World Cup Fever!

At the Irish Village after the US vs. England tie, sporting our new shirts.

World Cup Fever has struck Dubai and there is absolutely no escaping it. I'm sure if we were home we wouldn't be remotely interested in the World Cup, but in Dubai, where everyone is completely obsessed with soccer (or 'footie', not that I could ever call soccer 'football' being a good red-blooded American), we (or should I say Jared) has become a complete fanatic. Since the World Cup has never been a huge deal back home, I really didn't know what I was in store for being in Dubai for it. The excitement in the air is palpable and like the week leading up to the Super Bowl back home, the World Cup is all you see and hear about on the radio and tv. Kiosks selling World Cup apparel have popped up everywhere and billboard advertisements are all plastered with World Cup propaganda. It's a really fun atmosphere and unlike big sports events back home that last only a week or so at the most (for 7 game championship series', etc.), the World Cup is a month-long event with games everyday and endless opportunities and locations to watch.

However, since the population of Americans in Dubai is extremely small (under 2,000), there isn't an abundance of paraphernalia being sold to support our team. We were only able to find one t-shirt and 1 huge jersey, so instead, decided to make our own World Cup shirts at the T-Shirt Factory kiosk in the mall. We've been watching the HBO John Adams mini-series and in honor of the first US Game vs. England we wanted our shirts to reflect the 'revolutionary' spirit. We did some googling around and came up with a great design that incorporated the Gadsden Flag's "Don't Tread On Me"... Apropos I think...

Jared pumped up in his new shirt before the US vs. England Game. USA USA!

Since the soccer fan base here is big, there are tons of venues to watch the games. Most of the big bars have erected giant air-conditioned stadiums for viewing with tons of giant tvs and cheap (for Dubai) buckets of beer. And since the population of Dubai is so international and diverse, you can pretty much guarantee watching all the games with people actually from the different countries and with an actual vested interest in the game. Quite fun. Even the Dubai Mall Ice Rink has set up an area with bean bags (oh Dubai, and your love affair with bean bags) in the middle to watch the games on the big screen. Hopefully we'll catch a game there at some point. There are certainly enough games to choose from.

Trying to capture the essence of JBH and the excessive British fans. A very fun atmosphere to watch a game...

Our favorite venue, however, is the Jumeirah Beach Hotel (JBH) which has turned their conference center into a viewing arena. It has white leather couches for comfortable viewing, and probably about 50 tv screens of various sizes. It holds 800 people and gets completely packed for big games. Last night we went for the big Germany vs. England knock-out game, and since there are about a million Brit's here, JBH was packed to the brim, with a lines of hundreds of people outside waiting to get in once capacity had been reached. Luckily, I went early with my German and English friends when they opened the doors two and a half hours before the game started, so we were able to secure great seats on the leather couches. And I have to admit, since English fans are pretty obnoxious it was pretty fun watching England get completely killed by Germany (4-1, ouch), in the presence of so many Brit's. Although, I did feel pretty bad for my friend Elizabeth (below) who is a die hard English fan.... Oh well, on to the quarter-finals and with the US out, there's no stress (Jared was a whole lot of fun to watch the US games with, crazy stressed, flipping out and swearing at the non-American supporters) so it's just fun and games for us now... Quite unexpectedly, I love the World Cup!

Elizabeth in her English swag (before the defeat, of course).

Rivington Grill

In keeping with the theme of finally catching up with friends after all the craziness of the last month, we had wonderful dinner out on Tuesday night with my good friend Angela. Angela's husband Derek is the new chef at the Rivington Grill in Souk Al Bahar and so we had been excited to go try it now that he's there (he helped open another restaurant called Caramel in the DIFC a couple months ago, which has amazing food, so we couldn't wait to see what he's been able to do at Rivington).

It is wonderful having a chef for a friend, and the food was absolutely amazing. Probably top three meals we've had in Dubai. The menu is mostly comprised of English pub fare and comfort food, and the drink menu was one of the best we've seen in Dubai. Unlike everywhere else that just has the boring standards for beer (Heineken, Foster's, Stella), Rivington had smaller English micro-brews and even an IPA. Jared was delighted. And, quite unexpectedly, Derek comped all the food and told us to order whatever we wanted. So Jared and I started by splitting Seared Scallops in an herb butter sauce and Steak Tartare (with yummy frites). Then I had a special -- the Steak and Ale Pie (I've become quite obsessed with steak pie as of late. It's a very British dish that I got turned onto at the Jebel Ali Club. Steak cooked in a delicious broth covered in puff pastry. What could be better?). Jared had the Sirloin Steak (cooked to perfection, with Bearnaise Sauce and Hand Cut Fries). For dessert we both had the amazing Sticky Toffee Pudding. All so good and we can't wait to go back and try it again!

