***Okay I had this almost completely written 6 weeks ago but had spotty internet service and it didnt post and I lost the end and then life happened, a move to Boston, no weekends at home, etc etc. So today I'm getting my act in gear. Not sure if anyone is even still following but I started this so I could document my journey and it wouldn't be right without the final week!***
The last blog has been delayed a bit as I was computer less once I left my job and since I've been home just haven't had time. My last week in the UAE was one of the best despite the sadness of saying goodbye to so many people I will miss like crazy. I'm going to do one final post in the next few days, a reflection on the full 8 months but for now.....the rest of the last week!!!
Thursday was my last day of work and since I was pretty much done with all of my projects the day before, I didn't do much. We had a treasury lunch to say goodbye and my co-worker Matt gave a really sweet speech..he was even tearing up!!!! Saying goodbye to everyone that I've worked with the past 8 months was harder than I thought but I made it out with no tears so that was a plus. They let me go at 4 cuz lets get real, I was doing absolutely nothing except warming my seat! I went back to the hotel to pack for the weekend away and then Maria and I went over to Yas island to check into our hotel. Because we are awesome they gave us a free upgrade and we had a fab room with great views of the F1 track and the Marina. I tried to take a nap since I didn't think I was going to survive the weekend in the condition I was in but that was a no go. Maria went and toured the hotel while I laid there frustrated and then started getting ready. We went to Pearls & Caviar for dinner and I had a lobster which was delicious but I think we drank a bit too much. Maria and I split a bottle of bubbly at the hotel before we left and then 4 of us had 3 bottles of wine at dinner. Liana drove down from Dubai and Alice showed up way late to say hi on her way to the airport. It was nice for Maria to get to meet my best AD girls. By the end of dinner I was pretty drunk and was at the bar looking over at the table of everyone talking and laughing and started crying thinking about how much I was going to miss that. Booze and goodbyes are never a good combo!!! Alice had to head out for Ibiza so we did our final goodbye which was super sad but I know I'll see her again so its not forever. We went back to Yas and started the night at Allure. It was a bit different to be indoors (the patio is where we normally party but its closed as its too hot) and the music wasn't great so we stayed for a little while with the crew that was there and then left for Rush where everyone else I knew was. It plays hip hop on Thursdays and was in our hotel so much better. I don't recall a lot of this as I was wasted but at least I remember being in all locations. Maria doesn't remember going to Rush. HA! We stayed til about 4am and then retired to the room where Liana and I had a heart to heart on the balcony and I cried some more!!!
We had to get up fairly early to get ready for brunch and Liana was in the best shape but the rest of us were hurting. The last thing I wanted to do was get dressed up and go drink some more but we all rallied. Drove to Dubai and picked up Oliver who was also in horrible shape from his night out. I actually woke him up when we were 5 minutes out...at least he got to sleep a ton more than us. Rolling up to brunch was a riot as Anwar met us there (he had been with us the night before) and at least 4 of us wanted to die at brunch. The other 5 were in pretty good shape though, they were much smarter to not party the night before brunch. My first ever UAE brunch was at Yalumba so it was only fitting that my last was as well. It was by far the most fun day I've had during the day. Once we walked in they gave us our first glass of champagne and we all forgot how crappy we felt and started over! Everyone was in a great mood and there were lots of laughs and champagne fueled nonsense. I had plenty of candy again....and not much actual food! Brunch ended at 3:30pm but we all stayed til about 6pm (happy hour starts as soon as brunch ends) and then I decided I had to go lay down for awhile before I passed out from exhaustion! Got back to Olivers and passed out fully clothed on the couch and left him and Maria to go frollick/get in trouble in the pool ;). I woke up about 2 hours later and felt like absolute death. I think the nap was a bad idea. They came back soon after I woke up and were like...what do you want to do? Honestly...I wanted to sleep for 24 hours but I had to be a good host and go out again for Maria's sake. I also wanted to spend time with Oliver before leaving so put my big girl pants on and went out. We were all starving since none of us ate much at brunch so went to Barasti which is a pretty chill beach bar that also served food at around 11pm. The music and atmosphere were great, perfect for a chill night out and we did lots of chair dancing. I didn't have the energy to get up and dance but they kept playing great songs...Maria said "I love this song" to no joke, every single song that came on. I finally told her she was only allowed one more because it was starting to lose its meaning, she was not happy with this. HA. The table next to us ended up being a bunch of ppl that work for my firm who are also seconded to the AD client...the UAE is far too small sometimes! We stayed til about 2:30am and then I said I had to go sleep!
