Nicole in the U.A.E.

Another Chaine Dinner

2012-03-13T16:01:00.001+04:00

I went to another Chaine dinner last weekend. It was so good that I've decided to join.
There are about six dinners per year.

The menu for this dinner was really creative and delicious and it was held at the Danat hotel just down the road from my apartment. We started with champagne cocktails and hors d'oeuvre on the patio. The dinner started with foie gras and mushroom rissoto with ripe blueberries for an appetizer followed by a seafood chowder ala cappaccino. The fish course was salmon but it was farmed so none us were too impressed with the taste or texture...I guess the desert has some limitations. After cleansing our pallets with a green apple sorbet, the main course of rack of lamb with gnocchi and a carrot salsa was served.

Desert was a white chocolate and milk chocolate mouse with a tart fruit compote. Then....they brought out a plate of chocolate creations in the shape of the Dubai landscape.

I was seated with my friends Sharon and Serge as well as some really other people that I had met at the previous dinner.

Sharon is in the red and her husband, Serge, is between us. Richard is on my left,
Linda and Rob and Mr. Ahmed made up our table. There was a really good
Cuban band playing in the background all night.

Cultural Awareness

2012-03-06T12:50:00.000+04:00

So, this week at the college one of the students was possessed by a Djinn (pronounced gin) which is an evil spirit. I didn't see it but apparently she began flailing about in class and they called the nurse. The nurse didn't want to interfere as it was a spiritual afflication so they started to read the Quran over the student in an attempt to exorcise the Djinn. I have no idea what was wrong with the student but the other girls in the class were all terrified that they might also be possessed. As a result of this event I learned that every morning, they say a prayer to Allah to protect them from Djinn and even the highly educated still have faith in this way of thinking.

Interestingly, there are twelve doctors from a local hospital here today to speak on women's health issues as March 8th is International Women's Day...I wonder if they'll talk about possessions.

Cakes

2012-02-27T15:53:00.000+04:00

I've been busy baking cakes for the last two weeks. I did one for Valentine's Day.

An another for a 'wecome back' party at Sharon and Serge's place for Jackie.

We had a great time at the party. It was potluck and everyone brought something delicious. Luckily for us, Sharon and Serge have seating for about 100 in their place so we could lounge around and eat to our heart's content.

Some of the group around the buffet table...yummy!

Dubai Tourist

2012-02-12T15:37:00.000+04:00

This past weekend, I finally got to see Dubai in all its tacky glitz and gritty grime. I took the "Big Red Bus" around so I could see what looked interesting and then jumped off to see the highlights.

My first stop was the tallest building in the world. The Burj Khalifa has an observation deck on floor 124 but you need a reservation to go up. I'll probably wait until someone comes to visit me before taking the longest elevator ride in the world.

828 meters tall, 160 floors, 900 residences, 37 office floors, 4 floor fitness club and 3000 parking spaces.

Next was the Dubai Mall which is right next to the Burj, separated by a beautiful blue lake. The mall is surrounded by outdoor restaurants so people can enjoy the views of the water and tower but the real insanity is inside. The Mall is supposedly the largest in the world but there are some debates over how these malls are measured. It has a flour space of 5.9 million square meters, 1200 shops, 160 restaurnts with seating for 3000, 200 jewelry shops in the Gold Souq, over 14,000 parking spaces and so much other stuff that I can't list it all.

One of worlds largest fish tanks across from the candy store. You can pay to walk through a glass tube in the center
or put on scuba gear and swim with the 33,000 fish (a few less if the sharks aren't fed on time).

If ice-skating seems too tame, try racing cars on ice for a little more excitment.

So, after finding the perfect lipstick in one of the many cosmetic shops, I was off to my next destination, the Dubai creek. It's still a working place with plenty of ships loading and unloading but I enjoyed a sunny walk along the corniche.

I'm not sure that this side of the river has changed much in the last couple of decades.

But this side was awash with highrises and fancy buidlings. Still, there were plenty of the
traditional Dhows floating around on the water.

After I walked along the creek, I hit the Dubai Museum which was surprisingly good. It's built under a fort and takes you through the history of the area. First, you walk through a traditional souq with little shops. In the back of each shop is a video showing the traditional way in which the products were made. As you go along, the environment changes to a desert, then a beach and so on....impressive. As I was leaving, the tour buses pulled up and literally about a 1000 people went in so I felt pretty lucky to have been early.

I took a walking tour of the textile and old souq and then a ride across the creak on a little wooden boat called an abra and into the spice and gold souqs. This was included in the Big Red Bus tour so I got to hear all about the area and see the biggest gold ring in the world; 63kilos. We also got to see some of the older Mosques and Hindu temples in the city.

I went out to the newer section of Dubai the next day and saw really some insane stuff. The things that they are doing here are shocking in their engineering wonder and their abuse of the environment. Dubai uses more water than any city in the world and has actually altered the coastline by over 800 kilometers.

The Burj Al Arab, one of the world's only 7 star hotels...with an underwater restaurant, heli-pad and
the fame of having Tiger Woods hitting golf balls off the top.

Jumeirah Beach...you can't see it but about 4 kilometers off this beach is "The World", a collection of
man-made islands that can be bought for 10 million to 100 million a piece. Branjolina have one apparently.
It was really funny watch all the people holding their pant legs up and wading in the water
because it's pretty rare to put on a swim suit in a public area.

This is one of the plam fronds on Palm Island. You couldn't pay me to live in this
place. Its ugly and overcrowded with an expected 20,000 residents by the time they
finish. The 'trunk' is apartment buildings stacked up against each other and then
houses packed in so tightly that there is no yard at all. At the top of the island, at the end of the
crazy mono-rail is the waaaay overdone Atlantis hotel with dophins and masive gardens sucking
up millions of gallons of water a minute.

After all that beach stuff, how about a nice fireside hot chocolate next to Ski Dubai at
the Mall of the Emirates.

Can you see the luge run at the bottom of the ski hill? The top is
out of sight but you can get the idea from this picture...crazy!!!

Anyways, it was a hectic weekend but I feel like I know the city well enough to get around now. The metro is fast and convenient and there's plenty to do and see so I'm already thinking of going back before the weather heats up too much.

As a last note; friends and I bought tickets to see the Eagles up in Dubai for April. The reviews for the show are great so I'm sure I'll enjoy that trip up to Dubai also.

Abu Dhabi Golf with Giants

2012-01-29T10:20:00.000+04:00

My friend Mary invited me to Abu Dhabi on Friday to watch the big Abu Dhabi golf tournament. I got to see Tiger Woods, Rory, Mcilory, Luke MacDonald and the other greats play. It was a nice day for walking around the course and we had a great lunch at the Westin Hotel. We got in free because it was sponsored by HSBC and I'm a customer. They also gave out free folding chairs, sunscreen and drinks so we could comfortably enjoy watching.

Rory (the US champ) and Daren (the Britsh champ) having a chat while warming up.

Tiger warming up.

KJ Choi kicking up some grass.

My friend Mary and her husband Brian.
They were my golf guides for the day.

