Ok, let me first just say that I got "take away" from a nearby restaurant for dinner - chicken curry, spicy. And BOY is it spicy!!!! I have identified three different types of peppers (two by look, one by accidentally eating) left in the curry sauce and my mouth is on FIRE. I LOVE IT! Plus, I have enough rice to last me the next couple of days, so no matter what happens, I guess I won't starve. Not a whole lot happened - still working on the same two projects which are on the downside on my end. Still eating lunch in the pantry with Zenah - today she brought in a tomato based dinner with rice - green beans and some kind of meat. She is deceptively fluent in English, but she doesn't know ... read more

Let me first start off by saying, yes I know you're missing pictures and I apologize, but people stare enough at me, the white freckled girl, without me taking pictures and looking like a complete tourist! There are so many things I want to share with you, but I will describe them first (then when I can finally get a car, I'll drive around the city taking pictures of everything!). First of all, my taxi driver today was a hoot. Completely unfriendly, understood zero english except left, right and straight. Based on my conversation with the driver yesterday, I told this guy to go to the Grand City Mall and I would direct him from there; between us both we got there in record time and about 10AED cheaper. Hope it works this well tomorrow. Among ... read more

As I expected, I decided to make a lazy day of it today. I read some this morning and then took myself to the Mall of the Emirates to watch a movie: Prometheus 3D. I was not impressed. The movie was not what I thought and I am kind of tired of the "Alien" franchise. Oh well. Then I took myself shopping for some much needed clothes (I apparently left all my nice dresses in NY - GRRRRR!). I bought two dresses, two shirts, and some gold jewelry - I usually detest gold jewelry, but it will go best with the navy blue dresses (they are very different, but same color). I still need some black shoes and I need a very nice dress for our company party this weekend. We are celebrating 50 years of ... read more

Well - I survived my first week and I am feeling great! Today my taxi driver told me he knows a shorter route to the office that will save me time and money, so he is picking me up on Sunday. Woot! Today I saw our first American - he was presenting for a Masters degree in Construction Management at the American University of Dubai. It looked interesting and I am thinking of pursing my Masters while here, but I am more interested in the technical side, and namely, Coastal Engineering. It's a thought though. For lunch, we returned to Times Square, where I ate a chicken quesadilla; it really was not all that different from the quesadillas at the chain restaurants in Ventura. It hit the spot. And I got to know Zenah more and ... read more

My sleep pattern is starting to get on track. I crashed when I got home last night around 6:30, woke up around 9:30 and read until about 2am, before getting a few hours more. I am trying so hard to stay awake for another few hours so I can hopefully sleep the whole night though!!! Today I learned my first Arabic word: Jabal means "mountain." I continued writing the same report at work today, even though there really isn't a whole lot more to do until we get the lab results tomorrow. So, I was fairly bored today. I asked if there was other stuff to do, but they seemed insistent on getting the report just so. I'm not sure that I've ever spent 16 hours straight on a 8 page factual report (plus figures), but ... read more