Monday, January 17, 2011

Dubai Museum

I find that work is definitely the best time to update my blog..  To avoid doing actual work. I swear I'm doing work though.  Surprisingly things have gotten very busy at work, I guess everyone was in the same boat when I got here and no one really knew what to do.

We are kind of involved in everything, recruitment, events, being residence spies ha-ha. The students are actually really nice and friendly, so its pretty good.

Last week was pretty quiet, we didn't do much considering we had been going out every single day the week before. Now we are well rested and trying to do more things again. We are planning on going to an "Arabian Adventure" sometime this weekend.

This weekend we went and checked out a couple of bars/clubs. The first night we went out, we were suggested this place called elegante which was pretty nice. The only funny thing was it was "Indian" night so they had all this brown clubbing music. It was decent we just got super excited when they played an English song ha-ha. The cab driver that drove us home was pretty nice he was asking me what we were doing in Dubai and about my husband HAHAH, and I'm like o gosh I don’t have one. He then continued to give me blessings for my marriage and hopefully after schooling my marriage would happen fast, I just didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise. I Just agreed hahahaha.  I found out he has a son in medical school etc. The things you learn in a fifteen minute cab ride home.

We went to the Dubai museum on the Friday and the place looks pretty small, but it was quite spacious, because it goes underground. We saw old school houses, and traditional wear, and old shops and stuff.
After we left the museum ,at around 7 pm, the area where we were was so insanely busy! Its like everyone woke up all of a sudden at night. So we checked out some place for a phone for me :).. Which I still haven’t got.


Creepy Girl Statues at the Museum

More fake people at the museum

Dubai Museum and Seans Model Shot

Right outside Res


Weapons of Mass Destruction


Getting water from the well



We got home only using transit, and not cabs, which was a huge accomplishment! I can now teach people how to reach me.. Once they get to Dubai :P.  That night, we got convinced to go out again with some guys from Hult university.

This part is best said by dancy :

"On our way back from the gym, we encountered these 2 black men, Blue and Ola,  waiting for a taxi outside of our building. So we decided to have a little chat with them. Turned out they are nigerian grad students who live in a different building from us. AND, they are going clubbing. 
I guess we were desperate for a non-indian clubbing experience, and we were attracted by the idea of sharing a taxi bill, so we said, we'll be ready in half and hour! (what's there to worry about, we have Sean, at least hes half black)
Okay, half an hour later, Misha, Sean, and I are on our way to this York club. 



The bar we went to was pretty weird so we decided to leave then we went to this arabic-english club.  When we got in all the guys there were doing a traditional dance, then they had 20 mins rnb and hip hop and back to Arabic music.  The cab driver that drove us home that day was like in his 40s I would say, but man he was playing these crazy beats and driving to the beat (sometimes).. Which may not have been the best thing , but it was fun. He was playing old school Sean Paul and he had a good system in his car. One of the best cab rides !

We did office hours Saturday night (equivalent to a Canadian Sunday night) on residence and then this week has been busy because all the students have been asking us stuff. Every thing is due this week . We are heading to our Waterloo mom's house on wed for dinner. She's a really nice person that works in the office with us working for international recruitment, she always brings us fruits and chocolates  and biscuits for us at work :).

Now I got to work some more.. Boo.

Friday, January 7, 2011

The Glamorous.. O the flossy flossy

I've been slacking with the blogs .. Clearly, but I'm just going to blame it on the jetlag.
OK so the jetlag has definitely caught up.. I can't seem to stay up any more!

We went to Dubai mall two days ago..  It is so ridiculously big.. There is an aquarium, and an ice skating rink, and a gold souk, and every brand you could possibly imagine.

There is this huge fountain outside the mall and then you see the burj khalifa which is the most amazing thing ever.  The place is just glamorous with its dior, d&g, dkny, jimmy choo, manolo blahnik, louis vuitton, Gucci.. And countless numbers of Ferrari cars,  benzs, beamers and land rovers just add to everything.


mall entrance

Candy Shop

Shoes (Sex in the City movie ones!)

We explored the residence a little more yesterday because we got off work a little early.. Went to the pool and the Jacuzzi, and they have the steam room which is pretty nice. The Michigan state peoples were leaving the next day (today) so we just hung out with them for the night.

Today was quite the adventure.. We went to a beach, which was just amazing, the water was so bluee and the weather was great! Most the people at the beach were tourists. Then we tried to find a way home without taking a cab so we got to the metro station (ok we took a cab there.. But that’s it) and then they have this system where you have to buy a re-chargeable card and you scan your card when you get into the metro station and out and onto any local buses. You can't get onto any local buses using money  you have to use a pre-paid card…its pretty hi tech.  The metro runs above the city, its very pretty and scenic.






We  basically trust everyone we talk to a lot with directions.. Which isn't the best idea, but we don’t have much else to go on, because the maps don't really have a lot of detail around where we live because it’s a pretty new area. We got onto to the metro and got off at the Dubai city centre ( as per someone's advice), and we just hopped on a bus which seemed to take us to the area. We got close to our area for sure and if we had a car from the bus station it would definitely only take 5 minutes to get home.. Haha.. But it sure didn't take us five minutes. We easily walked  for 2 hours, through these parks, into abandoned areas, and just deserts, and along side the highways,  booked it across roads/highways  with no pedestrian crossings and finally saw.. The burger king at the gas station  which is a 20 min walk from our res. So we made pit stop and I don’t think I've ever been so happy to see a bk. 

lost in the desert ( i wasn't joking)
We finally made it back home.. And now we are all so tired from all the running around but I can tell you that now we know where the heck we are living and we know how to get home from anywhere :).

Goodnighttt

Monday, January 3, 2011

work?

My jetlag consists of no sleeping at all, I’m just not tired!
Today we went to campus met almost everyone. There’s this bus that goes there every day (a shuttle).
Waterloo’s part of the campus is pretty small, and there are these pictures on the walls that say stuff like “Waterloo in the Winter” and show all the snow.. I think that’s UW’s attempt of preparing the students going there in 3rd and 4th year. Let me tell you, after seeing Dubai’s winter.. I think they will need more than just a picture.
I was trying to figure out the weather today and I realized my desktop was still set at Mississauga weather .. -5!! But over here winter is 24 degrees..
Enjoyed the half day at work, then went to the dubai festival city mall at night went to this sheesha place and did a little bit of shopping. The malls are so huge! You definitely need a full day or two just to get through each one.




Classes actually start tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll all know what we are doing.. right now everyone is just in a daze including the profs haha.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Happy New Year!!

I think it has finally sunk in.. a little.. maybe! haha.

The place I'm staying at is actually pretty nice and  has alot of different people here. The Jordanian soccer team is practicing/training here, and then there is a group of students from Michigan on a 2 week exchange and they are taking 2 credits or something while they are here. I think there are maybe 18 people from waterloo dubai here on res, but they aren't all here yet.

There is a bus that goes to the mall (one of three different ones) every night .. which could be dangerous :D, but very convenient!

In the afternoon we went to the gold souks and food market (spices and stuff). To get there we went over the Dubai creek in traditional wooden boat that just has a bench in the middle called an abra. I definitely thought someone would fall in the water, I don’t see how nobody does.


We went to geant at night to get grocceries and I found my new favorite food.. date biscuts. i also found out that absolutely everyone wants to do their grocceries at 9:30 pm at night aswell.

I actually start work tomorrow but we have no ideaa how we are getting there.. thats a problem to deal with in 7 hours though