My residency is now done. 

I am a Dubai residence.

One more thing off the bucket list.

Hopefully I will be working soon. 

:D

What should you expect if you are dating me?

I made my Mom bouquets of  origami flowers for Valentines Day.

Just to remind that I love her very much.

 

If Andres was hoping for a remotely normal relationship he sure picked the wrong girl.

Our first valentines day together was,

well I guess I would saw, 

as wonky as could be expected.

We were invited to go out to dinner with a group of South Americans.

Eduardo , who works with my Dad invited us.

He is a 20 something Venezuelan.

His fiance is a tall, white, New Zealander.

We agreed to go along and it was decided they would pick us up at 6:15.

I don't know what it is about my family but we always manage to be in houses that are really complicated to find.

Hinckley was the least complicated of them all and even that one confused people at times.

anyways, they end up getting lost on the way to pick us up.

They drive around for an hour and a half before we decided we would just get a cab.

I call the cab company and request an immediate cab.

There are typically cabs at the nearby community center just minutes away.

A good 30 minutes later we are still waiting on the cab.

I finally am just done with it and tell Andres that we should just walk to the bus stop and catch a bus, then the train.

We start walking to the community center to catch the bus.

We are almost there when my Dad calls and says the cab is 5 minutes from the house.

I told him to cancel the cab we will take a bus.

My Dad tells me to take a taxi at the CC because it will take an hour at least by Public trans.

We get to the CC and there is no taxi to be found.

We began walking toward the store because we needed change for out 500 Dirham bill 

if we wish to take a taxi.

Before making across the parking lot we see a taxi and flag him down to avoid missing our chance.

We tell him we are going to the Dubai Mall and have a 500 dirham bill.

He says it is no problem because he can make the change.

We hop in and go on our way.

The cab driver was great!

He got us right where we needed to be, and fast!

We arrived and handed him our 500 dirham bill to pay our 75 dirham cab fare.

He is then 120 dirham short.

He gets ot of the cab and starts asking all the nearby taxis for change. 

A good 5 minutes pass and finally he goes to a kiosk for the change.

To say I was frustrated at this point is an understatement.

I am really frustrated and Andres is naturally all calm and not worried about it.

It comes with being an American, we are in a hurry and want to get places on time.

We get our change and meet up with the group.

We had a really lovely time.

My brain was a bit overwhelmed by the Spanish going on all around me, 

and Rose sitting next to me speaking English with her New Zealand accent.

We sat on a 2nd story balcony of a French Restaurant which provided a brilliant view of the fountain show.

I had a great time and never felt terribly un comfortable.

After dinner Eduardo  and Rose  said they would take us home.

Needless to say, we got very lost.

We turned around a time or two and ultimately ended up circling in on our house.

Not quite what I would have expected for my first Valentines Day with Andres, 

but as usual it was an adventure.

 

Things they never told us homeschooled girls...

  I don't really know how exactly to lead into this. 

I suppose what I want to do is impart some forewarning/ advise to my fellow  girls out there.

Consider this my "what to expect when things get serious, and on to your married life.".

Ok, yes I know I am not married and I am certainly not the expert on dating, my past record is very very clear.

There are some things I have learned in the past months that I wish I had known were unavoidable.

Over the last 3 months I have been living in the same household as Andres.

For 2 months I was living in his family's house and for a while now we have both been living on my parents property [ in different building but with common kitchen and living room and such].

We may not be married, but we are living a life similar to marriage except for sharing a room and bed and the physical stuff.

I know a lot of girls think that those things will be the biggest adjustments they will have to work through with their husbands.

I am learning that no amount of books I read in my teen years, and all the youth speakers I listened to failed to tell me some big things.

Thankfully Andres is so patient with me that it is all working out.

Here is what you need to realize whether you are in a relationship or not.

He will see those "crazy" moments we usually have when we are alone.

He will see these moments.

No matter what ideas you have in your head of you being a super cool, chill relaxed girl that doesn't freak out over silly thing.

It is inevitable that you will have one (or two or three) of those moments in front of him.

THis is because up until you are in the same house with him you had a lot of that alone time where you could have those crazy moments in your head. 

Once you are together all the time, he will start to ask you what you are thinking or conveniently be in the room when you are overwhelmed by something stupid.

In my case, he was helping move furniture on the day that I decided to freak out over the different height of the furniture in my room and the lack of balance. 

Another thing.

He will be there on your ugly days, your crampy days and your super wonky days.

You know when you are still in the new stages with a guy you may cancel plans with him on an ugly day.

You will also suffer through the cramps with a smile on your face and a quick laugh at anything funny he says, but as soon as he leaves you crawl to your bed and roll around in pain and whine to yourself.

The days you are super crazy and decide you are going to go around karate chopping everything that is about your height and making kung fu sounds,

HE

WILL

BE

THERE!!!!

Ideally he will say you are so beautiful on your "ugly days".

Ideally he will worry about you all day and offer to get you anything to relieve your pain on your cramp days.

And Ideally he will just play along and not mind too much if you decide to karate chop him, and his friends, and the dog, and the door jam and well the air.

Just remember that he will be there and  relationships, no matter how perfect, will not cure you of your wonky-ness.

(it certainly does not mature you any faster)

lets see, what else??

He will witness your cooking and creating fails.