Now back at college, I've got a week to prepare for next semester and I think I have things organized well so I took a minute to take a couple of photos.

Our shiny new library opens this week with Pedro at the helm.

They are what we eat.
Found in our cafeteria.

A random weekend

2012-01-22T10:09:00.000+04:00

I realize that I haven't updated my blog since returning from Jordan so I remembered to bring my camera when I went out this weekend and take some pictures.

Thursday night, after spending all day proctoring exams, I went to the House Of Arts performance. It was a selection of the teachers and top students performing clasical music. I liked almost all of the music.

A student and her teacher. It's quite brave of this girl to get up, show her face in
public and perform like this.

Two of the teachers with amazing skills. Their fingers were blurs.

This girl did a scene from Figaro that was fun and beautiful.

Then on Saturday a group of friends and I went to an art gallery up in Abu Dhabi for lunch, a tour and an artsy workshop.

From right to left;
Diane, me, Christine, Liz and Elke

We made cyanotypes which are basically the technology behind blueprints.
We stuck a bunch of odd objects to a paper with chemicals painted on it and
then exposed it to the sun for a few minutes. At the end we had bright blue and
white pictures.

Liz is starting up her own jewelry busines and so she designs and makes custom jewelry for customers. I ordered some pieces and she gave me a necklace and bracelet set.

She designed two necklaces for my nieces back in Canada.

I also got some new clothes at a good sale at Marks & Spensor so it was a good weekend. Now I've got two weeks of exam proctoring and preparing for the next semester. The coming semester will be better for me now that I've gotten a handle on how things work here. That's the hope anyway :)

The King’s Road

2011-12-31T00:50:00.001+04:00

When four kings decided to go to war against the wicked Sodom and Gomorra in Genesis 14, they went trekking down the ‘King’s Road’ and when Moses dragged his followers through Edom in Numbers 20, they wandered down the ‘Kings Road’. In real life, the King’s Road was a travel route linking Southern Jordan to Damascus and the north trade routes of China. Now it’s a windy, two lane road that meanders by Mamluk forts, Crusader castles and ancient biblical sites like Herod’s Castle.

I hired a driver for $65 and we left the beautiful Wadi Mousa (the city next to Petra) at 9:00am.

The scenery was fantastic with our first stop at Dana Nature Preserve.

Crusaders castles off in the distance.

Crazy winding roads into valleys.

Then a stop at Karak, a crusader castle built in 1142.

The place is massive with five or six levels and a maze of rooms, tunnels and walls.

The castle was fantastic. I could have spent a whole day wandering around, guessing what each of the rooms were for and getting lost but we were off to the city of Madaba after only two hours.

Madaba was settled by early Christians so there are a lot of very old churches. What makes these churches so special is their amazing mosaic floors. St. George has one of the oldest known maps of Christendom made of tiny mosaic stones on it’s floor. That’s Jericho in the center….before the walls came down :)

I spent the next couple days exploring the area including a day at Jeresh, an ancient Roman city that was a major part of the empire and is on par with Ephesus in Turkey.

We also got a show of Julius Caesar's centurions and chariot races. The whole thing is quite historically accurate and educational as well as entertaining. It’s apparently staffed by retired military men and they did do the marching rather well.

I’ve run out of time and I’ll be heading home for New Years but I think I might come back to Jordan. The people are really nice and I missed so much this trip that I could do another trip easily. I also felt quite badly for the people in the tourism industry which has been hit quite hard by BBC’s and CNN’s ‘over’ reporting of the trouble in the Middle East so I don’t mind spending a bit of money here.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-26T19:12:00.002+04:00

Spent my final days in Dahab doing some snorkelling….freaking amazing!!! Just like a National Geographic special and all I had to do was put on my mask and flippers and swim off the front of my hotel. I couldn’t take any photos because I don’t have an underwater camera but I’ve stolen a few from the internet that look exactly like what I saw.

I actually followed one of these Lion fish for a while, trying to remember if they were poisonous or not. So fantastic that I might come back to get my diving certificate one day.
Left Dabab and got into Wadi Mousa, Jordan in the late evening after a crazy Christmas Eve ferry ride from Egypt. When they said it was the slow boat, they weren’t kidding. Still, it was a nice sunny day to sail along the Sea of Aquaba.
My hotel is very nice and has a Turkish bath which I’ll be partaking in later. I had a great Christmas day at the ancient city of Petra. It was a bit cold but that gave me a good excuse to do some of the more strenuous hikes just to keep warm.
The layout of Petra is exceptionally dramatic. After walking a kilometre or so along a dirt path, you enter the Siq, a narrow canyon.

Here is a picture with a horse and carriage just to show the size of these rock walls.

The walk through here is incredible, with carvings and beautiful natural rock formations. What do you see in this picture?

Then you get a glimpse of the city ahead.

And you come out into the entry of Petra. This building is called the Treasury but it’s actually a funerary building.

I always thought that this was the main part of the city but this is just the beginning. There are tons of tombs, rock hewn homes, temples and other structures including a Byzantine church and a monastery.

People have been living here for 10,000 years but the city of Petra was created from about 100bc to 550ad by a group of people called the Nabateans. The poor Nabateans weren't very lucky people. They got a good trade thing going on with Arabic frankensense and myrh and the Alexanders' army comes along and attacks. They survive that only to have Rome try to destroy their trade route and then finally come and attack them too. Consequently, the city has several different building styles and religious artefacts that reflect all the different traders and conquerers. Unfortunately, their bad luck continued and after two massive earthquakes, the city was abandoned.

It's actuallly not completely abandoned because the local Bedouin still live in the cave houses and, apparently they sneak around at night with head lamps to dig up long lost treasures to sell to tourists. If you want a 2000 year old thingamajig to put on your shelf, you've come to the right place.

The place is huge and I trekked up and down mountains, over temples and through holes in rock walls for about seven hours before heading out. On my way out I met a very nice woman, got to chatting and we had our Christmas dinner together at the beautiful Movenpick hotel bar just outside the park…nothing like good company, a pint and fish & chips for Christmas dinner.

Dahab, Egypt…or where hippies go to live on eternally

2011-12-21T22:23:00.001+04:00

So the journey here was pretty crazy. My lovely taxi driver Evelyn picked me up at 4:30 am and drove me to Abu Dhabi because there are no early buses. After a two hour flight to Amaan, Jordan, a four layover, another two hour fight and then an hour drive. I made it.

Dahab is an odd ramshackle place with restaurants, guesthouses and souvenir shops everywhere all pressed up a rocky coastline.

This was the view from my lunch restaurant yesterday where I ate roasted chicken and vegetables while reading my new Janet Evanovich book…life is bloody grand!

I spent today out in the desert and did some hiking. I use the term hiking loosely here because there was some canyon wall scaling with ropes and some others without ropes. There was also a ‘ten’ minute hike straight up the side of a mountain. You’ll notice that the ten is in quotation marks because Arabs love to ‘guestimate’ time with wild abandon. I have to say it was truly beautiful and the wall scaling pretty fun. There was also some hot, sweet Bedouin tea and some cool people to chat with.

