with her.
Monday I had planned to meet the local Tax partner for drinks at Emirates Palace as he and I haven’t caught up in months. We were supposed to be doing BBQ at 7pm. I got to the lobby of EP at like 7:02 and because no one is ever on time for anything, figured there was no way he was there so emailed him to see if I should meet him in lobby or head out to BBQ. No response. Finally I go outside and sit on the steps of the hotel facing BBQ so I’d see him if he walked out. I didn’t see him, but did see Oliver with his parents! I heard his voice before I was sure it was him. He told me Lars had left office hours ago and I’m thinking great he forgot about me. At this point I was starving too. So in the meantime I start chatting with Anwar as he lives right next door and has been wanting to show me his new car for weeks so we start making plans to get dinner right as I get an email from someone else saying Lars’ BB is dead, call him he’s waiting for you. So turns out, he was sitting at BBQ the WHOLE time! Oops. So I’m hoping he wants to eat but doesn’t appear to and I was sooo hungry so I ate a million of the bar nuts to hold me over. Digressing for a sec…BBQ is amazing. I think it’s the most romantic spot in Abu Dhabi, right out on the water in back of Emirates Palace, very sexy live music, candles, etc. It would be a perfect spot to go with someone you loved, but Lars made a decent substitution! Anyway, we caught up on the past few months and then called it a night at about 10….so at this point I’m so far past hungry that I don’t even know if I want to eat but Anwar had gone to Hakisan (pretty amazing Chinese food at EP) and I told him I’d meet him there. The first and only other time I went there was with a group and they all wanted to share which for me usually sucks cuz I’m so picky so sharing means ppl steal my food and I don’t want there’s. This time I got sweet and sour chicken and ate all of it myself! He gave me a ride home in his sweet new Audi and I can see why he is in love with it. Only bad part about eating so late was that I was still full when I woke up on Tuesday!
Tuesday night was BC arms and then I had a call scheduled with the Boston partner (Laura) to discuss some updates. It sounds like Boston is happy to have me just straight to Boston as everyone is worried that a stopover in NYC will mean that I get stuck in NYC (was a bit of a fear for me too) so I was really excited to hear that we could take that off the table and I can just go to Boston. I may commute to NYC for a day or so every week but that I can handle since it’s so close. I had a call with my HR manager earlier in the day as well and broke the news to her that plans were in the works for me not to come back so while a number of people know, I think she was going to make an official announcement to everyone so they aren’t planning on having me back in 2 months. A bit sad to be leaving behind what has been a great experience in an office full of great people but it’s time to move on and the timing couldn’t be more perfect for me to do so. Not every day that you get a chance to start over fresh at the same company in a bigger better role so I’m going for it! I need to clear it with my current reporting partner who is currently ignoring my email (I think he wanted my choice to be NY!) but he’ll be here next weekend so we can talk it out, wrap it up and get the transfer process moving FINALLY! It’s been 4 months of talking at this point and I’m ready for some action!
Wednesday we had a team away day at Yas so it was a quick morning in the office (I have been so busy the time flies by) and then off to Yas for the rest of the work day. Ate way too much food (as they just kept bringing us more stuff and there were only 3 of us and we felt the need to try it all) and got through a lot of good stuff for work and then it was officially my long weekend starting when we finished…woohoo. Bad thing was, I had to pee when I got in cab at Yas and I am an idiot for not going but I thought I’d be okay. About half way into the ride I started thinking I might not make it and had to hold the seat belt off my bladder. The cabbie could see the distress in my face and was like are you okay? I was like no not really…please drive fast. So we get back into AD in decent time and then bam, hit rush hour traffic. I started wondering what would happen if I peed on the side of the road here, or if there was a bottle in the car as I really didn’t think I was going to make it. Then he pulls into the wrong place (NO ONE seems to know that there is a Beach Rotana hotel and BR SUITES). Anyway…so we finally get there and I pay and get out and go to stand up and can’t….you know that terrible bladder pain….yeah so I can barely walk but just want to run but I eventually made it into the lobby bathroom and let it loose. I realize this is disgusting but it was a significant event in my day so I’m sharing! So my nails look like sh*t and I went to get them done….of course they were full although they seemed pretty dead. Part of me was thinking, go to the gym….but the other part that was already at the mall was thinking, go shop, you need new clothes and never take the time to shop. So I went in a couple stores..ended up with 2 cute day dresses, a pair of black skinny jeans (inspired by Helena when she was here) and 4 pairs of shoes. That part was a bit of an accident but I love shoes and haven’t bought any new ones since December so I’d say I was well over due! Oh…I also emailed my landlord to say can I move out on July 15th as I just won’t have time between landing on the 28th and going to Maine on the 2nd to move out of the house . Thankfully he was fine with it but wrote back to ask if I had seen the local news…nope. Turns out a house 4 down from mine BLEW up the night before. I guess it was a new couple who was renting the house and were trying to install a new dryer and the gas leaked through the night and at 3am, the house completely blew, as in there was nothing left. It was crazy. I just talked to the ex (I was worried about my car) and he said that it blew the picture frames off the window sills but other than that, we got lucky. I have always hated gas and was always paranoid something was going to happen and now I know why. The couple is alive but not in great shape, I hope the outcome is a positive one. Alice came by to chat after her happy hour so we caught up while I packed and then I took off for London! My flight was at 2:15 Thursday am so I went to the airport around midnight. I was getting pretty tired already but nothing I could do. Of course I was in the crappy terminal so no good duty free to peruse or anything. I just sat there and wasted time reading the news until we boarded. I haven’t flown economy on a long flight since before I started travelling over here so I’m super spoiled now and economy 7 hours SUCKS!!! Esp red eyes when you need to be sleeping. Forgot to mention before…the main reason we booked this trip to London was to go see Bob fight. After we started booking stuff it turned out he was fighting outside London and we were going to have to train there and stay the night so that was kind of annoying but we were going to do it anyway so we could see the fight. Well……he didn’t get in the country. Poor Liana was supposed to meet up with him on Monday and landed to a message that he wasn’t allowed in. So we wasted a lot of money on train tickets and had to re-work our plans since we hadn’t planned on staying the Friday night in London and now needed to, etc etc. Anyhow…she ended up moving into the hotel I had booked with points the night before even though it was pretty pricey so I could just show up and crash for a bit (although as it turns out, when I checked in at 9:30 my room was ready anyway!). Sooo….I land at Heathrow after an okay flight (I was the window of a 3 seat row and the middle was empty so I had some space to stretch out) and go through Immigration, get my bag, get some pounds (the money is huge!) and then started the trek to the hotel. Cabs are crazy expensive so I took Alice’s advice and did the Heathrow express to the Tube station and the Tube to the station at the hotel. This would have been okay if: 1. My arms weren’t insanely sore from BC on Tuesday, 2. There were escalators or elevators so I didn’t have to lug my heavy a** bag up and down steps and 3. If it wasn’t rush hour on Thursday morning. I was so screwed up the whole weekend with days since I took off Thursday and our weekend is already different from the rest of the world. It took about 2.5 hours from landing to showing up at hotel and I was pretty beat when I got there. I checked in and then just switched Liana’s reservation to me so we could stay in the room she already had which was nice. I went and woke her up, poor thing had gotten pretty sick and we bs’d for a bit before I decided I needed a nap and a shower before we could do anything.
