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
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