I first must say that I apologize for not writing before now. As I said when I started this blog, I am not great and have never been great at journaling as it requires a constant reflection. This is a problem because as a teacher, especially a teacher in Abu Dhabi, it can sometimes be difficult to find such time. Therefore I will give you a rundown of the past months.
November:
Trimester one was a long and frustrating learning process and by this time was beginning to get a bit overwhelming and frustrating. Therefore, Eid break could not come soon enough. Eid is similar to Christmas for Christians. It is a time of gift giving and buying new clothing in celebration for Allah, at least that was my understanding of the hour long school meeting, spoken in Arabic, before Eid break. It was translated at points but often times there will be five minutes of talking for one or two lines explained in English. During Eid, many people travel to other countries, especially teachers. My trip was planned to Germany, where my boyfriend Tim had been shipped to compliments of the Air Force. I admit, I had never really been interested in traveling to Germany, other then a trip to see WWII places. I knew it would be colder and wetter then Abu Dhabi and I didn't expect to enjoy it. However, when I stumbled off the plane late at night after a long day of traveling I noticed, as we were driving, in the voice of my over tired mind "oooh green!!" Tim lives near the Ramstein Air Base and at that time was living at the Hotel on base. Since he couldn't get every day I was there off work I found myself hanging out in a hotel room. However, when he was able to get time, Tim took me to Trier and Luxembourg to see some of the sites. We found a lovely little traditional family owned Italian restaurant. The food was amazing. It was a lovely place, and when the sun was shining it was even more beautiful with all the greenery. Walking around in towns in Germany is very relaxing. The city centers are typically blocked off to cars and the centers are still paved in the original cobblestone, which is nice but somewhat difficult to walk around on in boots with heels. The heels like to slip in the cracks at the most inconvenient moments. However, with a week of good food and amazing company, its not hard to understand how much I looked forward to returning for Christmas break.
December:
As November ended and December began, I life turned from teaching to proctoring tests which is walking around a room of students doing tests in Arabic. If they are caught talking, often times the response is "they forget." Then, joy of all joys, we find out that we have to go to downtown Abu Dhabi to grade the English tests; three different times, for four hours a time and only 100dhs pay. I tell you, it is the joy and love of my life to grade test after test in which the answers are basically the same and in broken English. If you grade too high or too low you are asked to redo it. Usually its only if you are grading too low. However, when that last test was graded and you knew you were going to be leaving the next day, you didn't seem to care so much. The day after, I went to a brunch with a couple friends at Pearls and Caviar, one of the best brunches in Abu Dhabi. Then I went home, took a short nap and got on a plane back to Germany. Although we spent most of my break in Germany, we traveled to Rome for a few days for Christmas. It was an amazing trip. We stayed right around the corner of the Trevi Fountain at the B&B Trevi. Tim's friend Ryan met us in Rome and stayed nearby. Ryan even more of a Roman history buff then I am and knew all the good places to eat. He had made reservations for dinner both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Anyone that knows me knows that I don't typically eat a lot, rather I snack throughout the day. In Rome, however, I found space. For almost every meal I had two courses and wine. Italian restaurants in the states pale by far in comparison to the food I had in Rome in general. The best meal while I was there was our Christmas day dinner. We had amazing food, amazing wine and we were waited on hand and foot. We were shown into their wine cellar where they had some of the oldest wines I have ever seen, it was amazing. When we left, one of the staff gave me the rose of my table. It was lovely. Then we proceeded to a pub in which Tim was friends with the owner. I almost beat the owner in water pong, losing by just a couple cups two games to one. I have high hopes for next time. Walking around Rome, seeing all the architecture of all the places I have read about was surreal. I need to go again to see the things we ran out of time, energy and/or good weather to see. I loved Italy and can't wait to go back. The rest of the time in Germany was equally amazing. We spent New Years Even with some friends in Trier having great food, company and wine. We kissed at midnight in front of the Port de Negra, an old roman ruin at the center of Trier, as fireworks were going off. It was again amazing. We finally found Tim an apartment on the last day I was there. Its a big old apartment in downtown Kaiserslautern. Its near everything and will be fun to return to in March for my Spring Break.
