Oman

I had the chance to head to Oman last weekend to see some family friends from Saudi Arabia.

The weekend was great, the place is just so pretty. To be quite honest, I didn’t expect it, but Fahim Uncle said it best “Oman is well kept secret”

The architecture is all very similar in Muscat, and I was told that the Sultan does not want any high rises in the city. He would like to keep it all looking cultural. On my sightseeing tour, we went and drove into the mountains and drove around all those roads. Considering I had re-learnt all my 1B rock mineralogy and earth engineering during my work term, the rocks meant something! Ahaha I also saw the lagoons, and the Muscat souks which were just built for tourism. It was nice, however I felt like the prices were obviously high.

Unfortunately, I had high fever when I was in Muscat, but all the hot tea I drank definitely helped!

I was there for two nights and then made my way back to Dubai. As soon as I got to the airport I was informed of plans to go out for one of my last night’s out in Dubai. We went to that pyramid club again hehe.

The next day we headed to ski dubai! O gosh was that an adventure.

When I walked into the cold, it was like.. I was home, it was -6 degrees!! Haha

Basically, I’ve never been skiing, and I’m quite aware this is very bad considering I’ve been in Canada for so long. Dancy and I refused to take the lessons and just went right into it. So I started off on this slope which I’m sure is tiny, but o man I was scared! I just went for it, all the way down the slope.. I didn’t even fall. So I kept going for a couple more times, scared every single time.. and then it happened my horrible fall! Haha I scratched up my chin, but it went away after a couple of days.  After the 2 hours in the cold I was ready to leave.. I got my fill of winter I would say. I heard Canada is not warm right now anyways.. BOOO.

The last couple of days of school were so hectic, just getting everything wrapped up. We also went out for dinner with a  few of the profs to try camel… everyone ordered steaks and burgers of camel meat, I stuck to my chicken club sandwich. I tried it though, it tasted like beef. Not something I would try again though.

My last day in Dubai (before leaving for Pakistan) I proctored 2 exams in the morning, then we went to chili’s for lunch. I got birthday cake as a goodbye, so I turned 22 already, pretty much. It was a great way to end the school term, molten lava cake. Hahaha.

The flight to Pakistan was good! I got my window seat, and an empty seat next to me. I watched tangled, such a cuteeeee movie. I like my cartoon movies okay haha.

So now I’m sitting here in Pakistan. It’s so hot and humid, but I’m trying to enjoy it before I’m back in the cold haha. I am thoroughly enjoying all the home cooked food, chaat,  and jaam mmm. I’m getting really spoilt though, by my aunts and grandparents, haha I have no complaints =)

I’ll be home soon!

<3 Misha

Running out of time!!

Since our trip to the Palm, things have been moving at supersonic speed.

We’ve had to wrap things up with the professors that are leaving, trying to get the grades finalized and all. We have officially decided we don’t need sleep, and are running on a couple of hours a night, just so we can work and go out! Hahaha

The weekend that just passed was great and outdoorsy, I got my tan on! (not that I need to do any such thing). Thursday night was a birthday of one of the students on residence, we went to an Italian restaurant, and then made our way to the movies. We decided to watch.. LOL I can’t even remember the name of the movie.. PAUL! That’s what it was.. it was about some alien trying to get back into space. It was funny at parts, but they censor a lot of the movies here, so sometimes they seem really choppy.

Birthday Party

Friday we woke up early and went to this corporate event. Waterloo and Bax Consulting was one team and we met a lot of Canadian teachers and engineers that work in Al Ain (we went there .. see posts below haha).  It was nice to meet people from home! Anyways a lot of us had no idea how to dragon boat race, so we had a quick tutorial and..off we went. It was so fun; we did 200 m I think, and it should take like a minute to do. It was an intense workout though because you have to row so fast!

That night I founded the suburbia of Dubai.. Arabian Ranches. It’s a lovely place but it’s like a mini city.. everything is there, you never even need to leave the compound. I got to have lovely home cooked meal at my aunt’s house and I began my goodbyes for the trip.. sadly.

Saturday was our day with our Dubai Dad (Barry). We went over to the Rotana hotel and hung out at the pool then walked to the Satwaa souks later at night, I’m pretty sure we walked like 5 km EASILY. It was very tiring, but we got our shopping done. These “souks” were the places I hated going to as a kid in Saudi; it’s strange that here I am 10 years later, willingly going there for a whole day (sorry for all the tantrums mom, love you!).