This was the Colored Canyon. Pink and orange. We climbed, slid, squeezed our way along through amazing rock formations and high walls.

Then we headed to the White Canyon.

This was so much fun. I had a great time looking for hand and foot holds. Our guide made fun of us for paying to do this and saying ‘good luck’ like we were all doomed. He also kept singing ten year old pop songs which he said was the only way he could stay sane doing this ridiculous job.

We arrived at the oasis just as a baby goat was born…poor little thing bleated all through our lunch. Everything was cooked on a palm leaf fire and was all delicious.

Our trip ended with a stop at Mushroom Rock.

I’m going to hang out in town tomorrow. I wanted to go snorkelling but I’m sitting here on my balcony watching the palms whip around and the surf pounding the shore. The temperature has also dropped so I’m thinking I’ll just be drinking tea and reading for the day. Such a sacrifice!

Christmas in the UAE

2011-12-21T21:42:00.001+04:00

So, I walk into the shopping mall and I am stopped dead by the display set up in the supermarket. Christmas trees, decorations and twinkling lights everywhere and just beyond that is the camping gear because hey, nothing says Christmas like a bbq in the desert. It’s really telling how relaxed the UAE is when they don’t mind the glitz of our tackiest holiday crowding their shopping aisles.

I’ve had a pretty good pre-Christmas week. I started off with fantastic dinner and Choir performance at the Danat Hotel. They had turkey, prime rib and all the fixings, including a huge gingerbread house. My friends Sharon and Liz were both in the Choir and were wonderful. They included the audience for 12 Days of Christmas and the tables had to stand and sing their lines. We were ‘three French Hens’ which was funny because we had three French Canadians at our table.

This is our table with Sharon in white, hubby Serge in black, me, Louise, her husband Rak, Linda and her son Lars in back. Great people to share a table with.

I also did some baking and organized a Secret Santa in our office. The Emirati ladies participated too which was so fun. It was all very secular and not meant to be anything other than an excuse to goof-off for a short time on the last day before holidays started.

Then, Sharon and I went to Dubai to visit The Global Village which is a huge international shopping expo dressed up to look cultural by having performers and decorations from each of the countries participating. India was the best and we both bought ourselves a little something there. We ate in Morocco and even talked about going to Morocco in March for our next vacation.

And I got my first glimpse of the Burj Khalifa…check out how huge that thing is.

There was a couple of bad things that happened that last bit before holidays. My supervisor, who I really like, announced that she’s leaving in June. Apparently, she’s one of the best supervisors according to my co-workers. I feel very unstable now with people leaving or being let go. It’s not a good atmosphere. On top of that, I had a classroom observation the day before holidays started and the students were wild enough and I was freaked out enough that I blew it. I don’t think that I’ve taught a class that badly in years. At this point in my teaching career, I really should be able to ignore what’s happening outside the classroom but it’s difficult…I’m thinking more manicures and massages might help.

Luckily, I’m on holidays!!!! So, I’m off to Egypt and Jordan.

Desert BBQ

2011-12-05T14:30:00.000+04:00

Some friends invited me out into the desert for a bbq this past weekend so we were out in the dunes as the sun set and had some great food.

Sharon and Serge lighting up the bbq...luckily, everyone still had their
eyebrows when it was all finished. You can see we had to 4x4 in.

We were near some pools of reclamation water so there were a lot
of birds including these little guys and some huge herons that wouldn't pose for me.

Very picturesque with Jebal Hafeet Mountain in the distance.

I trashed my pedicure but had a blast climbing the dunes.

The reclamation pools give life to a bone dry place.

Al Ain has this amazing red sand that got brilliant in the light of the setting sun

Our College's National Day celebrations

2011-11-30T10:02:00.000+04:00

This week has been the absolute craziest week that I've had here so far. The national Day (translate that into month) wackiness started with a bird show on the campus.

From the Al Ain Zoo

Falconry is a big deal here and a lot of people have them, in fact, one of my student's brothers have them. These zoo keepers brought the birds and had them flying for prey in front of the girls who screamed and took photos on cue.

This one didn't want to go back to his handler and held the show up for a while.

The next day got even wilder when we became a parade. Four floats and 48 buses filled with screaming, flag waving students. We paraded through town for 90 minutes and then went to some sort of heritage village. My students were pretty excited and cheered and sang the whole time on the bus. This is a big deal for them to go out into public and be allowed to stick their heads out of windows like that because they usually act demure in public places.

All of the school kids lined the street to see the parade...this was a National Day slash recruitment event.

This is a women's traditonal Dance. They swing their hair from side to side
while swaying to the beat of the drums. There is very little movement and,
as dance and music are not allowed in Islamic culture, it seems to be done
only at home.

Yesterday was my student's big day as they had a 'festival' in the college where each class in our level one had a booth/table to sell something, create something or celebrate National Day in some way. My class took photos of students with the traditional berka that their grandmother's used to wear on their faces and then they printed off the photos to give each girl.

These girls cooked and brought in food to sell.

I bought the traditional clothes to wear for the day and had fun. The outer black cloak is called an Abayah, the head scarf is called a sheyla and the inner dress is called a Kandora. Here I am getting the tradional Henna done on my hand by one of our students.

I'm glad that I wore the traditional clothes for the day because I feel like I understand my student a bit better now. They walk very slowly which is quite irritating but I discovered that it's impossible to walk quickly in these clothes so now I think I'll be more understanding with them.

With the traditional berka on my face

I also made a cake for the day in the shape of a UAE traditional fort. Red velvet, French vanila and dark chocolate layers to simulate the colors of the flag.

Gearing up for National Day

2011-11-26T16:10:00.001+04:00

It’s the 4oth anniversary of the UAE and things are getting more and more interesting as the weeks go on. Today at school, we had some young men come to perform sword dances. Of course, the girls were very excited as they don’t often get to see men that they aren’t related to. Plus, it was a beautiful day to sit outside for the show.

You’ll notice that the photo of the girls is from a distance so that you can’t make out their faces. They can get into a lot of trouble with their families if their faces are shown and it’s a big deal here to ask before taking the picture or make sure that you can’t make out who they are.

After the dancing, the level ones were asked to prepare some paintings for the upcoming festivities. Chaos ensued as they coated their hands to make a giant hand printed flag.

Here is Tim Smith, the Dean of the College lending a hand…literally.

Here is Marion King, my supervisor, also getting down to work.

Of course, it’s not just the college that’s getting involved. The whole city is mad with lights and as the flag is white, red, green and black there is a Christmassy feeling to it all. Every roundabout, every bridge, most large buildings and a lot of homes are covered in flags and lights.

and we’re still a week away from the big day.

The beginning...

2011-11-23T13:15:00.001+04:00

Next week is the 40th National Day of the UAE so it's a pretty big deal around here. There are events planned all over the country and our college has things going on this week and next week. Today we made a giant 40 out of students and faculty.

You can see me in beige, behind the lady in a green top.

You can see all of our red, white, black and green balloons flying

Lemon Curd and Shiny things

2011-11-22T15:17:00.000+04:00

This week at the college we had an arts & crafts souq (market). There was a ton of stuff and it was a fun way to spend a bit of time away from my desk. I had been looking forward to seeing what would be on offer as so much in the shops is plastic and cheap quality.