January:
I returned to Abu Dhabi a bit despairingly, but have now gotten back into the grove of things. The first two weeks were rife with planning and extra work for our principle. I was sick all of the third week back with a flu bug that made me lose about ten pounds, not fun. If you are sick here and need to miss work, you have to go to your doctor and get a doubly stamped and signed note from the doctor and hospital. Then you have to take this note across town to the Ministry of Health and have them stamp it. Then when you go back to work you have to scan it in and sign it onto your account. It is then confirmed by your principle all so you can get paid for sick leave. If you don't have the note, they apparently think that you are lying. Which means that even if you have stuff coming out of both ends, you have to get it together long enough to make it the half hour cab ride to the doctor. Also, had a lot of trouble with my neck and back over break and found out that I had injured my neck pretty seriously in Rugby back in the end of November and because I not gotten help when I first injured myself, the injury had gotten worse. I was at the point that I couldn't sleep because the pain was radiating from my neck all the way down my legs. Now my doctor here is an 80 year old man who studied in Germany. Whenever I go to see him he greets me with "Hello, my dear! How are you!" He told me no more rugby, that I need to try to learn to relax because my knotted muscles were making it impossible for my spine to go back to normal. He told me to take walks and spend time with friends relaxing. He told me if my friends were busy that I could call him and we could go down to the Corniche and have a picnic. This week I will be going in for a check up and getting paid for massages set up, yes I know its a rough life. My doctor called me on Thursday to check in on me and I found out that he had been in a car accident. He said he may be needing to get massages with me. Stacy keeps joking that maybe he is looking at me for his next wife. He he very funny.
On other notes:
Walking around here isn't the easiest thing to. All the sidewalks are right next to major highways and crossing the road, even with the green walk sign, is at your own risk. I know many of you imagine that I am living in this rich desert culture like my amazing experience in Morocco. The people here are very interesting. On one hand, they are extremely devout, but on the other hand, they show a high value in possessions. This is one of the many ways I have come to realize the differences in the various Arabic cultures. In Morocco, more was placed on the value of the inner person then what they owned. Here, money and connections are power...sound familiar. The area around me is still developing, but the roads are better then most of the ones we have in the states, they put pretty colorful lights on everything, and there are more malls then you will find in any major city in the U.S. The hotels are top class and there are plenty of places to go out to eat or dancing. In fact there isn't any true Emeratie food, rather they have somewhat sucked the foods of other cultures into their own and made enough changes to make it "original." There are some of the best sushi and Italian restaurants I have ever been to here. Seafood it easy to come by as well. The malls have everything a fashionista could hope for and I am sorry to say that I have too much fuel for my shoe addiction here. I also found that the clothing I thought I needed to wear is only what I wear to the mall or grocery store and its only because I could run into students. At rugby games, nights out and brunches, you are expected to dress up. All the bars have dress codes and some are more strict then others. There is a ladies night to be found every day of the week here with free drinks to be had. I am not much of a clubber but it is nice to never have to pay an entrance fee anywhere. I'm hoping to be able to make it to Al Ain and Dubai in the coming months, but as of now I am happy to be caught up at work, spending time with friends and traveling. In March Tim and I will be driving down to and staying in Luzern Switzerland for a few days and then hopefully to northern Italy, if Tim can get enough time off.
Well that is all for now...until next time :)
November:
Trimester one was a long and frustrating learning process and by this time was beginning to get a bit overwhelming and frustrating. Therefore, Eid break could not come soon enough. Eid is similar to Christmas for Christians. It is a time of gift giving and buying new clothing in celebration for Allah, at least that was my understanding of the hour long school meeting, spoken in Arabic, before Eid break. It was translated at points but often times there will be five minutes of talking for one or two lines explained in English. During Eid, many people travel to other countries, especially teachers. My trip was planned to Germany, where my boyfriend Tim had been shipped to compliments of the Air Force. I admit, I had never really been interested in traveling to Germany, other then a trip to see WWII places. I knew it would be colder and wetter then Abu Dhabi and I didn't expect to enjoy it. However, when I stumbled off the plane late at night after a long day of traveling I noticed, as we were driving, in the voice of my over tired mind "oooh green!!" Tim lives near the Ramstein Air Base and at that time was living at the Hotel on base. Since he couldn't get every day I was there off work I found myself hanging out in a hotel room. However, when he was able to get time, Tim took me to Trier and Luxembourg to see some of the sites. We found a lovely little traditional family owned Italian restaurant. The food was amazing. It was a lovely place, and when the sun was shining it was even more beautiful with all the greenery. Walking around in towns in Germany is very relaxing. The city centers are typically blocked off to cars and the centers are still paved in the original cobblestone, which is nice but somewhat difficult to walk around on in boots with heels. The heels like to slip in the cracks at the most inconvenient moments. However, with a week of good food and amazing company, its not hard to understand how much I looked forward to returning for Christmas break.