Saturday I was competing in the Shape/Men's Fitness UAE fitness challenge (I told my boot camp instructor who chose the teams from boot camp that he shouldn't have picked a team full of drunks as most of us showed up in pretty rough shape!). I hit the pool for about an hour and then went and spent the rest of the afternoon over there. Liana, Maria and Oliver came to cheer me on...and Liana loved it cuz she could perv on all the buff men there!! There were four events and you could compete as an individual and do all 4 or as a team and do 1 each. We were entered as a team so thankfully I only had to do one event, burpees and it was last of the day. Having some recovery time was good. Matt was the male burpee guy and he was still drunk I think. Jill did a great job on the beep test..she went first and was also not feeling 100% so all things considering, she rocked. Keren did push ups and Nina squats. So I was talking to my judge before, he wanted to make sure I knew the rules...I told him I trained with Corey and he was like oh then you are good. Maria thought I was buttering him up to go easier on me...always thinking the worst!! The guy before me had done 35 and most of the guys in the first round were only in the high 30, low 40 range which surprised me and I figured I was gonna end somewhere in the 20's. 36 perfect form burpees baby!!!! Everyone said that my form was the best and I was one of the few not "cheating". I wish the judges were harder on the ones that were clearly not following the rules but oh well. The only slight issue was that my pants started falling down! I wear them all the time to bootcamp and they are fine so not sure what happened but it was super distracting and I had to stop and pull them up every few to make sure I wasn't flashing the entire ballroom my a**. It was also on carpet which was awful on my wrists...I prefer the sand even though they are harder. They never told us what the top scores were for each event which was annoying but I talked to my lane judge after (what else would you do after a fitness challenge than go to an open bar event?!?!) and he said I beat everyone that he was scoring so I felt good about that. I also beat the girl from the Dubai bootcamp team and thats all I really wanted to do.
We hung out for free drinks for a bit and then raced home as we were super late for yet another farewell dinner. Went to The Gramercy at the DIFC and the food was amazing. Bushy and his fiance came as they couldn't make brunch so was nice to say goodbye to them. After dinner Maria, Liana, Steve and I went to Prive in the Burj Khalifa for a final night of partying in Dubai. Maria really wanted to see it so I figured hey, why not party in it as well? Prive was really nice and the music was fabulous. Liana left pretty early as it was a school night and we had to say our final goodbye there. I will miss that girl so much but again, its not the end for us! Steve was a great sport putting up with us the rest of the night as we drank vodka, champagne and shot tequilla and danced our a**es off. It was probably the best night out I've ever had in Dubai (they usually end up bad for one reason or another!). The lights came on before we realized it was 3am and closing time. Sad.
Sunday we got up and Oliver gave us a lift back to Abu Dhabi since he was going to the office which worked out nicely for us. We had a full day planned for her last day which started off with 2 hours at the pool! It was the first day we actually got to chill at the pool together and I think she was happy to have company since the rest of the time I had to leave her solo and go to work. I was also losing my tan as the last few weekends were full of things other than laying by the pool and I didn't want to come home pale (and by pale I mean really dark but not as dark as I can be!!). Neither of us wanted to leave the pool but we had to get on with the day. We got ready, did our eye make up really nice as we were planning on wearing the full local garb at the Mosque so all you see is the eyes and then got in a cab. The first sign that it was not meant to be should have been when the cabbie didn't know where the Grand Mosque was. What? We were all..you know..the mosque...3rd largest in the world....you don't know where that is? Nope. So we got out and into the next one as I was in no mood to give him directions when he barely understood a word we were saying. The next guy did know where it was so we roll up and get out of the cab and were trying to figure out where the "Entrance" while the security guard gave us very disapproving looks. We were both in dresses (shoulders covered) but they were a bit short. I didn't think it mattered what we showed up in as they were going to make us wear local dress anyway. Well the security guard claims that on THAT DAY, a new rule was in force that girls in short dresses were not even allowed on the premises. I have no idea if that was bs or not but there went our chance to see the Mosque from the inside. We were like, can't you bring the abayas out here?? No go. It was all quite comical as it just figured we got ourselves banned from somewhere while Maria was there. Next up was shooting at the Officers Club which conveniently was right near the Mosque so it wasn't a wasted ride out there at least. They had no issue with the length of our dresses and got us ready to go. We sat through the safety briefing and then started shooting. I've never shot anything other than a bb gun (how do you spell that anyway) so it was quite an experience. I wasn't nearly as nervous as I thought..poor Maria was sweating! I went first and was more nervous about them all looking at me when I did it than anything. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to pull the trigger and I did quite well for my first time I think! Out of the first 10 rounds only 2 missed the target and a decent amount were in the black. He let us switch to better guns half way through and even though I liked the second better, I shot way better with the first. Maria shot better with the second and got 2 bulls eye. I conceded the win to her as she deserved it! We were planning on only shooting 50 rounds but ended up doing 100 as it was too much fun to stop. By the end we had a whole viewing room full of on lookers, although mostly 12 year old boys. HA! From here we hit the Souk so Maria could get souveniers for her family and I had never been so was nice to see it. It was nothing like the Souk in Doha...this one was like fancy souk...all indoors and more like a mall than anything. We finished right on time to get back so she could pack and we could do one last dinner before she left for the airport. Oliver came and met us at Rodeo grill and we all ordered the exact same thing (hey, when its good its good right?!) and then Oliver took her to the airport. It was really sad to say goodbye to her as we had such an amazing week. We haven't spent that much time together in 10 years and it was a much needed week for us and def. strengthened our friendship. I'll see her again very soon for her bday in NYC, then Miami, then Boston so I guess not all that sad...but still it was great having company for my last week.