He will be there when you decide to cook something new and it ends up tasting like it was cooked in the dirty garbage can.

It is not like when you were single and you would be in the kitchen late at night concocting something. 

Throwing your favorite foods into a pot even though you have never heard of such a combo before.

This time you cannot just pick out the parts you like and throw the rest away;

he will be there with you expecting a helping even bigger than yours. 

He will also be there sprawled out on the nearest piece of furniture cradling his super upset tummy.

This one might be straight forward, but it is still a good reminder. 

No matter how interesting you think your friends lives are, he will most likely not care to talk about it.

Most girl talk is exactly that, girl talk. 

I cannot tell you how many times I start telling Andres something thinking it is the most exciting thing and he fails to respond how I expected.

I will be all like "Can you believe so and so is dating this person? That person is so much older, or so much something."

You are expecting a "OMGSH that is the craziest thing I have ever heard. How different and well crazy!"

however

Andres is like "well they are obviously happy so it is fine.".

Or

This happens all the TIME!!!

We are walking through a store and I get all excited and I say "OH LOOK AT THAT CUTE HAND BAG!!DON'T YOU THINK IT IS SO CUTE!? I LOVE IT!!!"

then he just says "I think it is fine.".

NO COMMENTS ON THE BRILLIANT COLOR COMBO, OR THE PERFECTLY POSITIONED BOWS OR ANYTHING!! 

HE WILL BE THERE WHEN YOU BURP!!!!!

So much for your cute and delicate act. 

He just heard you belch like a mountain lion!

(I don't actually know if mountain lions burp.) 

You know that he heard it because lets face it, you just drank your first can of soda in a year and the neighborhood now knows the real reason why you stopped drinking soda.

He will see you get in a fight with someone close to you. 

 This photo cracked me up a little.

He will be there when punches are thrown. 

Of course we are girls so our punches are not typically physical.

Though we feel confident since we have been practicing our karate moves ever since watching Jaden Smith's the Karate Kid.

He will hear all of your complaints about this person and he will have to decide how to proceed.

He will hear you talk like you are "SO TOTALLY RIGHT" and that other person is obviously out of their mind. 

They will have to try to figure out who is actually right and how to treat you and possibly the other person. 

Even though he is your boyfriend (or whatever he is) he may not be on your side by default.

  He may even have to give you a lot of alone time to figure it out and blow off steam.

He will bother you when you are in the middle of something important.

You know that mental image where you are sitting there in one room consumed in something while he sits in another corner of the room engrossed in a book or something? 

Yeah....umm.. that can happen, but it doesn't as often as you want.

you will be in the middle of reading something, or washing dishes, or anything and then he will decide to come hug you or snuggle up with you, or poke you.

Tonight I was doing dishes when Andres comes up from behind me and hooks is arm through mine and starts poking my face and sticking his fingers almost up my nose just to bother me.

 

But all this said, it is worth it.

Every second of it.

If you find the right guy he will love your good, bad, and ugly and you will also love his good, bad, and ugly.

Great news!

I bought my ticket for Ethiopia!

I leave March 9th and will be there until march 24th.
It was way lucky that I am in Dubai because my flights are around $500 instead of the $2000-$3000 dollars I planned on.
I may achieve my dream of visiting Ghana this year as well.
I will do my best to journal and update about Ethiopia.
For now I have a lot of packing and planning to do.

Please don't tell me I am the only one!!!

Today we had some re-arranging to do in the house.
When Andy and his family moved out the house was left with 2 empty rooms and just so much space.
We started moving beds around.
We moved a large bed out of my room and I was left with the freedom to arrange from there.
I about had a meltdown.
I found my self just staring at the room and saying "No, this is just all wrong!!!".
Two things about made my skin crawl; some of the furniture was different heights, and the room was now TOO empty.
The balance of the room was so off that I look at Andres and told him "I don't think I will be able to sleep in this room.".
How ridiculous is that?
Please tell me that I am not the only person that is that freaked out about imbalance in my space.
Not to mention being the opposite of a person that suffers from claustrophobia, too wide of spaces make me anxious and uncomfortable and I just want to run away and hide.
Not a good thing when you have a large room and only as many possessions as fit in 2 suitcases.
I had a good laugh with my Mom as I talked about having no stuff and told her the story of when my Uncle Lee picked me up from my sister's house back in October.
He saw me coming out of the building with only one suitcase and a mandolin and asked me where all my stuff was. When I told him I didn't have stuff he said "We need to get you stuff! You need to have stuff!"

I figure I can borrow stuff from my parents to fill my room.

Yeah
Yeah
Yeah
I guess I already knew I was crazy.

Hopefully I will blog more and well have more adventures now.
I deleted my Facebook for now which should help so much.
I am opting with the ignorance is bliss approach for now.
I'll prob be back on soon enough.

ANIA!

PLEASE COME TO DUBAI!!!!

That is all.

 

I miss you!

And isn't your birthday coming up very soon????

Been reading so much lately.

Read 4 books in the last month or so.

Wish I could say they were all winners, but that is not really true.

 I torrented a bundle of e-books and this was the first of the group  that I decided to try out.

I had no way to read a summary of these books before starting them.

 

Only book out of these that I would recommend is Sarah's Key.

Next book on the list

So that is what I have been up to lately.

ALSO I finally got dates on Ethiopia.

I will be going in March!

WOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!