At night we went with some of the professors to Jamie Oliver’s restaurant at Dubai Festival City. The food was good, but nothing extraordinary, the service was not good, they didn’t have lemon mint juice, and they didn’t allow takeout!  They didn’t allow takeout was the major problem.. if you didn’t finish your food you basically pay 100 aed for a third of your meal. They said that it’s for safety .. chances of food poisoning when you reheat food and stuff.. BLAH BLAH. I want my food to take home.!!!! Overall, I wouldn’t go back, but it was a good experience.

Sunday was boring!!!!!!!!  I just did work till sooo soo late, 4 am, see I do work sometimes.

Monday I got some more of my shopping done for mom and dad! Tuesday I went back to Arabian Ranches to another family friends’ house. I forgot how funny they were.. good company. After that I headed to Barasti, which is this bar/pub by the beach, they have couches and tables at the beach, so we hung out there enjoyed the light drizzle and headed home.

Yesterday we also said our goodbyes to Professor Knight. It was really sad; he is the first one of us to head back. He had taken so much care of us when we were here, buying us liquid milk instead of the powdered one for our tea and coffee, taking us to Abu Dhabi, driving us to dinner, giving us all his travel books, and giving me the mini coffee maker haaha. I think we were very lucky to have such a great group of people here, and we really took advantage of it with all our social events at work.

Today.. I am flying to Oman, I’m very excited! Going to stay with some family friends for the Oman weekend (thurs, Friday). Then I have a couple more days in Dubai till my trip to Pakistan. I’ll be home so soon!

<3

Good food, good friends, and good company

Hello Hello!

Time is just flying by.. and I’m really coming home super soon.. 22 days!

Because time is running short, I decided I better get a little bit more serious about my tourist list of things I need to do.

So, what did I do? I booked tickets to go take a tour of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa. I went with one of the co-op students (nagma) and one of the math professors, barry. Now, I don’t think they were as excited as I was about the whole trip. I wanted to see all the civil engineering structural and foundation things.. but I couldn’t spend all day in there. We got through security, then got into an elevator which took us to the 124^th floor. We booked tickets in the morning to get a good view of the place. It was amazing; we could see most of Dubai. I know it may sound a little exaggerated, but the building makes the skyline at night, and it’s always got these lights going that make it look like it’s sparkling. It’s really a beautiful sight.

After checking off the biggest thing on my to do list, we headed to lunch at this organic restaurant at the Dubai Mall. It was the healthiest meal I’ve eaten, but it was actually surprisingly good. They had a buffet that was all gluten free. We then made our way back to the Rotana Hotel (where the professors are staying) and basically took over Barry’s kitchen. We made dinner and brownies! Dancy pretty much was the brownie chef, I was the dinner chef. The brownies were these zucchini brownies.. I have never ever heard of that! Either way they were so good. I’m craving some right now.

Last week was pretty much the last week of classes, so everything is pretty hectic. I can’t believe it’s over! We are just getting review sessions together, scheduling last minute things, trying to get our work reports sorted and our evaluations done.

This weekend I met a lot of old friends completely unplanned. I got to meet a family friend from Saudi Arabia, they had driven up from Oman. We spent the evening together roaming around. The kids have all grown up, that just means we’re getting old. Sigh. It was great meeting them after 7/8 years. 

I didn’t forget about my list of things to do that easily.. so we missioned out to Palm Island on Friday. It took us a long time to get there, but we made it. We saw the Atlantis hotel, walked and walked and walked. The hotel is very good looking, however to do anything in the hotel, costs a lot of money!

We then took a cab to Dubai Marina. Dubai Marina.. water.. boats.. mall. That kind of sums  it up . haha I was expecting a lot more, since everything has been so over the top, but it was nice and simple. We were lucky that a street festival was going on, so that kept us amused for a long while.

Just as we were leaving the mall, a friend from Saudi gave me a call and asked what I was up to. Surprisingly, he was at the hotel attached to the mall I was at. Such a coincidence.

The whole lot of us went out that night to the hotel that’s shaped like a pyramid .. the raffles dubai I think it’s called. Right at the tip of the pyramid, it’s all glass and inside there’s a lounge. It was the best night spot I’ve been to so far. Good music and good company, made a good night.

This week some of the final quizzes are happening, before the pre-exam break. That means our work hours get very flexible.. so we made our sightseeing and gift shopping plan ahahaha. I will get my work done to .. promise.

<3