A little bit of Everything

Notice the dachshund on top :)

I’m sorry it has been such a long time since I last wrote. Time has flown by. Our apartment is furnished now…and we have made it into a nice home. Our next goal at home is to hang more pictures on the walls because they’re kind of bare. We got a bigger bedroom set from some friends that decided to move back to the states – so now we have a king size bed and a bigger wardrobe. We moved our queen size bedroom set into the guest room. So the house is basically FULL. It was actually a little difficult to furnish this place because it is so big. If we go through with our idea and ship furniture back to the states when we return, I’m not sure this will actually fit into a normal sized Miami apartment. This is just a sneak peak of one piece of furniture, more to come soon :)    

Snoopy Rock

We have been through so much since my last post. We had a week off in November and went to the East coast, to a city called Fujairah. We stayed at a beach hotel and had an amazing time. I fell asleep on the beach and woke up to the sound of the waves – totally dazed and confused thinking I was still in Miami. We could hear the ocean waves from our hotel room at night and had a beautiful view of the beach. We went snorkeling to the huge rock and reef they had about a 7 minute swim from the shore. We climbed onto the big rock “Snoopy Rock” and hung out there for a little while. It was very hard to get onto the rock because of the way the waves crashed together so we tried to leave from the side of the rock and Saul’s fins were swept away by the waves. He started running after them and put them on so he wouldn’t lose them again. I was knocked down by the waves and my legs and butt were totally scratched up by the waves pushing me around in a foot of water – but it was impossible to stand up due to the hard crashing waves. We finally made it away from the rock and swam back to shore. Saul kept complaining that his foot was hurting because the fins were too tight. When we went to the showers to wash off we discovered a huge cut on his foot, from his big toe all the way up the side of his foot. No wonder the fins were hurting him!!! We had war wounds from our adventure to Snoopy Rock but it was so much fun, I’d do it again :) 

City view of Abu Dhabi

In December, we celebrated quite a few holidays – starting with National Day. It was the UAE’s 39^th birthday on December 2^nd. We went to Abu Dhabi and visited Colleen and Erica. In Abu Dhabi we went out to a restaurant on the Corniche (along the water) and enjoyed watching the crazies drive up and down the street. They spent the evening spraying each other with silly string, back firing their car (sounds like explosions or gun shots) and just making a whole lot of noise. More pictures soon to come.

For our winter vacation we went to Italy with Colleen, Erica and a friend of theirs Jessica. Due to the weather in Europe, we got stuck in Frankfurt and our 5 hour layover turned into an 18 hour layover. This caused us to miss our flight to Sicily and we changed our plans around completely. We had to cancel Sicily because there were no other flights available and the airline (don’t every fly easyjet!!) would not reimburse us or make any exceptions due to the weather. So we decided to take a train to Florence and then to Pisa. Florence was covered in snow and it was absolutely beautiful!! The snow covered buildings, mountains and trees made the city look even more magical than it probably does on a normal day. After our day in Pisa, where we enjoyed the best pizza ever at Pizza Al Metre we took 3 trains until we made it to Sorrento. We spent 4 nights in Sorrento where we celebrated a wonderful Christmas. By the way, it’s a perfect beautiful little Christmas town :) While we were in Sorrento we took a day trip to Pompeii and tried to go to Capri. Unsuccessfully – the weather was bad and the ferries weren’t traveling until after the new year. So we will definetly be going back at some point because I love Capri.

 At this point, Saul didn’t want to hear about another train but the girls made him get on another train haha!! And we headed back to Rome for the final leg of our journey.  We spent 6 days in Rome, walking and walking and walking. If you think Saul was sick of the trains, you should have heard his comments about the walking lol. But I loved it!! I wish I could live in Italy! My favorite cities were outside of the capital city – I loved Florence and Sorrento! The last day of our trip was New Year’s Eve and it was the best way to end our trip. We had an amazing meal at Il Duco – like 5 courses and they were all so delicious. I surprisingly ate ALL 5 courses!! Then we walked to one of the many bridges along the river and watched fireworks from all over the city. Magnificent night!!

Now, back at home, back at work, back into the routine – I think. Before taking this wonderful trip I thought I was happy here, in Al Ain. But after being in Italy, in Europe, in a place where people (complete strangers) smile at you and are willing to reach out their hand and help you it is extremely hard to be back here where people seem so cold and reserved. I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression of my new “so called” home but it is really hard to truly feel at home here. In general, people are not overly friendly because it would be considered flirting. Most of the people on the streets are men and men don’t really talk to other women unless they are family or married. So I find that I keep to myself and just talk to a very small group of people. My friends that are single don’t find it as hard to talk to people in general and I think sales people and waiters speak to single women more openly then they do to married women. So they will blatantly ignore me and speak only to Saul. It also has a lot to do with the city we are in – smaller and more old-fashioned. When we go to Abu Dhabi or Dubai it’s not like this. But this is what I wanted, I chose to be in Al Ain so I will choose to keep chugging and make the best of it.

My relationship with my co-teachers is a lot better now than a couple months back. Teaching has become pretty easy, there are many things I don’t agree with but I’ve realized that there is no point to make waves here and try to do things my way. So I teach with many, many worksheets and my students are learning because I incorporate my own fun into each and every day. 

They are eating popcorn, so they didn't bother to look at the camera lol

I am lucky because I don’t have behavior problems in either of my classes. My students are actually funny and they use the little English they have to joke with me. They have come a long way since the beginning of the year, seeing them grow and how much more English they have in their vocabulary is pretty satisfying. Well, this post is very long so I promise to not wait as long next time. I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all and I miss home very much :)