Out Of The Mouth Of Babes

I was craving Cracker Barrel pancakes this morning in a BAD way. I love how crispy they make the pancakes on the outside but fluffy on the inside and those little bottles of maple syrup...Yum! I digress.

Artem and I headed out bright and early to our local Cracker Barrel and got a seat right next to the wood burning fireplace. Lovely ambiance for me and my three year old date. Artem ordered pancakes on his own which impressed the waitress. She commented how cute he was, to which he charmed her even more with his, "Thank you ma'am" reply. She pinched his cheek, rubbed his head, and walked away. Artem was clearly enjoying being dotted on.

The waitress returned a short time later with our food and placed Artem's pancakes in front of him. It was obvious Artem was determined to impress her again with his manners and charm and he looked up to her with the up most sincerity and said, "Thank you ma'am for my food." The waitress exclaimed again, "He is SOOO cute!" Artem was smiling ear to ear, bouncing in his seat, soaking in all the attention and without skipping a beat loudly announced, "I love eating at the Crapper Barrel!!" With that, the waitress and the table next to us burst out laughing and I made a mental note to share this moment with the first girl he brings home to meet us.

An Open Letter

To The First Class Passengers of Flight #1666,

Please accept my deepest apologies for the behavior of my son, Artem, on the flight from Atlanta to Austin. The two hours of screaming, wall kicking, "NO" yelling, and crying from a three year old that you had to endure were not fair to you.

Please understand that he traveled by car at 7:00 p.m. for an hour to Dubai, flew out of there at 11:30 p.m., had to endure two hours of turbulence and could not be served a meal until 2:30 a.m., finally was able to fall asleep at 3:00 a.m. and then only slept for 5 hours of the 15 hour flight. He was a trooper waiting in a lengthy line at customs, helped me retrieve all the luggage and recheck it before waiting in another long line to go through the always hospitable Atlanta airport security.

After waiting another two hours for the flight to Austin, and at this point traveling for 22 hours on 5 hours of sleep, he had used up all his reserve of "Good Boy" points and as a result, the above mentioned full-scale, atomic, mother-of-all meltdowns began.

For that, I apologize.

Artem has been counseled about his behavior and fully understands that while choosing my retirement home, he will be reminded of this incident, and provide me with a large sunny room, covered terrace, and view of a duck inhabited pond.

Lastly, to the elderly gentleman from Ireland that patted me on the back as we were deboarding and said, "Don't worry mama, this will pass", any chance you are available for babysitting?

Sincerely,
Susan
Artem's Mother

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Abu Dhabi

(Let me preface this by saying Spell Check does not work here in UAE, please continue...)

We've been in Abu Dhabi for two years next month...insert giant WOW right here...and I thought it was about time to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly on life in this Arab country. You know, now that I've had two years to experience it and blog about it. At least you can't accuse me of not taking the time to type a well thought out blog for you. Grab a snack and a drink, you're going to need it.

Let me start out with something near and dear to my heart...shopping, but more importantly food shopping. The grocery stores here in Abu Dhabi are very modern. We have Spinneys, Lulus, Abelas, and Carrefour which is French for "Sh!t Shack". You don't have to look that last one up in any French/English dictionary, I promise that's what it means.

We can find almost all of the products we are used to back in the states and there is no shortage of products from the UK and Australia. The only thing I have not been able to find is Kraft Macaroni and Cheese but I noticed last week that Abelas now carries it; so I stocked up. You have to stock up here. This week you'll be able to find Shredded Wheat cereal and you won't find it again for a couple months; so stock up! The rule here in Abu Dhabi is don't get too used to one brand in particular because you will be sorely disappointed next week. Either that or you need to devote one room in your home to house dry goods that you can't live without.

The fruits and vegetables here are delicious. They remind us of the wonderful fruit we ate in Moscow. They taste so fresh compared to the United States but unfortunately they spoil quickly so we constantly shop for fruits and vegetables. Luckily we have Abelas grocery store on the bottom floor of our high rise apartment building and they deliver your groceries to your flat after you shop. Mark that down in the "good" department.

That reminds me of something...addresses. We don't have a formal address here like 123 Sunnybrook Lane. It's very complicated here. When someone asks us where we live, our reply is, "The Abela building", meaning the building that the grocery store is in. It's pretty funny to fill out forms that ask for your address. Last year when we lived in our 7 bedroom villa, we needed to have some furniture delivered and this is how we listed our address, "Al Mushrif, behind the Abu Dhabi co-op, off 25th, villa #2 on 2nd street" and they still had to call to get directions...I can't imagine why. There isn't home delivery of mail, you need a PO Box and even then, mail delivery is very limited. Electric, water, cable, gas bills are all sent as a text message to your cell phone. Last year I had to mail a piece of paper here. It cost me just over $100 to Fed Ex one piece of paper. To mail it would have taken over 3 weeks. Needless to say, we keep all our mail in the states and have a neighbor collect it while we are out of town. Let's mark that down as a "bad".