Liana went to get some breakfast while I slept for an hour (if you are counting, this was Nap 1) and then we got ready to go explore. It had rained while I napped so the timing was good as when we got out of the Tube station at our destination, it was just stopping and the sun was thinking about coming out (although it was pretty cold). The one major thing I realized on this trip was how accustomed to the Gulf I’ve become. We’ve done a few trips to Bahrain and to Qatar..but both are in the Gulf so the “rules” are pretty much the same if not more strict. Well London was back to being in the real world and I kept forgetting what that is like! My first jaw drop was when I saw wine for sale in the tube station…what? Wine right there..just like that..to buy?! Ha. Then there was the making out all over the place and the very large number of openly gay and lesbian folks. I guess its good I got a small dose of the “real world” before I head back to it in June. Oh on that note, I booked my flight this week; I officially end my adventure on June 28th. Okay so we went to the London Eye first…the big ferris wheel thing where you can basically see the whole city from and that was pretty cool….except for the screaming child in our “pod”. Could have done without him..or any other child we encountered for the remainder of the weekend! After that we walked over by Westminster Abbey but didn’t go in as the que was too long (note….the best thing about Liana and I travelling or really doing anything together is we are sooooo alike. So we both sort of went..you want to? No, good, lets go). Liana also managed to break ANOTHER pair of her sandals..she did it somewhere else in the last month. She fixed it with a hair tie (which also broke as she pulled it out of her bag, ha, but made it easier to use as rope). This lasted long enough to get to a shop where she could by Tube thongs. Sandals with the Tube map on them. Brilliant…cept when we tried to use them we realized both were the same and it didn’t cover much anyway. So it was Cinco de Mayo which is pretty meaningless to everyone outside of the US and Mexico (to my knowledge) but Liana embraced it and we set off for a place to have Mexican and Margaritas for lunch. We got lucky and found this place called the Texas Embassy and they had exactly what we wanted on the Cinco special menu!!! Stuffed our faces with chips and queso, fajitas and frozen margaritas and then decided to go shopping. Ha. I got my nephew a really cute sweatshirt (I get a shirt or something from every new place I go) and then found myself another really cute summer dress. I am not doing very well finding going out dresses but am stocking up on day dresses so it’s a start! We also went to this really popular, large toy store called Hamley’s and goofed off there for a little bit. Liana picked up the UFO flyer guy (well sort of, he had a gf but was happy to give us recommendations on where to go that night). We eventually got tired of walking around and went back to the hotel for a nap.
So the hotel we booked was amazing. It was the first time I ever used my points and sooooo worth it as it was expensive as crap AND, it is a super old (1800’s old) hotel that was recently refurbished and just reopened in March (soft opening and apparently wasn’t open to public yet). Well May 5th marked the anniversary of when the original hotel opened so we got super lucky to be part of the festivities. It was free flowing champagne for hours and lots of celebs (most of whom I didn’t know but recognized the pictures online today…the others who I saw in the pictures that I def know, I don’t recall seeing that night…oops!). So we had made dinner reservations at this very exclusive place called the Ivy….its weird cuz it wasn’t that great but I guess its just where a lot of celebs go so its more the atmosphere than the food. We had booked it for Thursday night well in advance since we were supposed to be at the fight Friday night. Too bad, as we had to leave the party to go to dinner when we could have just done that for dinner Friday night. Anyway..by the time we left I was pretty drunk (exhausted + loads of champagne + no food is not a good combo). Liana thought it was a riot that this was only the second time I had ever been drunker than her (once in Bahrain, once in London!). So one of her old Doha friends who is a sports reporter for BBC in London met us and I was trying to maintain a decent level of conversation and avoid offers for bottles of wine as I knew I wasn’t going to last! Thankfully her and Liana were mostly just catching up I didn’t need to say much. We finished around midnight and were trying to figure out where to go but nobody had given us real solid recommendations on where to go….thinking back I’m wondering if it wasn’t because there is no good places to go. HA. Sorry Londoners! Oh so Liana met a guy at the party named Feris (I’m assuming that’s the spelling) who seemed like a pretty cool guy at the party but seriously let us down the next night. He didn’t have any recs for that night either and wasn’t going to go out after the party as he had to work so after dinner we ended up just cabbing home (I was quite happy with this!). There were still people from the party at the hotel but the open bar was closed so we skipped across the street to the Irish pub to have a drink since it was still so early. Bad idea..it was crap.the people were all weird and we were mobbed immediately upon entering by ppl wanting to buy us drinks and who couldn’t remember 2 seconds after we told them what we wanted what it was. We stayed for one and then snuck out and went home. We were in bed at like 12:30. Night 1: FAIL. (In reality, this night was super fun until we left the hotel..we should have just stayed). So Alice was flying in on the red eye the next morning as it was her sisters hen party (that’s a bachelorette party for you Americans!). Guys have Stag-Do’s and girls have Hen-Do’s. It’s growing on me. So we had agreed to meet her for breakfast and only because we love her, dragged our hungover a**es out of bed the next morning to go meet her at a pretty cool spot she knew of. I had a bagel and cream cheese for the first time in AGES…like at least 6 months and it was delicious. Alice made fun of me for ordering something so normal but I argued that I get eggs all the time so that would be normal. She agreed and let me enjoy my bagel!