I bought a lovely bracelet from my friend Liz and I will be ordering more things from her as she makes such artistic and original stuff.

Liz with her jewelry

My friend Mary who sits next to me in our office...she's saved me so many times.

I bought some delicious lemon curd to put on toast....they also had really
creative chutneys

Not bad for a day at work :)

It's All in the Name

2011-11-21T14:43:00.000+04:00

In taking attendance today, I noticed that it's pretty interesting how my female student's names are constructed. They have a first name, often chosen from the Qur'an, like Fatima, Mariam, Salama or Mouza. ( have five Mariams between my two classes) Their first name is followed by their father's name, then their grandfather's name, then their great-grandfather's name and then their tribal name. This means that all the kids in a family have the same name except for their first name...easy to remember your brother's name, I guess.

The tribes are old and pre-date the UAE so they can be found all over the Arabian peninsula. In fact, they are often more closely connected to Yemen or Oman than to the other Emirates in the UAE. Al Shamsi is an example of one of these tribes and I have a student with that name but there are also sub-sections of each of the tribes. There are 70 tribes recognized in the UAE and apparently, there can be some prejudice towards certain tribes but I haven't seen that.

All of the tribes seem to call themselves Bedu (Bedouin) regardless of their names.

Tombs and Forts

2011-11-19T20:17:00.001+04:00

This weekend was nice and relaxing but I did join a new excursion group and went out for one trip. We met in the morning and, in a convoy of 4x4s, we went off-road into the desert between my apartment and the Oman border which is about 20kms away.

The mountain in the background of this picture is Jebel Hafit and it’s really the only mountain nearby. It was part of an ancient trade route in the area so in the 1960s, Dutch and Danish archaeologists spent quite a bit of time digging around the base of the mountain. What they found was over 500 hundred tombs. Each tomb contained approximately 25 bodies and a ton of artefacts. The artefacts can be seen in town at the museum but the the Abu Dhabi Archeological and Cultural Ministry reconstructed some of the tombs.

These tombs were built from around 3000BC so they’re pretty ancient. There is also evidence of copper mining and smelting in the area and we found rocks that had been melted and then reformed. We also found fossilized coral as this whole area was under a sea a million and half years ago. Very cool place to walk around just looking at rocks.

Amro, our guide, tells us not to be out here after 5:00pm because the military moves in and patrols for illegals crossing the Omani border. He says that one trip he had a red laser on his chest from a sniper rifle and they were questioned as to what they were doing.

On our way out, we spotted some camels. The camel racing season starts soon and Amro has promised to take us.

We went out to the Mezyad Fort next and it was interesting from an architectural point of view. The forts were built out of mud bricks and covered with adobe. They used palm trees and leaves for the roof and the whole thing could take 30 years to finish. The forts are square with watch towers on each corner. The center is open and they used to sleep, eat and live outside. The walls were only necessary to keep enemies from stealing the women and water. There was a well inside and a large room called a magis near the front entrance for men to entertain without exposing the women to outsiders. This particular fort is under renovation but Amro says it’s going badly because the restorers don’t understand the basic principles of the tribal lifestyle so they keep doing stupid things like planting trees in the living areas.

Finished my weekend off with a bbq in the courtyard with Tanya and Patreshia. I bought a shiny new bbq for $50 this week so i just had to take it out for a test drive.

The Man Who Walked on the Moon

2011-11-16T08:33:00.001+04:00

I was going to write this blog entry in 'matter-of-fact' and sophisticated way but I just can't.....I feel like a teenager who just met a rock star and, in a way, I did. Yesterday there was a Festival of Thinkers panel at our men's college down the road and all teachers were invited. The panel consisted of;

Charlie Duke (the 10th man to walk on the moon for Apollo 16)

Steve Oswald ( Discover and Endeavor Shuttle Pilot)

Sami Solanki (Astrophysist who is studying solar phenomenon
and is Director of the Max Planck Institute)

Garik Israelan ( Astrophysist who discovered that supernovas create blackholes)

There were other members of the panel, which was chaired by Svante Lindqvist of the Royal Swekish Academy of Sciences Sweden, but these four really impressed me. They spoke on leadership, risk and exploration. Charlie Duke was the most elequent speaker and had some really good points to make about teamwork, calculating risk factors and the importance of 'seeing what's over the next hill'.

The audience was allowed to ask questions so they got the typical "was the landing on the moon real?" to which Charlie answered; "If it was fake, why did they fake it nine times?" and "I don't know about the other guys but they sent me to the moon." I had a million questions but mine were either science related or more suited for a dinner table conversation rather than a quick panel answer so I went up afterwards and spoke to some of the panel members.

Steve Oswald told me that a big group of 'old timer shuttle astronauts' were present for the final shuttle launch earlier this year and it was a touching send-off. He also mentioned a bit about the loss of Challenger and Columbia as he was involved in recovery for both accidents.

Dr. Solanki and I had a quick discussion about funding for his institute as I was curious about the economic woes in Europe and how that was effecting science research...he is involved in four big projects right now. The President of Germany is a physist so she has kept funding in place for research and education...lucky them. His research in Solar changes has also been used for pro-global warming and anti-global warming so I wanted ask about that. He said that he tried to be purely scientific in his research and got a lot of political flack for it but in the end, his research shows that solar differencials do not play a part in our current warming trend....Dr. Solanki also had some great things to say about inspiring young minds to encourage future exploration.

For me, the highlight was meeting Charlie Duke. He was very sweet, asking where I was from and talking a bit about his trip here to the UAE. We joked a bit about all the gadgets he needed as he had to remove a cell phone to attach a microphone. To my delight, he sounds just like he does on all the NASA footage of Apollo 11 (he was CAPCOM) and of Apollo 16 on the moon...a steady, comforting southern twang.

Here I am shaking Charlie Duke's hand

Nepal

2011-11-14T21:57:00.001+04:00

When I’ve heard the name Kathmandu in the past, it always seemed like a mythical, magical place like Shangri-la or Zanadu. Now I’ve been there and I can definitely say that it’s not mythical but it does have a certain magical quality. Although, you might have to squint to see the magic through the smog and insane traffic jams.

I went with my friends Sharon, Serge, Linda and Julie and here we are at our first Nepalese dinner which was fantastic.

We had a rocky start with our flight being delayed overnight and the airline really messing up the situation. Very unprofessional behaviour from almost every employee that we death with so I won’t be flying with Etihad again. I would also warn anyone who is going to be prepared for a two hour wait at immigration in Kathmandu…the same on the way out.

We didn’t stay in Kathmandu that night but took a crazy van ride to Baktapur which is a UNESCO protected town . The van was hilarious with no interior walls and broken windshield wipers so that driver had to keep pulling over to wipe down his window.

Baktapur was interesting but crumbling and poor. It’s got a neglected air in the evenings but the day is a bustling place with vendors and tourists…not to mention the packs of dogs. The temples and palaces are still in use by the devoted so we could only see part of them but there were a dizzying assortment of red bricked buildings and stone carvings all around us. This was the view from my room.

