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.

I finally have a house in Abu Dhabi!

So the day has finally come- I have a house in Abu dhabi finally! I will be sharing a villa with my friend Maria in a town called Ruwais in the western region of Abu Dhabi. It's a four bedroom villa with a lot of space and tons of closet space, which is amazing for me. I am so excited to move in to my new place and begin this new phase in Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi 2012

My new car!

After a wonderful three week break away from Abu Dhabi visiting my amazing family back at home. I am now back in Abu Dhabi for a new year and a new school term. 2012 is for sure to bring many exciting adventures and new experiences. The first exciting thing to happen is that I now have a car in Abu Dhabi! I am renting a 2012 brand new lancer. It is such a nice feeling to have a car again and be able to have my independence back. I am obviously still figuring out how to navigate my way around in a foreign country, but hopefully I will get the hang of it soon. Oh an one of my main resolutions for 2012 is to update my blog more often, so please be patient with me. I promise that I am working on it.

Adventures in the UAE

Okay so things here in the UAE have been really interesting since my last blog entry. In the past few weeks I have moved from Abu Dhabi city to the western region of Al Gharbia, started working at my school, taken part in the UAE 40th anniversary celebration, and went to Dubai for the first time. Things here have definitely been moving pretty fast and have been very busy, but I am making the most of my time and really enjoying everything.

Okay so let's start with my move from Abu dhabi city to Al Gharbia. So Abu Dhabi is one of 7 emirates that makes up the United Arab Emirates and the emirate of Abu dhabi is made up of three different areas. So in the Abu Dhabi emirate there is Abu dhabi city, Al Ain (which is like a suburb area), and Al Gharbia. The school I was place at is in the Al Gharbia region of Abu dhabi. This area is more remote and more desert like than Abu Dhabi city but still really beautiful. After I got my school placement I realized that my school is in Al Gharbia and it is also very far west in Al Sila which is only about a hop skip and a jump away from Saudi Arabia. But nothing to fear I am completely safe! The one main problem about being so far west though is that there really isn't any teacher housing so we have no where to live there. Now this is the part that isn't so fun about my adventure so far. Since there is no housing in Sila we are currently being housed the Mirfa hotel in Mirfa which is two and a half hours away from our school. So I have a five hour bus ride everyday. Apparently they are working on getting us housing closer, but still no word yet- so inshallah. The hotel mirfa is really nice though. It's right on the water and has a really nice pool and a very nice and helpful staff. I have a big room with tons of closet space so that is always a plus! I am ready to be in a home though. Hotel living is nice and luxurious and all but I am ready to set up my home here in Abu Dhabi and no matter how hard you try a hotel is not a home.

Okay now moving on to my school. I love my school and the people I work with. The Arabic staff members at my school are simply wonderful and so welcoming. They are so excited to simply work with us and learn from us. I am working in one and a half KG 1 classes. KG 1 is basically like kindergarten 1 or prek. I work in two different classrooms and with two different Arabic teachers and groups of children.  Now this will take a lot of balancing and organization for me to handle both classes effectively. Luckily I share one of the classes with another licensed teacher so I only teach the English lessons. My students know very little to no English and can be a bit wild at times but they are very sweet and seem to like having me there. On my first day at school I was shadowing another LT and children I didn't even know kept coming up to me and hugging me or shaking my hand.  It was so adorable. I am still working on finding my groove and feel for the classrooms, but I am hoping that things will get easier with time and patience.