Getting back to the good stuff in UAE, we have all the major food chains here that we have in the states, minus Chipotle, which is absolutely heart breaking!! We have McDonalds, Burger King, Popeyes Chicken, TGIFridays, Chilis, Dairy Queen, Subway, Fuddruckers, Cinnabon, Seattle's Best Coffee, Cold Stone Creamery, Dunkin Donuts, Krispy Kreme, Papa Johns Pizza, Dominos, and my personal all time favorite, Baskin Robbins. We even have a Baskin Robbins right on the boardwalk of the beach across the street from the house. Talk about Heaven!! What's even better is every single restaurant delivers to your home. You don't even have to leave the couch to enjoy a Chilis' burger!

Recognize this logo? It's what we would call "Churches Chicken" in the states but since they won't make reference to a church and "Mosque Chicken" doesn't have the same ring, they give it the next best name...Texas Chicken!! That's right, even in Abu Dhabi, they know that Texas is king! You don't see Deleware Donuts here or Nevada Nuggets, but you do see Texas Chicken!

Speaking of the United States, look what we found in True Value...an entire display of US flags. Not only that, but they carry the US Army, US Marine Corps, and POW flags. Now let me see, where is that display of UK flags, or Australian flags...I'm sure it's here somewhere...nope...just the good ol' United States of America!!

With the good we must take some bad, or in this case ugly, very, very ugly. Parking. Shudder. Parking and driving here in UAE is a nightmare. Parking spots are only limited by one's imagination. If you think your car will fit, it will fit. No parking spaces in the lot? Not to worry, you can park on the sidewalk, or the middle of the road, or behind someone else. Parking is only limited by your creativity. Have a look below, you'll see how close they'll pull in next to you. Good thing the car on the right is a hatchback. They park down the middle of the street here and if you notice below, you'll see the Abu Dhabi police car squeezing through. That's not a curb they are parked next to, that's the middle of the road. Oh and if you want to go to the park along the side of the road and there aren't any spaces, just park along the road, we'll all go around the car! Double and triple parking is the norm here. You simply leave your cell number on a piece of paper on your dashboard and the person who is blocked in will call your cell and ask you to get the he!! out of the way kindly move your car. Either that or the blocked-in driver lays on their horn continuously until the offender hears it and returns to move their car. It works over here.

Let me touch on driving and then I'm going to leave that subject because it's the one thing that makes my blood pressure go through the roof and literally have panic attacks over. The rule in Abu Dhabi driving is, there are no rules. Wait, I take that back, there is one rule, don't overstop at an intersection and have your wheels in the crosswalk. This is a major no-no. You can drive 40 miles over the posted speed limit, you can weave in and out of traffic, pass on the right hand shoulder, and flash your brights at emergency vehicles to make them get out of your way even if they are driving with their lights on, but do not, for the love of all things holy, stop in the crosswalk!

I've attached a handy "three by" illustration below to show the Abu Dhabi way of taking a left hand turn. Stay with me. You cannot turn left in the middle of the road like we do in the states. There are concrete curbs, see picture below my "three-by" illustration, that prevent you from crossing the road to go left, so everyone must do U turns at the next intersection, which backs up the left hand turn lane. And since no one in this town has a lick of patience to wait for the next light, one doesn't need to be in the left hand turn lane to turn left. If you want to go left, you go left, and it doesn't matter if you are in the outer right hand lane. Because the left hand turn lane is clogged with U turners, you can be in any of the next lanes and make your turn, just have your blinker on and your testosterone level on "high".

Let me break this down, let's say we are driver D below and need to go left. Don't worry about getting into that pesky turn lane, simply turn on your blinker and go for it no matter what lane you are in. It doesn't matter if driver C to the left of you is going straight, you are allowed to cut him off, honk, yell, (do NOT flip him the bird, you'll go to jail for that) and make your turn. Also, if driver B wants to make a U turn but doesn't want to wait in that long line, because let's face it, who would, you can go to the next lane and make your U turn from the lane that is supposed to go straight. Creating a classic "two-by U turn". Sometimes you get lucky and there are only two lanes turning left, creating a "two-by" but sometimes when the traffic is heavy, you'll see "three-bys" and "four-bys". Just keep an eye out and be ready for the upexpected. And have a valium ready, you'll need it.

The curbs here are really high. They eat car undercarriages and cheap strollers for breakfast. And there is no such thing as ramps on the curbs, this country has never heard of the American's With Disabilities Act. Yes that is a convertible Lamborghini, it's our weekend car, but I didn't want to brag.