Most of the buildings and roads are made of red clay brick which give Baktapur a warm, rich feeling. The temples are covered with either stone or wooden decoration and the detail is fascinating. Sharon had photocopied a walking tour guide so I could make a bit of sense of what I was seeing. One particular set of Goddesses was supposed to be so prized that they cut off the hands of the artists so he couldn’t replicate the work.

Walking the streets was interesting because you never knew what might be around the corner.

The first night we didn’t get much sleep as they were ringing the temple bell every two hours to wake the Gods…I’m not kidding here…every two bloody hours. Also, the street dogs would howl and bark on and off most of the night. I self-medicated with beer the next night so the Gods may have been awake, but I wasn’t.

The next day, Sharon, Serge, our new Nepali friend Benote and I went for a hike at the base of the Himalayas. We drove up to Nagarkot to get our first look that those lofty peaks.

You may have noticed a lack of mountains in that last picture…that would our view of the famous Himalayas for the trip….I’m pretty sure that Nepal doesn’t actually have any mountains and that they’ve just created an incredible tourism campaign. It was a nice hike through the forests though.

We eventually started to see a lot of people wandering the trail and then the trail became a road. They were all going to Changu Narayan which is the oldest Hindu Temple in Nepal. There was a big festival and we got to go inside and see what it was all about.

The women were all lined up with plates of marigolds, rice and other offerings to the Gods.

Serge and Sharon got blessed by the yogi who put a glob of coloured rice on their foreheads.

They were also burning incense everywhere so the place smelt fantastic. It seemed that if a Nepali was near a Buddhist temple, he or she was a Buddhist and if they were near a Hindu temple, they were Hindu…very nice inclusion of everyone.

The next few days were spent wandering around the city, shopping, eating and drinking. Nepal Ice beer is on my recommend list for anyone who goes there. We also had some pretty fantastic food. Here we are getting our sizzling chicken with pineapple and apple slices.

We spent our last night and day in a beautiful temple converted into a hotel. Here Linda and I are on the rooftop overlooking Kathmandu…you’ll notice the lack of mountains :)

On the way home I had to take a picture of these cotton candy balls in the UAE…they seem obsessed with the stuff and package it in the strangest ways.

I did a bit of shopping and got a few decorations for my apartment.

It was too short to get a real feel for the country but I’ve decided to stay in the Middle East for the next vacation so I get enjoy my surroundings a bit…I’ve come all this way so I’d better take advantage of it.

Halloween

2011-11-03T22:41:00.001+04:00

It was a bit of a dismal week at work. We had three people quit when our holidays were cut short for next week’s Eid. I this the quittings were a result of many things being piled on at once but the mood around the office has been gloomy. I decided to bring in a Halloween cake to cheer us all up. It worked for a bit and then at the end of the week with only an hour left in the day, we got the extra days off for the holiday. I’m off to Nepal with friends for next week so I’m pretty excited about that.

Here’s a picture of the cake by spooky candlelight. First layer was spice, second was carrot and the third was spice again. I put a cream cheese filling with a butter cream outer frosting and then fondant for the outside.

The Chaine

2011-10-29T09:34:00.001+04:00

Last night I was invited to a dinner for the Chaine des Rotisseurs club. It's a world-wide club that holds fine dining events for it's members. Only 50 members are allowed per city so that the events can remain the best quality. Here in Al Ain, the dinners are rotated between the big hotels as they have the best, most creative chefs. My friends Sharon and Serge are members so they invited myself and Linda, another co-worker.

This dinner was held at the Hilton, out in the gardens. It's about 23 degrees in the evening so it was perfect weather these days and there was a nice breeze.

The dinner had a Halloween theme so all the servers were dressed in costume and some of the food was designed to look scary. The smoked duck and pumpkin soup was served from a cauldron and one of the starters was oyster margaritas in test tubes.

Apparently the dinners are usually seated but this one was a buffet and we had a huge variety of dishes to try.. Quail, lamb, beef medallions wrapped in bacon, and the best rosemary roasted potatoes that I’ve ever had. There was also a good selection of wine and cocktails before and during dinner. Of course, my favourite part of the meal was the dessert. Fruits, berries and chocolate all mixed together in amazingly good morsels.

Linda and I were both told that we might be able to become members and I might do it. The dinners are a bit expensive at $75 but I met some nice people there and the food was really good. I also got to buy a new dress and get all fancied up for the evening which was fun. Next week there is a wine tasting event held by a different group so I’m probably going to that as well.

Trivia with Britney Spears

2011-10-24T15:46:00.000+04:00

Had a good weekend. Went to a trivia game charity event on Thursday night and was embarrassed to be the only one on my team to answer the Britney Spears questions...no more top 40 for me. I did know a couple of other questions but these people were fierce. Jeopardy champs all the way.

The event's dinner was catered by the organizer's wife who is Thai. Of course, we had Thai food and it was delicous. Got her number because she apparently delivers. We also raised enough money to buy cameras for the local elementary school so the kids can use them for class projects.

You can see the bamboo, character, dragon, flower, wind and circle sets in this picture

The next day I was invited to sit in on a regular Majjong game because one of the players couldn't make it. The players were very sweet and let me practice on the first round of the game...apparently there are tons of different aspects to the real game when you get into it so I hope that I can go again soon before I forget when I learned.

The Saga of Etisalat

2011-10-24T14:56:00.001+04:00

The Internet Saga

Day 1: apply for high-speed connection with the state-run internet provider, Etisalat.
Day 20: visit internet provider to ask when the connection might be coming. I am told two days.
Day 25: call provider to ask when the the connection might be coming. I am told two days.
Day 33: receive a call saying that a team will come to connect my internet.
Day 38: wait four hours for the team. They say they will come in two days.
Day 39: the team comes but tells me that the connection is not possible due to 'technical problems'
Day 41: provider says technical problem will be solved in two days.
Day 42: problem is not solved.
Day 52: Visit provider. I'm getting really good at navigating customer service. I am told to wait one week but they don't know what the problem is.
Day 60: They still don't know what the problem is.
Day 65: While the customer service rep at the counter is looking up things on his computer, I call the customer service number on my cell phone. The man at the desk says it will be fixed in four days while the man on the phone says it could be three months. I give up and order a slower service which they tell me is crap.
Day 75: A man calls and asks me to stand on the road so he can find my house. He is coming to install 'something'. He throws a cable off the roof of my building and drills a hole into my building wall. The cable is put through the hole and connected to my computer. Internet does not work. Apparently, it will magically begin working the next day.
Day 76: It works for two hours. Stops and doesn't start again.
Day 77: I call and the man tells me that I have been disconnected because I didn't pay for my internet for the past two months. I take a deep breath.
Today: The man is coming today to fix the connection problem and I'm worried that there won't be an ending to this saga as they deport people for murdering internet service providers.

