Most muslim women wear abayas, which are full length black robes that cover their bodies from head to toe. Many of them cover their face, leaving only their eyes exposed, while others even cover their eyes. First of all, how can the see? Is it like one of those secret spy mirrors where you can see through one side but not the other? Secondly, are they looking at me??? You can’t tell! They could be giving me dirty looks for all I know. I don’t think I’ll get used to seeing that as long as I live here.
Alanna had a quick orientation this morning, so Logan and I took a nap after breakfast. I tried to feed him some formula after that, but he screamed like a banshee. We’re really going to have to work harder cause there will be days where there won’t be enough breast milk pumped and we’ll have to suppliment with formula. I think he’s just too used to Mommy. She does grow on ya. Alanna has a longer orientation tomorrow. She’ll be getting her background check, medical check, etc. Luckily I can skip all that. I guess Logan and I will cruise around the mall for a few hours.
That’s starting to bore both of us though. Getting a bit of cabin fever being here in the hotel. We check out on Wednesday though and are moving to Al Ain. We’ll be in another hotel until the weekend, but at least its a change of scenery.
We got 2 sim cards today. Alanna’s phone wouldn’t work with the new one, so we bought here a cheap one for around $30. No big loss there. The other card we put in my IPhone. For the first 3 or 4 hours, neither phone would make calls. I was worried I didn’t unlock my IPhone correctly. Alanna called one of her other teaching buddies, Alma Joy (that’s what I call her), and she said that the cell phone people said it would take a few hours for the cards to activate. She was right. A little while later, both phones kicked in. So now we both have really basic call features. I can’t even use my cool Iphone features because I don’t have 3G yet. But the cell company does offer that and we can get that once we’re settled in Al Ain I believe. So for now we can call each other, and call our family and friends in the states. And really, isn’t that what a phone is for anyway?
Phillipinos love babies. Well, they love Logan. Everyone wants to poke him, touch him, talk about him. He is adorable after all. Just didn’t expect that here. Folks in the states don’t just come up and poke your baby like they do here. Speaking of people touching babies and the dangers there in… we got a note today from the hotel that says that the WHO (World Health Organization) has announced level 6 of the Influenza Pandemic Alert! I checked online and didn’t see anything on any of the news sites. Level 6? What does that mean? It reminds me of the Terror Alert thing. We go to orange and people are supposed… to… do… what? They did reassure us in the note that there is no risk of infection from eating well cooked pork products. As if I can get pork here. We had Pizza Hut the other night. It had Pepperoni on it. I’m guessing that was beef. Or Turkey. Subway has turkey ham. What is that??? Pork restrictions are not cool with me. At least I have the cow. Moo.