I was supposed to go out in Abu Dhabi with some other girls that night but once she left around 10pm I just couldn't function. I went 8 straight days of go go go with very little sleep and just couldn't do it anymore. Plus Monday was my last day and I wanted to be in decent shape. I had a great night of sleep and then got up and started packing. I really didn't think everything was going to fit into my suitcases but after throwing away some shoes/clothes and giving away some stuff, it all fit. When I pulled out all my shoes there were 22 pairs and I thought I was in big trouble! I had to go by the office to have my visa cancelled and the girl took one look at it and goes uh oh. My visa was issued out of DIFC (a Dubai free zone) and she was like, you have to go to Dubai. Hmmm....how about NO. I said I asked you guys on Thursday morning what I needed to do before I left the country and you said just bring it by the office so thats what I did. She was like..can I ask why you can't go to Dubai right now? I was thinking well...I have to go to the pool, the gym, get my nails done and go to my final farewell dinner....Going to Dubai fit nowhere in those plans and she was not ruining my final day in AD!!! I just told her I needed to pack and they could figure something else out. The next suggestion was that I postpone my trip a day to have it done. Yeah, no. Also a terrible idea. In the end they said they would just cancel it when I left the country. Now why the h*ll was that not the FIRST suggestion? Instead of wasting money sending me to Dubai or having me change my flight, hotel, etc to stay another day. I wanted to say, this is exactly why I don't want to work here in the UAE but kept my mouth shut. I went to the pool for about an hour and a half for my final sun and saying goodbye to the beach club was pretty sad. I spent an absurd amount of time laying by the pool there and already miss it! I hit the gym next, then showered and hit Nails for a final mani/pedi before going to dinner. I picked Trader Vics as its a pretty upbeat atmosphere (and in my hotel!) and sat in the bar as a lot of ppl were passing by throughout the night to say the final final final goodbyes! My buddy Aki was trying to convince me to go to Sax but I had to veto that as I had to be up at 6:30 am. Stayed til about 11:30 and then went home to finish packing and get in bed.
My driver picked me up and took me to the airport which was nice so I didn't have to deal with a cab...he texted me as soon as he dropped me off to say that I was the best guest he ever had and that he was going to miss me a ton. Awww. My flight left on time but was not the best one ever. Business class on Etihad was FULL of obnoxious children, including one that cried for about 12 of the 14 hour flight. Ear plugs didn't work, nor did watching movies. (This is where I have to go from memory so I've sort of forgotten my frustration by now!!!). I got to JFK and had quite the time with my 5 suitcases as I had to collect them, go through Customs, re check them, and then do it all again when I got to DC! It was quite an arm workout for the day. I had a 5 hour layover in JFK which stinks but at least I was prepared. Well we get on the plane and then it was delay after delay (mechanical issues, weather, etc). After sitting on the runway for 3 hours, we finally took off for DC. After travelling for 25 hours, I finally made it home at about 1am (9am AD time) and was both exhausted, disgusting and starving. Sleeping in my own bed that first night was nice (because my bed is fabulous) but also sad to realize that it was truly over.
I'll go more into reflections in the next and final post so will end this here. It was a fabulous, exhausting, fun filled last week and I couldn't have asked for a better end!
