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.

 

Dubai- Sister is coming!

My sister should be here very soon. 

Her plane is bound to land within the next hour!

So very excited!!!

I cannot wait to squeeze her face!!!

The days have gotten so very hot. 

Today, I slept until about noon and shuffled downstairs right after the rest of the household 

(aside from my dad) 

had crawl'n  up stairs to nap.

Before you think that I am just the laziest person in the world for sleeping in so late I need you to know that I have stayed up late the last few nights. My mom asked my to do some art work for her while here and I am sad to admit that I put it off until late in my trip. I have been working on it late once the babies are in bed because working on things like that is very hard with 4 adorable little ones (all under the age of 6) running around the house.

I also prefer a quiet environment to be creative in.

There must have been a number of nights last year where my parents tried to go to bed upstairs as I squeaked my way through Fiddler on The Roof songs on my violin. 

Got to love parents!

  Anyway, back to today.

My dad recommend I go on an adventure if I felt up to it seeing as how I have only a few days left here. 

I thought about it, but I only see my family so often, and I have adventures by myself all the time.

I sat in the garage with my dad for a while and just talked about.... i don't know...a bit of everything, as he

worked on some wood toys he is making. 

 The garage is not air conditioned so it didn't take long for us to get very hot.

We walked to the pool, and my mom followed a bit later. 

We spent a good amount of time at the pool. We would stay in the water until our bodies got used to the water temperature, then we would get out until we were hot and then hop back into the water. 

Oh the simple pleasures in life. 

We had a typical meal here.

Some sort of meat and some rice, served with some sort of Arabic flatbread on the side.

SO YUMMY!

I am going to greatly miss the bread once I leave. 

I am so excited for my sister to get here that I can hardly stand it!!!!!!!

Dubai- recognitions, miracles and hubbly bubbly

I have been feeling very sick still. The last few days have been good though.

Tuesday I went with my mom on a bus tour of Dubai. 

You know, one of those kinds were people sit on a double-decker bus and drive around with their cameras in hand taking pictures of random building that they won't remember the name of by tomorrow. 

I was one of those people for a day. We sat on the top of the bus and listened to our little headphone tour guide.

The cool thing about this tour was that they made frequent stops all over Dubai and allowed you to get up and just catch any of the buses coming later. Buses stopped about every 20 minutes.

If it wasn't so hot I am sure we would have stopped more. 

We stopped at the Dubai creek and took a free boat tour.

Then we hopped back onto the bus and got off at the next stop, Heritage Village.

Heritage Village was right on the Creek and was the remains of an old Dubai Village. There were many shops selling the goods that most shops here sell, Pretty things.

The people at the shops there weren't as excited at bartering as I am ALL THE TIME!

They got annoyed with me when I tried. Oh well.

After Heritage Village, we rode on a while before stopping at the Gold Souk. How do I describe this to you.....hmmmm......ok imagine you are walking through a downtown somewhere. A crowded downtown with narrow streets, but in every shop window is jewelry. SO MUCH JEWELRY!! Huge pieces, small pieces, fancy pieces and a few simpler pieces. Just so much gold and silver. It went on and on and on for ever. And you go into little shopping centers where there are 3 floors of gold stores.  It was too overwhelming for me to be honest. 

Here comes a pointless rant.

I'm not a gold and jewels girl, but I did think that my future hubby can buy my emerald ring there  when he is here asking my dad and brother for their blessing to marry me. I think it sounds perfect. This is me writing my story naturally, but an emerald ring I MUST have!

 We then finished the bus tour that took us all over old and new Dubai.

We ended at the Batutta mall where we started out.


Wednesday I slept in and then spent the afternoon with Andy and Tehra. 

We first drove to Al Karama for some shopping because I needed more Harem pants and Andy had never been there. 

I was very embarrassed when my brother bought a belt from a guy whom I had bartered mercilessly with for sunglasses. He wanted 75 DH for them and I wouldn't pay more than 25.  The guy recognized me before I recognized him.