Sadly we only had a short visit with her and she was off for a weekend of debauchery. Liana and I walked down to Buckingham Palace and saw that they were doing the changing of the guards at 11:30 (it was about 10) and as everyone has told me to see this at least once, we sat around and waited for it. It was….interesting. There was a lot of random marching around and as I had no idea what was actually going on, it didn’t hold my interest for very long. When the new guard marched in to music I perked up a bit, ha. We were pretty tired so walked around a bit more and then jumped on the Tube back to the hotel for nap time. Our 2 hour nap turned into about a 4 hour nap and it was glorious. The beds at the hotel were amazing. She wasn’t feeling great so I hit the gym solo and then started getting ready. We were told to hit Soho by a number of people for dinner/bars so we did and found a delicious Italian place with sidewalk seating so we could people watch. After about 5 minutes of this, I realized that we were just about the only non gay couple (although I’m sure everyone thought we were a couple!) there. I saw more man bags than I’ve ever seen in my life in an hour!!! We later found out that the specific street we were on (Old Compton..sounds so thuggish) is known for that and we just didn’t get the memo in time. Anyway, dinner was fab and it was fun to people watch. Oh…the shop across the street had a sign for naked power yoga videos….Liana didn’t think it was a good idea to try this! So at one point at the end of dinner the only straight folks in the area picked out our table and all came to talk to us. There were like 3 groups of ppl trying to carry on conversations at the same time…oh and we got the sisters thing a bunch more. We’ve decided we are just going to tell people we are sisters and then keep everything else normal, like I’m American and she’s Australian and see if anyone actually catches on. So the server recommended we go to Tiger Tiger which was a club fairly close by…great. Well then Liana talks to Faris who tells us its known for 18-21 year olds which isn’t exactly our style so we didn’t go (in hindsight, it would prob have been way better than the crap places he took us too). So we duck into the closest bar to wait for him to show up with the Italian mafia who followed us from dinner and they were playing great music so we were happy. Well then Debbie downer, I mean Faris shows up. He’s all, I will take you to some great places, blah blah blah (he was already in love with Liana and aiming to please). Our only request was HIP HOP. That was it. Didn’t care if it was swanky, skanky, whatever…..just play some good music. He says to trust him. BIG MISTAKE. So the first lovely establishment we go to is Barrio Central (I think this was the place I found online when looking for a good Cinco de Mayo location and I’m guessing for lunch it would have been great…not so much as a club). So we walk in and its all like tropical themed and the music is atrocious, not to mention its PACKED with sweaty people. Not impressed. Faris can see the look on our faces and decides we must be rich snotty girls cuz we’re not thrilled…wrong….we just want hip hop, not the crap they were playing. We didn’t even have a drink here and were like strike 1…lets go. The Italian mafia was still in tow and also not impressed. They were pretty funny though….kept throwing out the Obama slogan, Yes We Can, at various frustrating moments! So Faris (re-named Paris Hilton) is like okay we’ll go to this other place….they play Hip Hop. Great. So we walk around some more and show up to a new place and head downstairs to the super cool UK underground (yes that is dripping with sarcasm). So we get down there and its def. not Hip Hop but apparently UK Garage music and people jumping around like fools. Strike 2. We did stay for a drink here cuz I was about to lose it while playing wing woman. At this point the mafia was like this sucks..peace out and guaranteed ended up having a more fun night than us wherever they went!! So Liana finds some more interesting folks than Paris and is dancing with them while I sat down to rest my feet and observe. Paris is clearly getting jealous (dude simmer down, you have known her for like 3 hours and you are taking us to crappy places, what do you expect?!). So I humor him for awhile until we were like okay this place sucks lets go. Strike 2. So Paris is like, okay there is a place right behind here where I know everyone and its always good. We show up at 1:15 and its CLOSED. WTF. Abu Dhabi (or rather EVERYWHERE) stays open later than this!!!! Strike 3. So the whole area we’re in at this point is dead and its starting to sprinkle so we decide the night is a bust and we’re going home. Paris says its not that far to walk and we’re thinking..hmm..it was pretty far on the Tube to get to this general area but we start walking anyway. He was like…is there a club in your hotel. No. Well maybe there is a bar open…prob not since you just wasted the whole night taking us to sh*t locations. Anyway….we walk until we’re both like we are not close to our place and cab…he is still in tow..Liana clearly wants to get rid of him but can’t seem to figure out how! So we get to hotel..walk in lobby and its dead….even the bar was closed and he’s like..lets have an after party in your room. Well first you can’t have an after party if you never had a party and second…NO. I stuck around so it made it easier to ditch him and then we hit the sack after deciding London nightlife is not all its cracked up to be. Maybe it could have been better..who knows.
We slept in a bit Saturday morning and then went for breakfast which was delicious (there certainly was no shortage of good food here!). We walked around the train station that our hotel is connected to….checked out some of the 2012 olympic gear (if you haven’t seen the mascots..they are pretty weird). Did a quick nap (anyone counting what number this is?!) and then had to be out of room at 2pm. I found out the night before that the spa was 50% off since it was still in soft opening mode so clearly we took advantage of this offer. Plus it was kind of cold and neither of us felt like walking around anymore. Had a great workout, spent some time in the sauna and then got a fab massage. It’s the best one I’ve had in a lonnng time. Finished up in time to shower and head to the airport. Liana had the Emirates chauffer since she was flying business courtesy of her new job (she had to fly back for some conference even though she doesn’t start work til June so they paid for it…lucky!). I was flying Etihad back to Abu Dhabi and her to Dubai so we were in different terminals so I just got the train to my terminal and off to my gate. I didn’t have as much time as I thought so just hung at gate til it was time to board. The plane was half empty but they had me sitting next to someone (why do they do this?!) and he was annoying, all up in my space and smelly. I was thinking if I have to do 7 hours of this I might be doing a different kind of sky diving. Thankfully they made the everyone is on board announcement and I was out of there with a quickness. Instead of doing the smart thing and grabbing one of the 4 seat empty middle rows, I took an empty 2 seat window section as I didn’t think the arm rests in the middle of the 4 moved. Wrong…it did but at that point they were taken. The flight would have been so much better if I hadn’t been a moron. I was starving since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast so stayed awake til dinner was served which ended up taking forever. Had some wine and was hoping to pass out but didn’t have much luck. I was so uncomfortable and my body was hurting all over (totally ruined the massage I just had!). I was in and out of sleep for about 90 minutes before waking up about the same time the devil child did. At this point he basically cried the rest of the flight and even with my iPod in, it didn’t help much. I prob slept another 30 minutes before we landed. Thankfully the flight got in 45 minutes earlier than expected so I had time to go home (was gonna barely have time to get to work on time if we landed as scheduled so I was thrilled when I had bag in hand at 7am!). Was great to be able to shower and change and drop my stuff since I was gonna have to deal with lugging it around to work and boot camp if there was no time to swing home. Got to work right on time feeling a bit zombie like but after lunch sort of perked up and made it the rest of the day. I couldn’t go home early as I was going straight to bc and I actually stay a bit later on those days since its not worth cabbing home first. It was the start of hell week, leg day, and my legs were quite sore from the past 2 days at the gym plus all the walking around in heels and I was exhausted and it was hot…..but even with all that, I had a kick a** workout. There was no breeze which made it very hot and constant dripping sweat combined with lots of burpies in the sand made for a nasty ending! It was literally caked on. Got home, ate, showered and then had a glass of wine on my balcony to relax while trying to call all the Mom’s in my life for Mothers Day. Whenever I sit down to actually make calls usually doesn’t work out and last night was no different but I did get to talk to my mom and that was the most important. Had a pretty good sleep..was great to get in my own bed after 4 nights away (including 2 on airplanes!) but did have some weird dreams (normal for me). In one..there were this massive men that were watching me and when I woke up and looked up at my tv area…I was sure a massive dude was standing there. I kind of freaked for a minute since I can’t see well without my contacts at night until I finally realized it was the TV. HA!