 dressed in my abaya for the National Day celebration at school

It is incredibly hard to believe that the United Arab Emirates is only 40 years old. Every year on December 2 the country celebrates it's national day. This is the day to celebrate the existence of their country and to show the pride they have for their beloved country. The celebrations were even more extravagant this year because this year was the 40th anniversary. So everyone prepares for this holiday for like 40 days and then national day is the final day of celebration. To prepare people decorate there cars and I mean completely covered with pictures of the country's leaders and flags and all kinds of decals.  they hang giant flags off of everything- buildings, cranes, boats, buses, big hills, and pretty much any space that can hold a flag. They also decorate buildings with lights and giant pictures. Also to prepare for national day my school put on a national day celebration performance. The kids worked and practiced so hard to get ready for this and they did great. They danced, sang, did art projects, and they were all dressed up and looked so cute. Since national day was on December 2 which was a weekend we thought we wouldn't have any days off of school, but we ended up having that Thursday off, so I went in to Abu dhabi to celebrate with some friends there and of course to shop. On national day my friend Katy and I went around shopping and things were pretty calm, but then as it got later people got more excited and crazy. There were people decorated head to toe in UAE colors, abayas, hats, scarfs, and everything. People were running around the mall spraying spray snow and yelling and having a good time. There were festivities all over Abu Dhabi, but we decided to head out to the Sheik Zayed grand mosque because they were doing a light show on the outside of the mosque. The light show was absolutely beautiful. It was projected all over the mosque even up to the high towers and it was all related to the decor that is inside the mosque. We didn't plan on going inside the mosque, but we saw a bunch of people going in and so we did. It was so fascinating to go inside the mosque at night because it didn't feel like a tourist attraction it felt like we were getting an inside look to everything. There were also some very important people there too because there was a lot more security than usual and we saw some very low license plate numbers. In the UAE the lower a cars license plate number is the closer the owner of that car is to the royal family. So when you see a three digit or less number on a license plate it is someone important. While we were at the mosque we saw the number 2,12, and 202 license plates. Seeing the number 2 license plate was crazy! The mosque at night and the light show was an amazing experience and I am so glad that is how I spent the UAE national day.

The Burj Khalifa

 I went to Dubai yesterday for the first time with some friends. We went just for the day but we wanted to at least explore Dubai once before we headed out to different places for the winter break. I was so surprised by how different Dubai was compared to Abu dhabi. Dubai is even more western and modern than Abu dhabi is and I kept forgetting I was really in the middle east. While we were in Dubai we were able to explore the Dubai Mall, the Burj Khalifa, Global Village, and the Burj Al Arab. The Dubai Mall was ridiculously enormous. I mean this one mall had over 1,000 different stores, an ice rink, a couple of waterfalls, an aquarium, and all kinds of other crazy stuff. We walked around that mall forever and we still didn't even see it all. At one point we were just trying to figure our way out of the mall but couldn't find the exit because it was that big. After we left the Dubai mall we walked right outside to catch a view of the Burj Khalifa which is like one of the tallest buildings in the world. The building was so tall and shiny, when I was trying to take pictures of it I wasn't able to get it all to fit into my camera shot. After seeing the Burj Khalifa we headed out to Global Village. Global Village is like and amusement park kind of, but it also has an interesting heritage pavilion area. They have different pavilions from all over the world  that sell items and different artifacts from that region. So while we were at Global Village we went to India, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, and a whole bunch of other places too. Global Village was really interesting because it was nothing like what I suspected it to be. It turned out to be more carnival/ amusement park area rather than a cultural heritage festival. After exploring Global Village we were getting pretty exhausted, but we decided to head to this hotel that is right next to the Burj Al Arab and get a quick bite to eat and some drinks. It was so nice out that we sat outside at the bar and had a perfect view of the Burj Al Arab and had a really nice and relaxing time. Dubai was amazing and I was only there for all of 11 hours or so. I can't wait to go back again and explore some more.

standing next to a waterfall- in a mall!

Abu Dhabi Art Festival

I am going on my fourth week in Abu Dhabi and things are going great. Today was a really amazing day in Abu Dhabi because I explored a new souk and also the Abu Dhabi art festival. At the souk there are so many different kinds of stores that sell a variety of things. They had everything from carpets, scarfs, stuffed camels, ball gowns, spices, and just everything really. Even though it was a souk it felt like a big shopping mall with three different floors and a very elegant feel to it. There are so many interesting things that I can't wait to buy for myself and friends and family back home.