Busy Week

2011-10-17T16:46:00.000+04:00

This week has been pretty busy for me and I've been getting out a lot. On Monday, I joined some friends for a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner at the Palm Sport Resort. It was a nice setting with red being the theme and little Canadian flags here and there. Unfortunately, the food was somewhat lacking. Great turkey but bizzare stuffing and no pumpkin pie. The Halloween party will be there later in the month so I have to look into getting a costume made up.

From left to right; Sharen, Serge, Louise and Julie...I'm in the window/mirror

I also locked myself out of the apartment on the way to the dinner. I hadn't put an extra key anywhere because I hadn't found a safe spot yet so I was stranded out in the hallway when I came back from the hotel. Interestingly, the procedure would normally require me to call the police who would verify my occupancy and then sign a document allowing a locksmith to break in for me. This apparently takes hours so I was relieved when the handyman from the college came with his tools and banged away until we got in. He replaced the lock for about $30. I now have a spare key in my purse and another one hidden away so that shouldn't happen again.

On a happier note, I went to Abu Dhabi for the Film Festival this weekend.

Cotton Candy in a cup from our gas station stop on the way to Abu Dhabi

I went with Patreshia, Tania and Lisa and we stayed at the Hilton which was on the beach and within walking distance of the main theaters and a huge mall. We spent our first morning at the Emerati Palace Hotel looking at the incredible fixtures and art. There was even an ATM for buying ounces of gold.

The Palace

The gold ATM...seriously!!!

The view from the palace

There was also a museum in the Palace and we could see old pictures of the city as well as future models of an incredible plan to make Abu Dhabi the Culture Capital of the world...it's pretty impressive with a whole island devoted to museums, aquariums, galleries and performance halls.

Abu Dhabi beach in the 1970s

Abu Dhabi beach now

A future cultural center

We hit the film festival later in the day. It was fairly well run and I had bought my tickets online. I saw two films which were worth mentioning. The Cave of Forgotten Dreams was a 3D look at a cave in France that has the oldest known cave paintings. What amazed me about this was that the artists had used the curvature of the rock to emphasize movement and musculature of the animals. The 3D imaging really made this clear. The other movie I saw was City Dark and it was fantastic. It was about how we're loosing the night sky due to light pollution and it dealt with the emotional to the physical and everything in between. It was fantastic and, I think, as important as Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth.

The others saw more artistic type movies so we had a lot to compare over our meals and drinks. I also got some shopping in so I now have my boots and a backpack for my trip to Nepal...I can't wait.

From left to right; Patreshia, Lisa, me and Tanya at the Hilton lounge in Abu Dhabi

This has been a bad week at work. We had a big meeting about holidays. It was bad news on the holidays and then there was an email giving more bad news about housing allowances. This, compounded with a freeze on wages this year has really soured a lot of my co-workers and everyone is grumbling and talking about leaving. Not the greatest environment for me to be starting in and it seems like it might be an indication of future trouble for the colleges and the country. To add insult to injury, my boss insists that I give up one of my weekend days next weekend to sit at a conference.

To end this on a positive note, I'll show you a picture of a restaurant I went to last week. Great butter Chicken.

We aat outside in the back, under the palm trees and ate our dinner on lounges...very cool!!!

Jazzing the Gulf

2011-10-05T14:59:00.000+04:00

Went to a jazz performance by the North Rhine Westfalia Youth Jazz Orchestra the other night. It was held at Toowoomb Hospital which seems like an odd place for a jazz concert but they have a good concert hall/auditorium there and the building is quite attractive all surrounded by palms and covered in scrolled and flowered iron works.

While there, I learned that this was the season's opening performance and that I should expect pretty good things to come. The Sheikh and his mother, the Sheikha sponsor all kinds of great acts. Last year they had Yo Yo Ma perform outdoors in the fort and before that was Winton Marsalis with his band and Bobby McFaren. The tickets are always free or very cheap. Last night was free.

The show was a interesting mix of styles with two German conductors and one Argentinian and each musican had a solo of one sort or another. They had everyone dancing in their seats including me.

There is a pretty famous local DJ working a dance at the Equestrian, Shooting, Rugby, Golf Club (yes, that really is the name of the place) this weekend so I might hit that next.

On another front, I've booked a flight for Nepal this November so I'll be celebrating my birthday at the foot of Everest. I'm pretty excited about it. It's too bad I left my trekking boots in Canada because now I'll have to break another pair in but I guess I can always use that as an excuse to walk slowly if I want. :)

Hanging out at home

2011-09-28T08:56:00.000+04:00

This week has been kind of a 'getting used to my place' week. Where do I eat my meals, how do I actually prepare the meals in my bizzaro oven, where does that weird dookicky go and so on. I've gotten most of the unslightly wall damage and odd electrical boxes covered up with art of one kind or another. There have been some great deals at the mall so it hasn't cost me much to put some interesting things up. I haven't invested in more than $20 for any one piece. I even bought some blank canvases and paint and painted a few pieces myself for about $10 each. One of them actually turned out good enough that I don't cringe when I walk past it.

The building cat, Scruffy, has adopted me and hangs out when I'm home. He's very lovable but meows a lot so he gets kicked out at night. He goes upstairs to his 'official' caretaker to sleep.

I've also been enjoying the outdoors a bit more as the temperature is falling to a comfy 37/38 at noon. In the early morning and the evening it's okay for sitting or slowly walking now. I'm looking at BBQs now so I'll be ready for next month. As it is, I'm having fun watching out my windows at all the flora and fauna.

A bird dangles off a banana fruit flower outside my kitchen window

It's good that there is a lot of entertainment going on around me as I still don't have TV or internet but I guess I'm more motivated to go out and do things so I'm not going to complain.

Internet

2011-09-27T10:42:00.000+04:00

The ongoing saga with my internet has yet another chapter. The company actually made an appointment with me to do the hook up so I was quite excited. Everyone at work cautioned me and tried to make me see reason but I was determined to be optimistic about the whole process. I've since learned my lesson.

I wait for four hours the first appointment before giving up. I waited two hours on the second appointment (later that weekend) before a man showed up with his tools and explained to me that there was no junction box in our building so I couldn't get my service. They weren't in charge of the junction boxes so there would have to be some phone calls made to get that work order written up.

When I asked the man why he made two appointments with a customer before checking to see if the work could be done, he just looked confused. It would be funny if it wasn't happening to me. Hopefully, things will be sorted by next week.

Al Jimi Oasis

2011-09-21T09:11:00.000+04:00

My natural history group has different outtings every weekend so last weekend I went on a tour of one of the seven big oasis in the region. Amer, our guide/host is a member of the group who took so many of these tours that he became an expert. We were also lucky enough to have a local person in our group who worked for the municipality that takes care of the oasis so we got lots of inside knowlege on the place.

It was like walking in a wild palm tree park with odd wells and irrigation canals. Tall grasses are grown and harvested for animal feed. There are tons of birds flitting around including green parots, swifts, bee eaters and swallows. Interestingly, a lot of the birds were imported to increase the beauty of the country and, I'm assuming, polinate the flora. We even saw a snake called a Wadi Racer.