Work today and then more US work when I get home but taking a break from the gym so looking forward to that! This turned out pretty long so I’m gonna end it now with no preview of the week to come. Check back next week for more
Sunday was a full day of work, followed by BC legs and then I rushed home to shower and change for my dinner date with Liana at Pregos! It had been 10 days and I think we were both having withdrawals. HA! I joked that we’re working up to the ultimate separation when I leave…she was gone 10 days…saw her for 1, then a few days, saw her for 3, then a few more, will see her once or twice, then she is gone 2.5 weeks then she’s back but moving to Dubai and then I’m out. Anyways…she was a bit out of it all day as she had come back from her African adventure that morning and I don’t think had slept in days. My first indication that something was off when she asked if she should pick me up in a cab for dinner where I live. She was very tan, looked super relaxed but just tired which I totally get. It sounds like she had a great time and I am glad she was able to get away from work drama, etc and just chill out for awhile, far away from reality (although this area isn’t really like reality either!). Our server was an idiot and Liana ordered wine 3 times before getting up and going to the bar to get it herself. I just said, didn’t you miss the UAE and had her laughing. She went home to re pack as she was going to London the next day to hang for a few days before I met up with her.
Monday I had planned to meet the local Tax partner for drinks at Emirates Palace as he and I haven’t caught up in months. We were supposed to be doing BBQ at 7pm. I got to the lobby of EP at like 7:02 and because no one is ever on time for anything, figured there was no way he was there so emailed him to see if I should meet him in lobby or head out to BBQ. No response. Finally I go outside and sit on the steps of the hotel facing BBQ so I’d see him if he walked out. I didn’t see him, but did see Oliver with his parents! I heard his voice before I was sure it was him. He told me Lars had left office hours ago and I’m thinking great he forgot about me. At this point I was starving too. So in the meantime I start chatting with Anwar as he lives right next door and has been wanting to show me his new car for weeks so we start making plans to get dinner right as I get an email from someone else saying Lars’ BB is dead, call him he’s waiting for you. So turns out, he was sitting at BBQ the WHOLE time! Oops. So I’m hoping he wants to eat but doesn’t appear to and I was sooo hungry so I ate a million of the bar nuts to hold me over. Digressing for a sec…BBQ is amazing. I think it’s the most romantic spot in Abu Dhabi, right out on the water in back of Emirates Palace, very sexy live music, candles, etc. It would be a perfect spot to go with someone you loved, but Lars made a decent substitution! Anyway, we caught up on the past few months and then called it a night at about 10….so at this point I’m so far past hungry that I don’t even know if I want to eat but Anwar had gone to Hakisan (pretty amazing Chinese food at EP) and I told him I’d meet him there. The first and only other time I went there was with a group and they all wanted to share which for me usually sucks cuz I’m so picky so sharing means ppl steal my food and I don’t want there’s. This time I got sweet and sour chicken and ate all of it myself! He gave me a ride home in his sweet new Audi and I can see why he is in love with it. Only bad part about eating so late was that I was still full when I woke up on Tuesday!
Tuesday night was BC arms and then I had a call scheduled with the Boston partner (Laura) to discuss some updates. It sounds like Boston is happy to have me just straight to Boston as everyone is worried that a stopover in NYC will mean that I get stuck in NYC (was a bit of a fear for me too) so I was really excited to hear that we could take that off the table and I can just go to Boston. I may commute to NYC for a day or so every week but that I can handle since it’s so close. I had a call with my HR manager earlier in the day as well and broke the news to her that plans were in the works for me not to come back so while a number of people know, I think she was going to make an official announcement to everyone so they aren’t planning on having me back in 2 months. A bit sad to be leaving behind what has been a great experience in an office full of great people but it’s time to move on and the timing couldn’t be more perfect for me to do so. Not every day that you get a chance to start over fresh at the same company in a bigger better role so I’m going for it! I need to clear it with my current reporting partner who is currently ignoring my email (I think he wanted my choice to be NY!) but he’ll be here next weekend so we can talk it out, wrap it up and get the transfer process moving FINALLY! It’s been 4 months of talking at this point and I’m ready for some action!