Enough of the ugly, let's look at the good, really, really good. We took a tour of the Grand Mosque here in Abu Dhabi. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful! I put a lot more pictures on my photography website. There are mosques everywhere, literally on every street corner or block. They each have a large loud speaker on the outside of the building that they use to broadcast the "Call to Prayer". I'm not sure if that's the correct name for it, but it's what we call it. Allthough we call it something completely different when the loud speaker out front of our bedroom window goes off at 5:15 a.m. Artem gets excited when he hears the mosque cleric begin to sing, and let's us know it's time to go pray. It's hard to explain to a three year old that we pray at meal time or bedtime but don't go to the mosque to pray.

We went to Ski Dubai last weekend and I can't believe it took us almost two years to go. We had a BLAST despite the -4 C temperatures inside! Randy didn't do any skiing because of his knee problems from his accident in September but still managed to have a great time in the snow park. We threw snowballs at each other, made snow angels, and road the toboggans, sleds, and innertubes. It was a great day with the family!

Ever heard the phrase, "Spare the rod, spoil the child?" There are no rods here in Abu Dhabi!! There is little to no punishment for misbehavior, quite the opposite. Children are spoiled here. The Emirati's are all about family and have several children. Of course they have multiple nannies to care for the children, but that's a whole seperate topic. Anyway, when Randy goes to Starbucks for his coffee, they make Artem a "Baby Chino". It's steamed and frothed milk and sometimes they put a little caramel smiley face on top. Artem thinks he's so grown up, he calls it his coffee. On the subject of Starbucks, they are literally on every corner and in all the malls. You would think a country that has summer temperatures in the 120's wouldn't have such a love affair with coffee.

On the subject of children, Abu Dhabi has fantastic parks!! We have a HUGE park across the street from our house. It has several playgrounds that range from toddler size equipement to large climbing equipement for the older children, a spray park, basketball courts, a skate park, picnic tables, the list goes on. Even though we live downtown in a high rise, we can walk across the street and play at the park.

And the parks are very clean; yesterday they had the vacuum cleaner out, vacuuming the playground. I can't make this stuff up people!

We've met a lot of nice people at the park. I stalk anyone that speaks English and am not above introducing myself to a total stranger with an American accent. Last spring I met a woman from Istanbul Turkey. She doesn't speak a bit of English but her daughter Aliya (below left) and Artem would play together everyday on the playground and she and I would communicate by sign language and gestures. We would bring food and drinks to share with each other and would sit under the trees and feed the children and watch them play. It was only after several weeks that I found out she was the little girl's nanny, not her mother.

Anyway, Artem and I went home for the summer which turned into longer because of the accident and when we returned I didn't see Aliya and her nanny. One day last week I saw them in a distance and literally grabbed Artem's arm and went running to her, yelling at her through the park. She practically cried when she saw us and to my delight she had a friend with her from Turkey that speaks English and could translate for us. We've met each day at the park and today all the children came over to our house for a playdate and lunch. I am truly blessed to meet so many people from all around the world.

The beach in Abu Dhabi is definetly on the GOOD list here. The beach is directly across the street from our flat and has super soft white sand. Out a little bit in the water, there is a man made island that runs parallel to the beach called Lulu Island and it acts as a buffer for the waves coming in from the Persian Gulf. This keeps the beach area pretty gentle and easy to play in the water and swim. All along the beach there are shops and restaurants with a large covered area that houses several restaurants including a Cinnabon and Cold Stone Creamery. We walk over to the beach often and sit along the water enjoying coffee and cinnamon rolls. Yum!

And when you run out of beach here in UAE, you just make more! It's good to be Abu Dhabi with all that oil money! The picture below is the dredging equipement they are using to make a new beach. You'll have to click on the picture to see it, but they dredge the sand up from the ocean floor and blow it where they want the new beach to be made. (you can see Lulu island in the distance) I think the sign said this section is going to be for volleyball courts and sand soccer areas. Oh to have unlimited money!!!

Fireworks over the Persian Gulf...definetly on the GOOD list!!

For New Year's Eve we set up a table on our balcony that overlooks the Persian Gulf and invited our neighbors from Pakistan over to ring in the New Year at our home. We have neighbors from Pakistan, Japan, and Canada and it is humbling at times to talk to some of them about life in their country. As Americans, we have NO idea how well we have it; no idea. It's one of the things I love most about Abu Dhabi. This country has given me a gift, the gift to see beyond my troubles, my world, my life, and realize how truly blessed I am, and no matter what country we hail from, no matter what language we speak, we are all the same on the inside, all loved by someone, and all children of God.

Last but not least, my all time favorite thing about Abu Dhabi....bendy straws!! I'm serious as a heart attack. They serve them at all the restaurants. I love bendy straws and I turn into a big kid when I use them. Randy's bendy straw was kissing my bendy straw in this picture. It was love at first pop!!

And with that, I'll let you go and say goodnight!!