Another week has come and gone here in Al Ain, and it all begins again tomorrow. Tomorrow will also mark one full week of us being in the new apartment. While the Hotel Rotana did have it’s perks, I do enjoy having more space. Most of the little apartment problems have been fixed. The only concern we still have is there is no thermostat for the A/C in the living room, meaning – there is NO AC IN THE LIVING ROOM. So it’s a bit hot. There are also no lightbulbs in the ceiling outlets in the living room, meaning – there is no light in the living room. The ceiling is 15ft high so I’m not going out and buying a ladder. I think I’ve told 4 or 5 different people who apparently work here about the problems. Each one of this people say they will, insha’Allah, be back tomorrow to fix it. Insha’Allah means “God Willing”. They use it all the time to here to basically say that if God is willing, they will do something. It’s a nice way to get out of doing stuff. Just blame Allah if you don’t show up. Whatever. They haven’t fixed my stuff yet. I sort of fixed our other problems. I climbed up and into the ceiling to adjust the hot water so we could stop taking luke warm showers. I also, with the help of my good friend Darrell, but blinds up over the windows.
We got cable TV installed, which is REALLY NICE when you don’t have much else going on for you right now. They installed it last Sunday, but it took a full day for the DVR box to download the channels (They told me, insha’Allah, it would be done in a few hours after they hooked it up, Mmhhmm.). Well I get up the next morning, Logan is crying is eyes out and suddenly the cable kicks in. And to my wonder… a baseball playoff game was on. The Dodgers were playing in LA so the game was still going on when I got up. So I got to watch a little baseball live. I also get to watch the first round of NFL games each Sunday. And there are a good amount of American channels to keep me and Logan entertained. So yay for cable.
Internet – still not so good. They called the other day to confirmed where we live, but I haven’t heard from them since. Insha’Allah, tomorrow! Not. The USB internet port thing isn’t so bad. We just had to move into the hot living room to get a better connection. So while its still slow, its now much faster than the dial-up like speeds we had been experiencing.
My teaching job at House of the Arts is still fun. We had our first performance with the Youth Choir at Bawadi Mall last week. It went really well. You couldn’t really the hear the kids, because it’s a mall, but those who were close seemed to enjoy the show. And all the parents seemed to like what I did with their kids, and that was very good. I am now teaching 3 drama classes every Wednesday. I have 4 to 7 year olds, 8 to 11 year olds, and 12 to 16 year olds. Every class has a variety of expat kids from all over the world, so the accents are fun to hear.
I really am enjoying myself here in the UAE. My health seems to have gotten better. Don’t really seem to have bad allergies in the new apartment. I have been getting nose bleeds, which a got when touring in 1997 from the dry air, so we may be a humidifier. Supposed to be good for babies too. I have also lost 11 lbs since moving here. No fancy diet or exercise routine, I’ve just not been eating as much. I’d like to lose about 20 more though! So maybe I should run.
Funny story – So I went to the grocery store this morning to pick up a few things. The place is called Lulus. It’s a western style grocery store, kind of like a mini superwalmart. We do most of our shopping there. Anyway, today, as I walk in they have the music blasting all over the entire store. And do you know what’s playing? Eminem. Yeah. That’s the type of genre you want your kids to listen to why you’re picking up some diapers. They were playing his radio edit versions, but even most of those were still pretty raunchy. Just not something you’d expect to hear when you’re shopping for groceries.
I had a skydiving binge last night. Binge – meaning a spent hours on the web looking at stuff and places about skydiving. There is ONE place in the UAE to skydive and its about 2 hours north of where I live. It is also CLOSED for remodeling at the moment and who knows when it will reopen. I really really really want to get my A license. Did I mention I really want it? Maybe I can do it this summer or next. There are a couple local places in NC that do the course, and its cheaper than the Chicago area place. Of course, everything is cheaper than Chicago!
In other random news –
My one and only fantasy football team is 4-1 this year. Doing much better after playing in too many leagues last year.
The Yankees are moving nicely through the playoffs. Jeter is the man.
As seen on my Twitter page – Alanna got her UAE driver’s license. We went for a test drive today to help her out. I was not harmed.
Since I have limited internet access, I can’t download my TV shows this month – so no Smallville, Heroes and Flash Forward until, insha’Allah, next month.
We are going to host a board game night this coming week. I love board games. Food them is Mexican.
Ok, enough news.
Here are some more pics!
Update – No new pics. Took me 10 minutes to try and upload one and it failed. I’ll try to post them on Facebook.