Catching Up (finally)

Camel Sugar Cookies, using Jayne's Secret Plugra recipe + the new camel cookie cutter my Mom sent me. :) Now I have time to bake!

Well, now that school has been out for almost two weeks, I am back into my quieter routine of tutoring part-time at Sylvan and working out regularly (I LOVE swimming, not sure why I never got into it before, but it's probably the best exercise option ever when you have easy access to a chilled pool and it's 110 degrees everyday. And I am actually quite proud of myself. I am up to swimming for 45 minutes 3-4 days a week on top of my other cardio.). So nice to finally have time on my hands again. And since my blog has been pretty far behind for awhile, I thought I would do a little catch-up with all the things we've been up to in the last month or so, that aren't hosting guests and moving libraries.

In the last two weeks, we've been (or should I say Jared has been) completely consumed with World Cup Fever. So much so, that I will definitely be doing a whole post on it. Since the summer heat has truly set in (highs of up to 110 degrees almost everyday, and very high humidity a lot of the time), watching the World Cup is actually a great (and time consuming) indoor activity. Most of the big bars have set up giant air-conditioned indoor stadiums with huge screens, bar food, and buckets of beer for endless hours of viewing. Quite enjoyable.

We have also been taking the time to catch up with friends who we haven't seen in awhile, due to being so busy hosting and working (Jared and I were both very tied up with work for the last two months of the school year, both of us working a lot of 12-hour days). We went to a cards and fondue party at our friends Melissa and Dom's a couple weeks ago (Dom is German and made delicious Swiss Fondue. Probably the best cheese fondue I've ever had. Yum.). We have also become regulars at a Trivia (they call it a "Quiz") Night at a restaurant/bar called the Jebel Ali Club with my tutor friends, going pretty much every week for the month before World Cup started. The Jebel Ali Club is a fun place with super cheap food and drinks and reminds me of a 1970's US gentleman's club. The furniture is very retro, the smoke clouds are super thick (Smoking is still allowed inside bars here. Probably one of my least favorite things about Dubai. Yuck.), and groups of older men are always gathered drinking for hours on end. To me it feels like the kind of place that should have Keno and darts. We absolutely love it! Since we've been going with my tutor friends, our team name was the "Tutor Posse" (which was later trans-mutated into "Totem Possum" by a drunken and might I add crass replacement Trivia man). We actually do pretty well though, but have never been able come in the top 3rd and keep getting 4th place by 2 points!

And if you know us at all, you know that food is our next priority after friends. So since food is such an important part of our lives, we've actually been pretty good about keeping our New Years Resolution of cooking a new recipe or trying a new food every week. It's not difficult to continuously try new foods here, since this is such an international place, and exotic ingredients and spices are relatively easy to find. Some of our experiments have included: Homemade Pad Thai from scratch -- very yummy but some of the ingredients that go in are kind of nasty and/or questionable (fish sauce and tamarind paste). Various Beef and Chicken Stir-fries. And a new variation on Shepherd's Pie (you mash the carrots, otherwise much the same as a normal Shepherd's Pie, but I think this one was better). I've also been baking up a storm since school ended. I've made sugar cookies (using Jayne's amazing recipe... no Plugra here, but Lurpak Danish butter gives it the same rich and buttery taste), Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, Cranberry-Oat Scones (out of my Boston cookbook!), and most recently Apple Crisp in support of the US Soccer team (I didn't feel like making homemade pie crust so avoided apple pie, and apple crisp seemed like the next most American dessert I could think of).

So, we've pretty much just been exercising, cooking/baking, catching up with friends, and watching TONS of soccer. That really sums up our last month or so. Fun and relaxing before we begin planning our summer travels (looks like it's going to be London, then Paris, then home. Very excited, but still not finalized). Seems like there will be lots of summer fun to look forward to!

End of School aka Moving a Library..