Then we kept looking through stores and at least 3 other men said that they remembered me from before. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not. I hope they didn't send out a picture memo of me warning shop owners not to barter with the white girl with bangs. 

After Karama, we went to the beach for a little while before the sun set. It was beautiful, and I found some pretty shells. 

I try to collect shells from all the places I go, if possible. 

I have my huge collection of Ireland shells, and some Puerto Rico shells, and now some Dubai shells, and hopefully I can add Ecuador shells to that list soon! :]

We went to eat at an Italian place called Stephanos after that. 

We feasted on bread, and some breaded cheesy rice ball things, and huge helpings of pasta, and passed around the orange-mint  hubbly-bubbly pipe. First time ever smoking anything in my life. My poor lungs probably hate me.

Thursday was interesting in its own way.

A week or so ago my fixed retainer on my top front teeth broke.

Yesterday was the day decided that I would go to the ortho to get it taken care of. 

I went to the Canadian dentist/ortho. 

We got to the office and the receptionist was the sweetest Philippino woman. She started telling us all about how she wanted to name her daughter Hannah because of the story of Hannah in the Bible. 

She told us about how she went and prayed at 5am every morning that she would have a daughter.

She prayed for years and finally got to the point of giving up and told God on a certain morning that this morning would be the last morning she would pray for it. Then later she was at a church and a prophetic guy was there speaking, and in the middle of what he was saying he stopped and said that a lady there was praying for a baby, and God was going to give her that baby. 

Then she told us about other complications during the pregnancy and how every-time one came up she would go back to the place of prayer and talk to God about it, and then it would go away. 

She wanted to have a daughter with a January birthday. Her first ultrasound said she was going to have a boy with a December due date. She went back and prayed to God for a January daughter, and the next ultrasound said that she was having a girl. She had also had a number of miscarriages before  her daughter was born and it looked like she would miscarry this one too, but she went back to God again and all the complications cleared up. 

She did have that baby, and it was a girl, and she was born in January. Total miracle. 

I felt blessed after talking to this beautiful woman. It is these wonderful stories and encounters in random places that remind you of how loving and omnipotent and omnipresent God really is.

The ortho then looked at my teeth. Removed the old retainer and took a mold for the new one. I about coughed out a lung when they had to take the mold. I have been so sick that breathing through my nose was not an option, but if you breath at all through your mouth you choke on the huge tray full of goop in your mouth.  Think Fluoride treatment times 10. GAG! SO on Monday I go back to the ortho to pick up my new retainer, and Tues night/Wed morning I leave Dubai to go home.

I suppose that is all I will say for now. Check back in later.

Dubai- Hijab wrapping

When I finally did wake up today I did so feeling so terrible.

My nose was running, my ears hurt and my head swam when I tried walking.

At one point I had to wick my nose because I couldn't breath either way.

I spend my morning laying around reading until even that became too much for me.

I want back to my room and drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours.

I had some of the craziest dreams.

I have been having weird dreams since getting here, but today was especially weird.

Later this afternoon I took an Advil Cold and Sinus and started to feel better.

Tehra and I put on our abayas and practices wrapping the hijab.

I think they are beautiful and am looking forward to wearing scarves like this alot in the future.

I tried to take some photos but don't feel they do it justice.

I need more practice and more scarves (hehe) but I love it.

I'm sure there are more methods used also and I would like to learn those.

The wide variety of dress here is so fascinating.

You see the traditional Indian dress here along with many variations of it;

you also see the Muslim dress in different variations.

Some women wear the abaya with a niqab which covers everything but their eyes, some wear just the hijab, or just the abaya and no hijab.

It is also really neat to see the women with their designer handbags and adorable shoes, and the heena on some of these women just blows me away with how beautiful it is. No matter the culture it is universal that women LOVE shoes and purses. :]

Tonight Andy, Mom and I went for a night swim.

It was wonderful!!!!!

Want to hear something kind of sad?? I am listening to Salsa music right now because I miss Salsa dancing that much.