Here we are traipsing through the grass

a lot of this walled walkway was demolished in the wind storm last week and
we had to climb over downed trees

Historically, Al Jimi Oasis was a natural source of water like all oasis and it was used by the local community as a farming area. They grew date palms, fruits and vegetables. There was also a big fort for protection against any invading tribes who might try to steal the water, food or women.

During the 1960's the discovery of oil created a movement out of the oasis and into the coastal towns so the agricultural communities died off. To maintain the oasis nowadays, desalinated water is piped in from the coast and they almost exclusively grow date palms. A palm tree needs 50 gallons of water every day and there are over a million in the area so that's a lot of water.

they put mesh bags around the dates before they get ripe so that they don't fall on the ground

Of course, the people who work in the oasis are from India or Pakistan and it's hard work. They shimmy up these palms to bag and harvest the dates as well as cut the leaves every year to maintain the health of the tree. Date palms were the most important possession that a person could have in the desert because you used the dates for food, feeding camels, making arabic coffee and the leaves for shelter and weaving. Because of this, the late Sheikh made sure that every citizen had at least one date palm. There are sections of the city where anyone can go and plant their palm and there are areas of palms that are donated to the poor.

There is still a fort there and it's open to the public but the local workers have decided to live in it illegally so they locked it up and we couldn't get inside. I'll try again another time because it looked pretty interesting from the outside.

the fort at twight

It was hot during the walk but it was my first look at the UAE that didn't include a shopping mall so I had fun. Afterwards, my friend/neighbor Patreshia and I went to La Brioche Cafe and had a good dinner surrounded by tables of white robed Arabic men. The delicious corn-fed chicken in a muchroom sauce, whipped potatoes and a very large mint lemonade that I ordered was less than $15 which impressed me. There was also a good selection of pastries that I'm going back for next time :)

The weather

2011-09-19T15:13:00.000+04:00

Last night we lost our building's electricity for 4 hours. I think that some idiot cut something that he wasn't supposed to because no one would give us a straight answer and they claimed to be 'working' on the mosque down the road at 10:00pm which caused the outage. It turned out alright because my neighbors and I sat out in the hall for a while and chatted. This was only possible because the incredibly opressive heat has been replaced by a nice summer heat. I eventually gave up and went to bed without air conditioning. Of course, at 1:30 everything came back on and woke me up but at least I didn't wake up in a pool of my own sweat this morning.

It was so nice today that the students opened the windows and I taught class to a lovely breeze blowing in and the sound of songbirds.

The latest update on my internet is that the company is going to dig a hole for the fibre optic cable this week. I may be stupidly optimistic but I'm going to assume that I'll have internet by next week sometime. I wonder if I should buy a shovel and offer to help out :)

The Natural History Society

2011-09-14T09:11:00.000+04:00

Last night I went to my first Natural History Society meeting. There are a lot of these clubs in town and I'm going to have fun trying a few out. This one is a keeper I think as it's like having a 'live' National Geographic in my life. The lecture was on the coral reefs of the UAE and how they're being impacted by things like the giant palm tree islands that have been built.

They built this right on top of a coral reef and destroyed it.

In addition to the twice monthly lectures, there will be weekend excursions and day trips. There was a trip to the local souk (market) last week but I missed it so I'm going to try and tour the souk on my own. The club website is here.

There are quite a few clubs here so I'll have to try out some of them. It'll be a good way to meet new people. I was going to join the book club but it's on Thursday evenings (last work day of the week) so that might be too ambitious.

Dubai Conference

2011-09-12T14:33:00.001+04:00

Last weekend, I went to the 24th Dubai Education Conference for HCT (my college). It was held just this side of the city so I didn't have a chance to see any of the gleaming towers or even the coastline and I was inside all day anyways so I'll make another trip to see the wonders of Dubai when the weather cools down a bit.

From my seat in the main auditorium

It was mandatory for all staff so I got to see the 1500 teachers working country-wide for the colleges and the 287 new hires for this year. As far as conferences go, this one was kind of a bust as both lectures I attended were out-of-date but I did get to meet His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, UAE Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Chancellor of the Higher Colleges of Technology. I even got to shake his hand along with the other 287 new hires.

He's the one in the middle

The best part of the day for me was the drive home as my friends Sharon and Serge had driven me and I could sit back and relax. Then, suddenly we drove into a storm. Sand obscured everything and blew wildly around the car.

The view on the side of the highway

The highway

Then the rains hit with thunder and lightening. The roads flooded and trees came down everywhere.

no drainage

These updates are a bit slow because I still don't have internet at my apartment. On the bright side, I do have a sofa and chairs now.

First week of school

2011-09-07T14:15:00.000+04:00

I'm actually sitting in my office with all kinds of teaching materials surrounding me. The college is quite nice and, although I've gotten lost a couple of times, I'm starting to feel comfortable. It's been a bizzare week after being out of the classroom for a year and a half but I'm slowly remembering all the little things that need doing and how to do them.

Al Ain Woman's College

I now have a regular taxi driver named Evelyn (from the Phillipines) who picks me and my neighbor (Patreshia) up every morning and brings us to work. It's costing me about $2.50 every morning because we've been tipping her. So nice to have a woman driver who speaks fluent English and drives calmly. Some of my taxi rides have been crazy, hang-on-for-dear-life trips with an uncertain destination due to communication difficulties. I like the idea of supporting a woman in this male dominated place also.

My work schedule isn't great as I have four 8:00am class starts and I'm not always at my best so early in the day. In addition, my office and my classrooms are on opposite sides of the campus. On the plus side, the students are very sweet. They all call me 'Miss'. "Please help me, Miss?", "No homework, please Miss." Adorable! Once in the class they take off their head scarves and relax so it feels more like a normal classroom to me.

Our first week is kind of a write-off as we don't have text books and they're going to move students into different classes at the end of the week so we can't teach anything important because our new students will be left in the dark. It wouldn't be so bad except that it's 15 hours to fill with nothing important...that's a lot of time to waste. This confusion is apparently normal and everyone is very accepting of the disorganized start so I'm trying my best to chill out and make do. I've got four more hours to go and apparently things will be better next week.

Sooo, I went into Etisalat (internet, telephone and TV) to find out why I still don't have services more than two weeks after registering and I was told that my building doesn't have a 'wire'. I'm still not sure exactly what this means but they were very appologetic and said that they would install a 'wire' within two days and then someone would contact me for a connection appointment. I'm expecting that it will be a nice Christmas present for myself. In the meantime, I'm expecting my living room furniture tomorrow afternoon so I'll be able to enjoy my TVless existance with a nice soft sofa.

The bus station

2011-09-02T16:20:00.001+04:00

I went up to visit my friend Karen in the capital City of Abu Dhabi the other day. It was my first time dealing with the buses. The trip was about two hours and cost around $2.50 so that was great. What was also great was the fact that the buses run every 30 minutes so I won’t have any trouble getting around.

The ride was pretty boring with nothing much to look at except the date clumps hanging in mesh bags as they ripen and fall. It’s dry scrub or rock most of the way. I did get a glimpse of the Grand Mosque and it’s stunning from the road…apparently there are tours so I’m definitely putting that on the list.