My henna



This says Stiney



This says Ms. Melissa







The Abu Dhabi art festival was simply amazing and I am so glad that I went. Now I am no big art buff by any means, but I really enjoyed seeing all of the art and all of the people that the festival attracted. So first let me explain the taxi ride to the festival, which was one of the worst I have taken yet. Our taxi driver didn't know where we needed to go (which is very common) but we explained it to him and he seemed to understand. So after driving in the taxi (very very very slowly) for a little bit, our driver missed the exit for the festival and got lost and had to ask for directions twice. So after that we finally made it to the art festival and he said, "oh sorry only 15 days on job." The art festival featured artists from all over the world and all different types of art. They had this really cool picture booth thing that would take your picture and then print it out in like a full poster. After you took your picture you went around the front of the booth and it fell from the top printer. It was actually really cool and I have never had a poster size picture of myself before. Aftet I got my poster picture I went and got henna done on my hand. The woman who did the henna made it seem so effortless and it is really beautiful. At the art festival they also had a man writing names in arabic. Watching someone write in arabic is simply amazing and the writing is so beautiful that it looks like calligraphy. I had him write Ms. Melissa on one sheet and Stiney on another. I am planning on having them framed and putting them in my classroom. Today was a great day...and I can't wait to have more days just like this!

Getting around in Abu Dhabi

So even though Abu Dhabi is a very modern and western city, it really has some interesting things that take a little while to get used to. So first would be public transportation. It is amazing that Abu Dhabi has such a developed transportation system when it has only been a country for 40 years. I mean that is barely any time and in that time they have developed this amazing city and system. The main way of getting around in Abu Dhabi if you don't have a car are either taxi or the bus. Now luckily there is a bus stop right in front of the hotel that I am staying at and it is a pretty great route. The bus costs one dirham per trip which is like 27 cents. On the buses the women sit in the front of the bus and the men sit in the back. Now I thought this was very interesting at first and I felt bad that all of the men were shoved in the back, but that is how things are here. The men will put their dirham in at the front and then walk around to the back entrance of the bus. The men's half of the bus can get really crowded too because there are way more men than women. There are also separate lines for women in grocery stores and at different events and things like that. Women are also bumped to the front of the line for things like taxis, buses, and other things. This was something that I was not used to in the states, but it is simply how things are. Also taking a taxi is always an interesting experience to get around. The very first taxi ride I took on my first full day in Abu Dhabi the taxi driver got into an accident. He hit the driver in front of us and then started yelling at the man he hit as if it was his fault. It was crazy! Also the taxi drivers aren't completely familiar with the city, so sometimes they don't really know where they are going. So you have to get creative when telling them where you are going. I will try to explain things that around where I am going like big buildings, parks, or malls and that seems to help them figure out where to go. Not only do the taxi drivers not fully know where they are going, they also drive pretty crazy too. They will go in and out of traffic and weave between cars, but that isn't just taxis but simply drivers in Abu Dhabi period. I am still figuring out how to best get around in Abu Dhabi, but it is getting a little easier every taxi or bus ride I take.

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque visit

Hello everyone! So things in Abu Dhabi are going very well and I am enjoying every minute of it. It is so interesting to learn and see how things are different here and the different culture. It is currently an Islamic holiday called Eid and so there has been no school this week, so I have been exploring the city. Today a group of LT's (licensed teachers) and myself explored the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. It is one of the largest mosques in the world and one of the few that is open to non-Muslims. The Mosque was absolutely gorgeous. Before we went into the Mosque we had to put on an abaya and a head scarf out of respect for the Mosque and man was I hot with all of that on! It was really interesting though to put the abaya on and feel how the women here do. We took a tour around the Mosque with our guide and learned all about the Mosque. The inside of the Mosque was simply beautiful, with elaborate details and extravagant chandeliers. I am so glad that I was able to visit the Mosque today because I learned so much. Oh and another interesting thing I saw today was...RAIN!!! Yeah it actually rained today for a little bit. It was crazy because I didn't expect to see any rain here. I am still not sure of when I will start in my classroom, because I am being placed in a region west of Abu Dhabi and I will have to be moved out there first before I can start at my school. As they say here Inshallah- which basically means If god wills. So things will work out when they do and in the mean time I am just enjoying everything I can!