December:
As November ended and December began, I life turned from teaching to proctoring tests which is walking around a room of students doing tests in Arabic. If they are caught talking, often times the response is "they forget." Then, joy of all joys, we find out that we have to go to downtown Abu Dhabi to grade the English tests; three different times, for four hours a time and only 100dhs pay. I tell you, it is the joy and love of my life to grade test after test in which the answers are basically the same and in broken English. If you grade too high or too low you are asked to redo it. Usually its only if you are grading too low. However, when that last test was graded and you knew you were going to be leaving the next day, you didn't seem to care so much. The day after, I went to a brunch with a couple friends at Pearls and Caviar, one of the best brunches in Abu Dhabi. Then I went home, took a short nap and got on a plane back to Germany. Although we spent most of my break in Germany, we traveled to Rome for a few days for Christmas. It was an amazing trip. We stayed right around the corner of the Trevi Fountain at the B&B Trevi. Tim's friend Ryan met us in Rome and stayed nearby. Ryan even more of a Roman history buff then I am and knew all the good places to eat. He had made reservations for dinner both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Anyone that knows me knows that I don't typically eat a lot, rather I snack throughout the day. In Rome, however, I found space. For almost every meal I had two courses and wine. Italian restaurants in the states pale by far in comparison to the food I had in Rome in general. The best meal while I was there was our Christmas day dinner. We had amazing food, amazing wine and we were waited on hand and foot. We were shown into their wine cellar where they had some of the oldest wines I have ever seen, it was amazing. When we left, one of the staff gave me the rose of my table. It was lovely. Then we proceeded to a pub in which Tim was friends with the owner. I almost beat the owner in water pong, losing by just a couple cups two games to one. I have high hopes for next time. Walking around Rome, seeing all the architecture of all the places I have read about was surreal. I need to go again to see the things we ran out of time, energy and/or good weather to see. I loved Italy and can't wait to go back. The rest of the time in Germany was equally amazing. We spent New Years Even with some friends in Trier having great food, company and wine. We kissed at midnight in front of the Port de Negra, an old roman ruin at the center of Trier, as fireworks were going off. It was again amazing. We finally found Tim an apartment on the last day I was there. Its a big old apartment in downtown Kaiserslautern. Its near everything and will be fun to return to in March for my Spring Break.
January:
I returned to Abu Dhabi a bit despairingly, but have now gotten back into the grove of things. The first two weeks were rife with planning and extra work for our principle. I was sick all of the third week back with a flu bug that made me lose about ten pounds, not fun. If you are sick here and need to miss work, you have to go to your doctor and get a doubly stamped and signed note from the doctor and hospital. Then you have to take this note across town to the Ministry of Health and have them stamp it. Then when you go back to work you have to scan it in and sign it onto your account. It is then confirmed by your principle all so you can get paid for sick leave. If you don't have the note, they apparently think that you are lying. Which means that even if you have stuff coming out of both ends, you have to get it together long enough to make it the half hour cab ride to the doctor. Also, had a lot of trouble with my neck and back over break and found out that I had injured my neck pretty seriously in Rugby back in the end of November and because I not gotten help when I first injured myself, the injury had gotten worse. I was at the point that I couldn't sleep because the pain was radiating from my neck all the way down my legs. Now my doctor here is an 80 year old man who studied in Germany. Whenever I go to see him he greets me with "Hello, my dear! How are you!" He told me no more rugby, that I need to try to learn to relax because my knotted muscles were making it impossible for my spine to go back to normal. He told me to take walks and spend time with friends relaxing. He told me if my friends were busy that I could call him and we could go down to the Corniche and have a picnic. This week I will be going in for a check up and getting paid for massages set up, yes I know its a rough life. My doctor called me on Thursday to check in on me and I found out that he had been in a car accident. He said he may be needing to get massages with me. Stacy keeps joking that maybe he is looking at me for his next wife. He he very funny.
On other notes:
The Port de Negra
Trier City Center with Port de Negra in the Background
Dinner with Tim at the Emeriates Palace in Abu Dhabi
At the Palace Pool, city in background.
City view from the beach
Marina Mall in the background
Rain Party at the Aloft Hotel, best party I've been to here
View from my Apartment. (curved building is Aloft and the U.S. Embassy is the doorstop on the right)
Rest of my view, with the Grand Masque in the background on the left.
Eating Cinnabon down on the Corniche
Outside my classroom
Some of my co-workers, Stacy is the blond.
View of my classroom from the door, soon the walls will be covered with ECART Projects.
Well that is all for now...until next time :)