Wednesday we had a team away day at Yas so it was a quick morning in the office (I have been so busy the time flies by) and then off to Yas for the rest of the work day. Ate way too much food (as they just kept bringing us more stuff and there were only 3 of us and we felt the need to try it all) and got through a lot of good stuff for work and then it was officially my long weekend starting when we finished…woohoo. Bad thing was, I had to pee when I got in cab at Yas and I am an idiot for not going but I thought I’d be okay. About half way into the ride I started thinking I might not make it and had to hold the seat belt off my bladder. The cabbie could see the distress in my face and was like are you okay? I was like no not really…please drive fast. So we get back into AD in decent time and then bam, hit rush hour traffic. I started wondering what would happen if I peed on the side of the road here, or if there was a bottle in the car as I really didn’t think I was going to make it. Then he pulls into the wrong place (NO ONE seems to know that there is a Beach Rotana hotel and BR SUITES). Anyway…so we finally get there and I pay and get out and go to stand up and can’t….you know that terrible bladder pain….yeah so I can barely walk but just want to run but I eventually made it into the lobby bathroom and let it loose. I realize this is disgusting but it was a significant event in my day so I’m sharing! So my nails look like sh*t and I went to get them done….of course they were full although they seemed pretty dead. Part of me was thinking, go to the gym….but the other part that was already at the mall was thinking, go shop, you need new clothes and never take the time to shop. So I went in a couple stores..ended up with 2 cute day dresses, a pair of black skinny jeans (inspired by Helena when she was here) and 4 pairs of shoes. That part was a bit of an accident but I love shoes and haven’t bought any new ones since December so I’d say I was well over due! Oh…I also emailed my landlord to say can I move out on July 15th as I just won’t have time between landing on the 28th and going to Maine on the 2nd to move out of the house . Thankfully he was fine with it but wrote back to ask if I had seen the local news…nope. Turns out a house 4 down from mine BLEW up the night before. I guess it was a new couple who was renting the house and were trying to install a new dryer and the gas leaked through the night and at 3am, the house completely blew, as in there was nothing left. It was crazy. I just talked to the ex (I was worried about my car) and he said that it blew the picture frames off the window sills but other than that, we got lucky. I have always hated gas and was always paranoid something was going to happen and now I know why. The couple is alive but not in great shape, I hope the outcome is a positive one. Alice came by to chat after her happy hour so we caught up while I packed and then I took off for London! My flight was at 2:15 Thursday am so I went to the airport around midnight. I was getting pretty tired already but nothing I could do. Of course I was in the crappy terminal so no good duty free to peruse or anything. I just sat there and wasted time reading the news until we boarded. I haven’t flown economy on a long flight since before I started travelling over here so I’m super spoiled now and economy 7 hours SUCKS!!! Esp red eyes when you need to be sleeping. Forgot to mention before…the main reason we booked this trip to London was to go see Bob fight. After we started booking stuff it turned out he was fighting outside London and we were going to have to train there and stay the night so that was kind of annoying but we were going to do it anyway so we could see the fight. Well……he didn’t get in the country. Poor Liana was supposed to meet up with him on Monday and landed to a message that he wasn’t allowed in. So we wasted a lot of money on train tickets and had to re-work our plans since we hadn’t planned on staying the Friday night in London and now needed to, etc etc. Anyhow…she ended up moving into the hotel I had booked with points the night before even though it was pretty pricey so I could just show up and crash for a bit (although as it turns out, when I checked in at 9:30 my room was ready anyway!). Sooo….I land at Heathrow after an okay flight (I was the window of a 3 seat row and the middle was empty so I had some space to stretch out) and go through Immigration, get my bag, get some pounds (the money is huge!) and then started the trek to the hotel. Cabs are crazy expensive so I took Alice’s advice and did the Heathrow express to the Tube station and the Tube to the station at the hotel. This would have been okay if: 1. My arms weren’t insanely sore from BC on Tuesday, 2. There were escalators or elevators so I didn’t have to lug my heavy a** bag up and down steps and 3. If it wasn’t rush hour on Thursday morning. I was so screwed up the whole weekend with days since I took off Thursday and our weekend is already different from the rest of the world. It took about 2.5 hours from landing to showing up at hotel and I was pretty beat when I got there. I checked in and then just switched Liana’s reservation to me so we could stay in the room she already had which was nice. I went and woke her up, poor thing had gotten pretty sick and we bs’d for a bit before I decided I needed a nap and a shower before we could do anything.
Liana went to get some breakfast while I slept for an hour (if you are counting, this was Nap 1) and then we got ready to go explore. It had rained while I napped so the timing was good as when we got out of the Tube station at our destination, it was just stopping and the sun was thinking about coming out (although it was pretty cold). The one major thing I realized on this trip was how accustomed to the Gulf I’ve become. We’ve done a few trips to Bahrain and to Qatar..but both are in the Gulf so the “rules” are pretty much the same if not more strict. Well London was back to being in the real world and I kept forgetting what that is like! My first jaw drop was when I saw wine for sale in the tube station…what? Wine right there..just like that..to buy?! Ha. Then there was the making out all over the place and the very large number of openly gay and lesbian folks. I guess its good I got a small dose of the “real world” before I head back to it in June. Oh on that note, I booked my flight this week; I officially end my adventure on June 28th. Okay so we went to the London Eye first…the big ferris wheel thing where you can basically see the whole city from and that was pretty cool….except for the screaming child in our “pod”. Could have done without him..or any other child we encountered for the remainder of the weekend! After that we walked over by Westminster Abbey but didn’t go in as the que was too long (note….the best thing about Liana and I travelling or really doing anything together is we are sooooo alike. So we both sort of went..you want to? No, good, lets go). Liana also managed to break ANOTHER pair of her sandals..she did it somewhere else in the last month. She fixed it with a hair tie (which also broke as she pulled it out of her bag, ha, but made it easier to use as rope). This lasted long enough to get to a shop where she could by Tube thongs. Sandals with the Tube map on them. Brilliant…cept when we tried to use them we realized both were the same and it didn’t cover much anyway. So it was Cinco de Mayo which is pretty meaningless to everyone outside of the US and Mexico (to my knowledge) but Liana embraced it and we set off for a place to have Mexican and Margaritas for lunch. We got lucky and found this place called the Texas Embassy and they had exactly what we wanted on the Cinco special menu!!! Stuffed our faces with chips and queso, fajitas and frozen margaritas and then decided to go shopping. Ha. I got my nephew a really cute sweatshirt (I get a shirt or something from every new place I go) and then found myself another really cute summer dress. I am not doing very well finding going out dresses but am stocking up on day dresses so it’s a start! We also went to this really popular, large toy store called Hamley’s and goofed off there for a little bit. Liana picked up the UFO flyer guy (well sort of, he had a gf but was happy to give us recommendations on where to go that night). We eventually got tired of walking around and went back to the hotel for a nap.
So the hotel we booked was amazing. It was the first time I ever used my points and sooooo worth it as it was expensive as crap AND, it is a super old (1800’s old) hotel that was recently refurbished and just reopened in March (soft opening and apparently wasn’t open to public yet). Well May 5th marked the anniversary of when the original hotel opened so we got super lucky to be part of the festivities. It was free flowing champagne for hours and lots of celebs (most of whom I didn’t know but recognized the pictures online today…the others who I saw in the pictures that I def know, I don’t recall seeing that night…oops!). So we had made dinner reservations at this very exclusive place called the Ivy….its weird cuz it wasn’t that great but I guess its just where a lot of celebs go so its more the atmosphere than the food. We had booked it for Thursday night well in advance since we were supposed to be at the fight Friday night. Too bad, as we had to leave the party to go to dinner when we could have just done that for dinner Friday night. Anyway..by the time we left I was pretty drunk (exhausted + loads of champagne + no food is not a good combo). Liana thought it was a riot that this was only the second time I had ever been drunker than her (once in Bahrain, once in London!). So one of her old Doha friends who is a sports reporter for BBC in London met us and I was trying to maintain a decent level of conversation and avoid offers for bottles of wine as I knew I wasn’t going to last! Thankfully her and Liana were mostly just catching up I didn’t need to say much. We finished around midnight and were trying to figure out where to go but nobody had given us real solid recommendations on where to go….thinking back I’m wondering if it wasn’t because there is no good places to go. HA. Sorry Londoners! Oh so Liana met a guy at the party named Feris (I’m assuming that’s the spelling) who seemed like a pretty cool guy at the party but seriously let us down the next night. He didn’t have any recs for that night either and wasn’t going to go out after the party as he had to work so after dinner we ended up just cabbing home (I was quite happy with this!). There were still people from the party at the hotel but the open bar was closed so we skipped across the street to the Irish pub to have a drink since it was still so early. Bad idea..it was crap.the people were all weird and we were mobbed immediately upon entering by ppl wanting to buy us drinks and who couldn’t remember 2 seconds after we told them what we wanted what it was. We stayed for one and then snuck out and went home. We were in bed at like 12:30. Night 1: FAIL. (In reality, this night was super fun until we left the hotel..we should have just stayed). So Alice was flying in on the red eye the next morning as it was her sisters hen party (that’s a bachelorette party for you Americans!). Guys have Stag-Do’s and girls have Hen-Do’s. It’s growing on me. So we had agreed to meet her for breakfast and only because we love her, dragged our hungover a**es out of bed the next morning to go meet her at a pretty cool spot she knew of. I had a bagel and cream cheese for the first time in AGES…like at least 6 months and it was delicious. Alice made fun of me for ordering something so normal but I argued that I get eggs all the time so that would be normal. She agreed and let me enjoy my bagel!