The interesting part of the trip was when I was leaving Abu Dhabi and had to catch a bus home. It’s a big station with absolutely no signs, no posted schedules and almost no employees.

After getting in line at a counter to buy a ticket I was told politely that women didn’t have to wait in the big long lines and I could go directly to the counter. Then, after asking several people where to find my bus I was faced with a huge long line and immediately thought that I would be waiting for the next bus but when the bus did come, all the men were pushed out of the way so us ladies could get on and sit at the front. I felt badly for those guys left standing but the heat was bad enough that I got over it pretty fast. It’s funny how we hear all about the disadvantages faced by women in the Middle East but not so much about the perks.

My neighbourhood

2011-09-02T16:18:00.001+04:00

I live in a place called ‘Old Sarouj’…across the six lane road is ‘New Sarouj’. My actual building comes off a dirt road which is kind of annoying as no one can find it for deliveries and it gets really dusty.

Luckily, the yard is filled with date palms, lime trees and has a kind of jungle feel to it. This is the backyard..I’m not sure what they’re doing with the bricks.

Al Ain is called the garden city because they had the idea to put in green spaces long before other cities in the country. I’m not sure ‘garden’ is a great description but there are some tree lined roads and a few parks which I’m going to check out as so as the weather cools down.

The most distinctive building in the area is the state owned telephone/internet provider, Etisalat.

The other notable buildings are the shopping malls which are big and glittery. I’m a five minute taxi ride from two of them which is very handy and costs about $2.50.

Because it’s so hot here, there are covered parking spaces…I’m guessing that this is cheaper than building underground parking lots.

Anyone for skating while shopping?

I mentioned about the Eid candy in my last post so here is a picture of some typical baskets as well as the Eid moon and stars decorations seen everywhere.

My next foray is to the industrial shopping area to look for furniture at more affordable prices…we’ll see what happens :)

Eid Mubarak (Happy Eid Holiday)

2011-08-30T14:28:00.000+04:00

Yesterday was the last day of Ramadan and today is the first day of Eid. That means that all those people who were fasting all day and being extra devote can now relax, eat and celebrate. The stores are filled with Eid candy and sweets platters wrapped in ribbons and bows. Apparently all the kids will get new clothes and, from the amount of parents in the toy department, I would guess toys are also common gifts for Eid.

The most interesting aspect about Eid for me is how it's decided. The Imams have to see the crescent moon in the sky before they can declare that the holiday is official. It seems that a few years ago in Iran, the government tried to regulate the holiday by following the lunar calendar and the Imams were upset by the break in a long standing tradition so now, some regions set a government holiday break but the actual declaration of the holiday is dependent on the sighting of the moon. Luckily for me, this whole week was made a holiday so I have the time to set up my apartment.

One of my biggest challenges has been getting curtains for my 3 meter high windows. Last week I went to a curtain shop (just a tiny hole in the wall) and picked out the fabric (burgandy). I had measured the windows but the salesman wasn't confident in my measurements so he drove me home, measured the windows and promised to be back in three or four days to install them. This is how you buy curtains in the UAE...I got three sets for around $300 and I saved the taxi fare back home :)

I've taken some photos of the surrounding area so I'll put them up in my next post. I went to Abu Dhabi to visit my friend Karen before she leaves the county but the dust in the air made photos pretty much worthless...I did have a wonderful visit with Karen and she saved my life by giving me a bunch of teaching resources that will last a long time.

Internet hook up

2011-08-25T13:53:00.000+04:00

I've just come from the internet company...the only internet company from the sounds of it and it was a bizzare experience. There are no addresses on the houses so I was shown a map of the city and asked to point out my home. Of course, the map looked completely different from my my idea of what the area looked like so my neighbor might be getting free internet when it gets connected in two weeks....I hope he doesn't do anything illegal on my account :)

For about $90 per month I got a TV package, telephone line and unlimited internet access....or my neighbor did.

First week

2011-08-24T11:09:00.001+04:00

It's week two and I've finally got access to internet on my new work laptop in my new office so I can give an update of what's happened since I arrived ten days ago.

Unfortunatly, I can no longer harbor dreams of being an international criminal as I had my retinal scan registered with the government as part of a very slick immigration procedure at the airport. I guess it bypasses the need to lift a woman's veils for identification and it was pretty cool.

I was put up at a swank five start hotel http://www.rotana.com/rotanahotelandresorts/unitedarabemirates/alain/alainrotana for six days while I went through orientation at the college. My hotel room was bigger than my last apartment so that was nice. Their gym was great and because of the time difference I was up early and able to work out before going into work everyday.

the lovely Rotana Hotel

Orientation was a bit of disaster due to several people being on holiday but there were five new hires so we banded together in survival mode and took advantage of Vijay, our driver/helper/savior. The college is big with over 150 teachers and, what seems like, 500 administrators. I'm sharing an office with some really nice people that I'm sure I'll be writing about in future.

My new apartment is echoing with 20 ft ceilings and tile floors. It's huge and I'm going to get lots of exercise walking from one end to the other. Interestingly, I had to buy all the appliances as well as furniture but they've provided me with $10,000 to do that and I think I can do it nicely for about $6000. My whole world has become about shopping for the last few days so that I can have something to sit on and something to cook with. Yesterday, three men took two hours to assemble my bedroom furniture set which is great...first time I've had more storage space than I can fill up...hmmm, more shopping I think :)

It's the holy month (Ramadan) right now which means that you can't eat or drink during daylight hours so that's made for long days out and about. In addition, all the shops are closed from 2:00pm to 8:00 so shopping is especially difficult. Next week, that will end but there is a week long holiday where all the business are closed so I won't be able to get services like TV/internet hooked up for a bit or get delivery of anything. A bit of bad luck at the timing of my arrival but I'll survive.

I haven't had time to take many photos as I've been running around like a crazy person but here are a few of my apartment that I took quickly before coming to work (which is a ten minute drive away).

This is what the rooms all look like..this one will be the livingroom.
You can see that there is a lovely jungle view out the window
and they all have that...limes, breadfruit and dates are growing
which brings in singing birds.

My kitchen...another lovely window view. I've even got
Starbucks coffee for my new coffee maker

The bedroom...not much to look at so far but at least I'm off the floor now

Hired for work in the UAE

2011-08-02T21:29:00.004+04:00

About six weeks ago I had a video interview with two nice ladies working with the Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and soon after I was offered a contract with their Al Ayn Woman's College campus.

This is the UAE and you can see my new city, Al Ayn, just on the border of Oman. It's about 140klms from the capital city of Abu Dhabi.

Much like working in Korea, I needed to prove my educational qualifications, get a police record and do a few other paperwork tasks for the government okay but then I was officially hired.
They sent an airline ticket for August 13th so that's when I'm going to be off on my newest adventure...hence, this blog. If you want to see photos and learn about Al Ayn City and the UAE along with me, feel free to follow along for the next while. I've signed a three year contract but who knows how long I'll be there.

In the meantime, I'm just enjoying time with my family and the Canadian summer.

Sailing with my sister Christine and brother-in-law Mark

Me and my mom and dad at the pub

My nieces Asia (top) and Emerson (bottom)