Sandy days

At the camel races with an adorable camel and the man who was taking care of him

Sand on my car from the storm

Well I am back to the blogging world and I am sorry that it has been so long since my last update. Things in Abu Dhabi have been really busy since coming back from winter break. Since coming back I have moved into my new villa, attended my first camel race, discovered that there is a lot of sand in the desert, and fully planned my Spring Break 2012. So as you can tell I have been crazy busy. School has its good days and its bad days. My relationship with my Arabic co-teacher is getting stronger each and every week and honestly she is really funny. The other day she was asking me for relationship advice for her and her husband and she is always cracking jokes. I am very lucky to have such a wonderful co-teacher. My students are still a bit wild at times, but they are still kids and they still enjoy the most simple of things. For example the other day I taught my students a song called "Hurry Hurry drive the fire truck" and in the song the kids get to make a siren noise after some of the parts and my class just loved it. They kept saying again after we would sing it and some of my students would just come up to me randomly and say Miss Melissa and then make the siren noise. It just proves to me that no matter where I am in the world or how little English my students know I love teaching and seeing that excitement in a child's eyes.

Another thing that I have discovered about living in the desert lately is that there is a lot and I mean a lot of sand. You might be saying well yeah it is the desert dummy, but sand just gets everywhere. We have been having a lot of strong wind lately and that kicks all of the sand up and makes it like a hazy sandstorm. When you walk outside in this type of weather you just get sand in your hair, in your mouth, and you feel it in your lungs. Yuck it just makes you feel all grimy. I knew that I was moving to the desert and that they had a lot of sand, but I just never thought of how the sand gets everywhere. Today we had one of these sandstorms and it lasted all day long, we couldn't really even go outside because it was so bad. My car was parked inside of my car park and it was still completely covered in sand. Yuck!

Sand and more sand

Now the next thing that I am counting down too is Spring Break 2012! I can't wait it is going to be absolutely amazing. I am going to Greece and Egypt for spring break with my friends Katy, Briar, and Nancy. These girls are such amazing friends and I cannot wait to share this trip with them. So first we are going to fly into Athens and spend 2 nights in Athens seeing everything- Acropolis, the Parthenon and anything else we can fit into our schedule. After Athens we are going to Santorini for 3 nights. Now I have wanted to go to Greece for pretty much all of my life and when I think of Greece I picture Santorini. We are going to see the beaches, the volcano, and the amazing sunsets (sunrises too- if I'm up that early, but we all know that I never am). After Santorini we are going to Mykonos for 2 nights and then we are flying from Mykonos to Athens and then from Athens to Cairo, Egypt. We are going on a 4 night tour in Egypt where we will get to see everything the pyramids, the sphinx, the Nile river. This is going to be a trip of a lifetime and I am so excited. Oh and the best part is that it's super cheap! Living on this side of the world makes it so easy to travel places. Okay well that is all for now, but I promise to keep you all updated more often. I love and miss everyone very much.