Sadly we only had a short visit with her and she was off for a weekend of debauchery. Liana and I walked down to Buckingham Palace and saw that they were doing the changing of the guards at 11:30 (it was about 10) and as everyone has told me to see this at least once, we sat around and waited for it. It was….interesting. There was a lot of random marching around and as I had no idea what was actually going on, it didn’t hold my interest for very long. When the new guard marched in to music I perked up a bit, ha. We were pretty tired so walked around a bit more and then jumped on the Tube back to the hotel for nap time. Our 2 hour nap turned into about a 4 hour nap and it was glorious. The beds at the hotel were amazing. She wasn’t feeling great so I hit the gym solo and then started getting ready. We were told to hit Soho by a number of people for dinner/bars so we did and found a delicious Italian place with sidewalk seating so we could people watch. After about 5 minutes of this, I realized that we were just about the only non gay couple (although I’m sure everyone thought we were a couple!) there. I saw more man bags than I’ve ever seen in my life in an hour!!! We later found out that the specific street we were on (Old Compton..sounds so thuggish) is known for that and we just didn’t get the memo in time. Anyway, dinner was fab and it was fun to people watch. Oh…the shop across the street had a sign for naked power yoga videos….Liana didn’t think it was a good idea to try this! So at one point at the end of dinner the only straight folks in the area picked out our table and all came to talk to us. There were like 3 groups of ppl trying to carry on conversations at the same time…oh and we got the sisters thing a bunch more. We’ve decided we are just going to tell people we are sisters and then keep everything else normal, like I’m American and she’s Australian and see if anyone actually catches on. So the server recommended we go to Tiger Tiger which was a club fairly close by…great. Well then Liana talks to Faris who tells us its known for 18-21 year olds which isn’t exactly our style so we didn’t go (in hindsight, it would prob have been way better than the crap places he took us too). So we duck into the closest bar to wait for him to show up with the Italian mafia who followed us from dinner and they were playing great music so we were happy. Well then Debbie downer, I mean Faris shows up. He’s all, I will take you to some great places, blah blah blah (he was already in love with Liana and aiming to please). Our only request was HIP HOP. That was it. Didn’t care if it was swanky, skanky, whatever…..just play some good music. He says to trust him. BIG MISTAKE. So the first lovely establishment we go to is Barrio Central (I think this was the place I found online when looking for a good Cinco de Mayo location and I’m guessing for lunch it would have been great…not so much as a club). So we walk in and its all like tropical themed and the music is atrocious, not to mention its PACKED with sweaty people. Not impressed. Faris can see the look on our faces and decides we must be rich snotty girls cuz we’re not thrilled…wrong….we just want hip hop, not the crap they were playing. We didn’t even have a drink here and were like strike 1…lets go. The Italian mafia was still in tow and also not impressed. They were pretty funny though….kept throwing out the Obama slogan, Yes We Can, at various frustrating moments! So Faris (re-named Paris Hilton) is like okay we’ll go to this other place….they play Hip Hop. Great. So we walk around some more and show up to a new place and head downstairs to the super cool UK underground (yes that is dripping with sarcasm). So we get down there and its def. not Hip Hop but apparently UK Garage music and people jumping around like fools. Strike 2. We did stay for a drink here cuz I was about to lose it while playing wing woman. At this point the mafia was like this sucks..peace out and guaranteed ended up having a more fun night than us wherever they went!! So Liana finds some more interesting folks than Paris and is dancing with them while I sat down to rest my feet and observe. Paris is clearly getting jealous (dude simmer down, you have known her for like 3 hours and you are taking us to crappy places, what do you expect?!). So I humor him for awhile until we were like okay this place sucks lets go. Strike 2. So Paris is like, okay there is a place right behind here where I know everyone and its always good. We show up at 1:15 and its CLOSED. WTF. Abu Dhabi (or rather EVERYWHERE) stays open later than this!!!! Strike 3. So the whole area we’re in at this point is dead and its starting to sprinkle so we decide the night is a bust and we’re going home. Paris says its not that far to walk and we’re thinking..hmm..it was pretty far on the Tube to get to this general area but we start walking anyway. He was like…is there a club in your hotel. No. Well maybe there is a bar open…prob not since you just wasted the whole night taking us to sh*t locations. Anyway….we walk until we’re both like we are not close to our place and cab…he is still in tow..Liana clearly wants to get rid of him but can’t seem to figure out how! So we get to hotel..walk in lobby and its dead….even the bar was closed and he’s like..lets have an after party in your room. Well first you can’t have an after party if you never had a party and second…NO. I stuck around so it made it easier to ditch him and then we hit the sack after deciding London nightlife is not all its cracked up to be. Maybe it could have been better..who knows.
We slept in a bit Saturday morning and then went for breakfast which was delicious (there certainly was no shortage of good food here!). We walked around the train station that our hotel is connected to….checked out some of the 2012 olympic gear (if you haven’t seen the mascots..they are pretty weird). Did a quick nap (anyone counting what number this is?!) and then had to be out of room at 2pm. I found out the night before that the spa was 50% off since it was still in soft opening mode so clearly we took advantage of this offer. Plus it was kind of cold and neither of us felt like walking around anymore. Had a great workout, spent some time in the sauna and then got a fab massage. It’s the best one I’ve had in a lonnng time. Finished up in time to shower and head to the airport. Liana had the Emirates chauffer since she was flying business courtesy of her new job (she had to fly back for some conference even though she doesn’t start work til June so they paid for it…lucky!). I was flying Etihad back to Abu Dhabi and her to Dubai so we were in different terminals so I just got the train to my terminal and off to my gate. I didn’t have as much time as I thought so just hung at gate til it was time to board. The plane was half empty but they had me sitting next to someone (why do they do this?!) and he was annoying, all up in my space and smelly. I was thinking if I have to do 7 hours of this I might be doing a different kind of sky diving. Thankfully they made the everyone is on board announcement and I was out of there with a quickness. Instead of doing the smart thing and grabbing one of the 4 seat empty middle rows, I took an empty 2 seat window section as I didn’t think the arm rests in the middle of the 4 moved. Wrong…it did but at that point they were taken. The flight would have been so much better if I hadn’t been a moron. I was starving since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast so stayed awake til dinner was served which ended up taking forever. Had some wine and was hoping to pass out but didn’t have much luck. I was so uncomfortable and my body was hurting all over (totally ruined the massage I just had!). I was in and out of sleep for about 90 minutes before waking up about the same time the devil child did. At this point he basically cried the rest of the flight and even with my iPod in, it didn’t help much. I prob slept another 30 minutes before we landed. Thankfully the flight got in 45 minutes earlier than expected so I had time to go home (was gonna barely have time to get to work on time if we landed as scheduled so I was thrilled when I had bag in hand at 7am!). Was great to be able to shower and change and drop my stuff since I was gonna have to deal with lugging it around to work and boot camp if there was no time to swing home. Got to work right on time feeling a bit zombie like but after lunch sort of perked up and made it the rest of the day. I couldn’t go home early as I was going straight to bc and I actually stay a bit later on those days since its not worth cabbing home first. It was the start of hell week, leg day, and my legs were quite sore from the past 2 days at the gym plus all the walking around in heels and I was exhausted and it was hot…..but even with all that, I had a kick a** workout. There was no breeze which made it very hot and constant dripping sweat combined with lots of burpies in the sand made for a nasty ending! It was literally caked on. Got home, ate, showered and then had a glass of wine on my balcony to relax while trying to call all the Mom’s in my life for Mothers Day. Whenever I sit down to actually make calls usually doesn’t work out and last night was no different but I did get to talk to my mom and that was the most important. Had a pretty good sleep..was great to get in my own bed after 4 nights away (including 2 on airplanes!) but did have some weird dreams (normal for me). In one..there were this massive men that were watching me and when I woke up and looked up at my tv area…I was sure a massive dude was standing there. I kind of freaked for a minute since I can’t see well without my contacts at night until I finally realized it was the TV. HA!
Work today and then more US work when I get home but taking a break from the gym so looking forward to that! This turned out pretty long so I’m gonna end it now with no preview of the week to come. Check back next week for more
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Celebrating 6 months in Abu Dhabi
I feel like I just wrote but need to get back on track so getting this blog up on time! Today marks 6 months since arriving in Abu Dhabi and I would have been heading home had I not extended. I’m mostly happy to still be here but there are some things I really miss from home and def. looking forward to returning in June. Funny I just remembered a dream I had last night in which I was home and searching for Baked Cheetos at home! I also realized I had been home for days without Chipotle and decided it was going to be my next meal.
Anyway…I am having a hard time typing this right now as my fingers are wrapped up. I had a slight incident on Thursday night and did something to my left pinky….the ring finger is okay….slightly bruised but functioning…the pinky one not so much. I can finally straighten it but can’t bend it and it’s pretty bruised. I’m guessing it’s not broken but whatever it is sucks. I didn’t realize how much I used it until it hurt to do anything with it. The worst is trying to put my hair up! Boot camp is likely going to suck as well since we do so many pushups and burpies. Today is leg day so I’m hoping it’s not too bad and I have 2 more days to heal before arm day.
So Thursday I did BC after work and we essentially ran for an hour. It was a good cardio workout but not what I expected and I was pretty tired. Smart Cristina was gonna go home and chill out but decided I only have 2 months left so should not be a loser and went out instead. It was a long night. It started out as a chill house party but then everyone decided to go out. Went to Rush…not sure if it’s new or just newly popular…but Thursday night is hip hop night and the music was fabulous. I rolled into my place at 6:30am and they were already serving buffet breakfast! I considered stopping for some but just wanted my bed at that point. The ride home was funny/obnoxious as one of the guys drove me and this other girl Stephanie home. Funny story about Stephanie…when I first met her I was thinking how much she looked like someone I knew…but I didn’t consider that I knew her since she was from Belgium and works for Etihad. Well it was driving me nuts trying to figure out who it was she reminded me of and we got talking and both decided that there is a very good chance she was a flight attendant on one of my flights to Bahrain in February! So turns out she doesn’t remind me of anyone..I just recognized her from the flight. So anyway…Ali drove us both home and she decided she wanted McDonalds breakfast which was not even close to on the way and I was half sleeping in the back listening to this discussion about whether to go or not and I was thinking please say no when he asks if you really want it. No such luck. I prob would have been home an hour earlier if I had taken a cab but oh well..was too late at that point. The food did smell fab but all I wanted was my bed!
I woke up Friday extremely exhausted but wanted to get to the pool since I was feeling pale…so dragged my butt down there and worked on my tan for a few hours. I really needed a manicure but didn’t want to deal with the pain in my fingers so skipped it and bought some wrap to wrap them up instead. It feels much better now because I’m not hitting it on things. I managed to squeeze in an hour nap before I had to get ready for Shakira which turned into my rocking messy curly hair because it was going to be far too painful to do! Oliver picked me up and we headed out to Yas which was a total cluster f***. I’ve always cabbed out to concerts so haven’t had to deal with the parking situation which was a disaster. We eventually find where the parking is and get out of the car and immediately sink in about 5 inches of sand. Thankfully I had flip flops with me although I was still a sandy mess! The opening act was some Egyptian dude who is supposed to be the Justin Timberlake of the Arab world and I had no interest in seeing…worked out perfectly as he finished right when we showed up! I got one of my favorite chicken schwarmas and we found a good spot to chill before Shakira came on. The place was packed..much more than others I’ve been to there. She was phenomenal. Such high energy and never stopped moving (which she does quite well!). I decided I was going to stop eating so I can look like her……she’s perfect. B*tch. Ha. She did songs in both English and Spanish and sang everything I hoped she would with one exception so can’t complain! Afterwards Oliver drove back to Dubai and I was getting a cab from Yas which is always a nightmare after concerts so I went and sat on a bench for about 45 minutes with my iPod waiting for the craziness to die down! Shakira was going to be at Allure and Sophie told me to come but I opted to head back towards AD and do Eight instead (where it was hip hop night!). Two nights of great music….a first since I’ve been in AD! I was wishing Liana had been here as she would have been just as happy as me! Met some cool new girls this weekend which was nice….gonna need them since Liana has abandoned me. Lol. (JK girl….I mean sort of!). Was home and in bed a bit earlier than Thursday night and got a good night of sleep.
Saturday was much like Friday..lazy day at pool so I’m back to being brown again. Went to try to get a manicure but they were full so my nails look like sh*t for the first time in a long time! Went home and took a nap instead and when my alarm was going off at 7:30, I considered just staying in bed and sleeping through the night but really wanted to hit the gym, needed to eat, etc so I dragged myself out of bed. Had a pretty good workout although it hurt to run/jump rope/anything that forced hand movement but I survived. Had a box of fabulous mac n cheese, did laundry, caught up on work emails and then called it a night. Of course I had a really hard time falling asleep so I’m a bit tired today.
Liana is home from Africa and leaving for London tomorrow so we have a much needed date tonight to catch up on all her crazy African adventures. I have BC first so hopefully the night isn’t too late since it’s gonna be a busy week. Meeting a local partner to catch up on my secondment tomorrow, BC again Tuesday, we have a team away day on Wednesday and then I have a date with Alice since I haven’t seen her in over a week as well, and then I hop on a plane at 2am Thursday morning to go meet Liana in London for Cinco de Mayo! We’re not really going for CdM….we’re going to see her man fight but it happens to be on that day and any reason to celebrate is a good one. Having a margarita is on the to-do list!
Anyway…I am having a hard time typing this right now as my fingers are wrapped up. I had a slight incident on Thursday night and did something to my left pinky….the ring finger is okay….slightly bruised but functioning…the pinky one not so much. I can finally straighten it but can’t bend it and it’s pretty bruised. I’m guessing it’s not broken but whatever it is sucks. I didn’t realize how much I used it until it hurt to do anything with it. The worst is trying to put my hair up! Boot camp is likely going to suck as well since we do so many pushups and burpies. Today is leg day so I’m hoping it’s not too bad and I have 2 more days to heal before arm day.
So Thursday I did BC after work and we essentially ran for an hour. It was a good cardio workout but not what I expected and I was pretty tired. Smart Cristina was gonna go home and chill out but decided I only have 2 months left so should not be a loser and went out instead. It was a long night. It started out as a chill house party but then everyone decided to go out. Went to Rush…not sure if it’s new or just newly popular…but Thursday night is hip hop night and the music was fabulous. I rolled into my place at 6:30am and they were already serving buffet breakfast! I considered stopping for some but just wanted my bed at that point. The ride home was funny/obnoxious as one of the guys drove me and this other girl Stephanie home. Funny story about Stephanie…when I first met her I was thinking how much she looked like someone I knew…but I didn’t consider that I knew her since she was from Belgium and works for Etihad. Well it was driving me nuts trying to figure out who it was she reminded me of and we got talking and both decided that there is a very good chance she was a flight attendant on one of my flights to Bahrain in February! So turns out she doesn’t remind me of anyone..I just recognized her from the flight. So anyway…Ali drove us both home and she decided she wanted McDonalds breakfast which was not even close to on the way and I was half sleeping in the back listening to this discussion about whether to go or not and I was thinking please say no when he asks if you really want it. No such luck. I prob would have been home an hour earlier if I had taken a cab but oh well..was too late at that point. The food did smell fab but all I wanted was my bed!
I woke up Friday extremely exhausted but wanted to get to the pool since I was feeling pale…so dragged my butt down there and worked on my tan for a few hours. I really needed a manicure but didn’t want to deal with the pain in my fingers so skipped it and bought some wrap to wrap them up instead. It feels much better now because I’m not hitting it on things. I managed to squeeze in an hour nap before I had to get ready for Shakira which turned into my rocking messy curly hair because it was going to be far too painful to do! Oliver picked me up and we headed out to Yas which was a total cluster f***. I’ve always cabbed out to concerts so haven’t had to deal with the parking situation which was a disaster. We eventually find where the parking is and get out of the car and immediately sink in about 5 inches of sand. Thankfully I had flip flops with me although I was still a sandy mess! The opening act was some Egyptian dude who is supposed to be the Justin Timberlake of the Arab world and I had no interest in seeing…worked out perfectly as he finished right when we showed up! I got one of my favorite chicken schwarmas and we found a good spot to chill before Shakira came on. The place was packed..much more than others I’ve been to there. She was phenomenal. Such high energy and never stopped moving (which she does quite well!). I decided I was going to stop eating so I can look like her……she’s perfect. B*tch. Ha. She did songs in both English and Spanish and sang everything I hoped she would with one exception so can’t complain! Afterwards Oliver drove back to Dubai and I was getting a cab from Yas which is always a nightmare after concerts so I went and sat on a bench for about 45 minutes with my iPod waiting for the craziness to die down! Shakira was going to be at Allure and Sophie told me to come but I opted to head back towards AD and do Eight instead (where it was hip hop night!). Two nights of great music….a first since I’ve been in AD! I was wishing Liana had been here as she would have been just as happy as me! Met some cool new girls this weekend which was nice….gonna need them since Liana has abandoned me. Lol. (JK girl….I mean sort of!). Was home and in bed a bit earlier than Thursday night and got a good night of sleep.
Saturday was much like Friday..lazy day at pool so I’m back to being brown again. Went to try to get a manicure but they were full so my nails look like sh*t for the first time in a long time! Went home and took a nap instead and when my alarm was going off at 7:30, I considered just staying in bed and sleeping through the night but really wanted to hit the gym, needed to eat, etc so I dragged myself out of bed. Had a pretty good workout although it hurt to run/jump rope/anything that forced hand movement but I survived. Had a box of fabulous mac n cheese, did laundry, caught up on work emails and then called it a night. Of course I had a really hard time falling asleep so I’m a bit tired today.
Liana is home from Africa and leaving for London tomorrow so we have a much needed date tonight to catch up on all her crazy African adventures. I have BC first so hopefully the night isn’t too late since it’s gonna be a busy week. Meeting a local partner to catch up on my secondment tomorrow, BC again Tuesday, we have a team away day on Wednesday and then I have a date with Alice since I haven’t seen her in over a week as well, and then I hop on a plane at 2am Thursday morning to go meet Liana in London for Cinco de Mayo! We’re not really going for CdM….we’re going to see her man fight but it happens to be on that day and any reason to celebrate is a good one. Having a margarita is on the to-do list!
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