Today was the last day of school! Thank god! Don't get me wrong, I have loved working at ASD and am so excited to be going back in the fall (and I am actually moving into a Kindergarten classroom! Not as a teacher, unfortunately, but with a really wonderful teacher as her aid or 'classroom paraprofessional' as they are called here). However, the last two weeks have been pretty hellacious. The school will be moving to a new campus next year (a brand new, currently under construction state-of-the-art campus which is supposed to be amazing), so, the last two weeks have been preparing the school for the move. AKA, packing! I am quite the experienced mover, having moved 8 times in the last 5 years. And I am not afraid to get sweaty and move heavy boxes, even to my own health detriment (physical and mental -- moving with Jared always results in sprained ankles and near break-ups with lots of screaming and swearing to the point of domestic disturbance... Suffice to say, next time, movers will be hired, but I digress.)... However, packing a 25,000 volume library is a little different than moving my 1 bedroom apartment. When I accepted the job to work in the library a couple months ago, I'm pretty sure "helping pack hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books" was not in the job description. Oh well. The whole experience put in perspective my own moves, and also reminded me that I don't want anything to do with moving again for as long as possible (read, we will be staying in our current apartment in Dubai for as long as we are in Dubai, no exceptions). Because the whole packing and moving the ASD Elementary Library experience consumed such a large portion of my mind and time, I feel that I need to share some photos so you can get an idea of how much fun it was...

The mountain of boxes waiting to be packed... Let the fun begin!

Me, Natasha (the librarian), Mara, and Santha (the other aids).

We can't take all the credit for the packing, however, as we did have the help of professional movers for three days, who actually packed all the books. This was a huge help, although, with the exception of the supervisors, none of the movers spoke any English. And packing books in a library is actually a pretty big deal because in order to make the unpacking part not a total nightmare, the books needs to be packed by section, in order. Slight problem when the person packing them does not speak English or have a clue what the Dewey Decimal System is. So, each of us was working side-by-side with one of the movers the whole time. I got to know my moving buddy (a very quiet Indian man) quite well by the end of our 3 days working 1 foot away from each other.

The "everything else" that we had to pack...

And the pros only packed the books. We had to pack everything else in the library, which does not seem like a ton, but it actually is, and includes really annoying things to pack like globes and hundreds of posters. Lots of fun. Oh, and everything had to be labeled with special specific codes so that it will end up in the right place. When we started I seriously never thought we would get it all done.

Climbing on our mountain before saying good-bye.

Well, somehow we did manage to get everything done. I was truly shocked. Something like 500 boxes of books (properly color-coded, numbered, and labeled) and probably another 75 or so of just other library 'stuff'. I think I am grateful to not be working in the library next year so I don't have to be on the receiving end of all those boxes. I will really missing working with the lovely ladies I worked with in the library though. All so nice and such a great team together. It was sad to say goodbye for the summer (Natasha was headed to Scotland and the US, Mara was headed to Latvia, and Santha was headed to India), but I will look forward to seeing them all again in September at the new campus. And now that school is out, I will finally have time to get everything else caught up, so, although I will be sweating it out in Dubai, I will relish having down time. But first, I think I need to get a massage after all that lifting...

New In Town

Probably the most prominent establishments in Dubai are the malls. I haven't verified this statistic, but I would be willing to bet that there are more malls in Dubai per capita than anywhere else in the world. And unlike anywhere else I've ever been, the malls are a tourist attraction. New ones seem to continuously pop up all the time, all trying to outdo or 1-up the last. The new Mirdif City Centre Mall is no exception. I won't say it's better than the Dubai Mall (I am loyal to 'our' mall... it is, after all, like my second home here), but it's a pretty damn good mall. It's been open for a couple months, but we went for the first time on Saturday. I was sufficiently impressed that I had to take some photos.

Completely over the top interior designs. Dubai has the nicest malls in the world, so after going to pretty much any mall here, all malls back home look, well, shabby. Even the new ones that try to be really nice, like the Natick Collection, still look boring and drab in comparison. The malls are one thing I will definitely miss when we move home. They are like little cities unto themselves.

The Food Court. Forget cafeteria style dining. Eat your McDonald's while feeling as if you are in a fine dining establishment. I guess it might take away some of the shame...

Indoor Sky Diving. Check. In case you need a little adrenaline rush to break up your day of shopping. I am actually dying to try this...

Indoor Soccer Arena. Check. I actually think this is a fabulous idea. My mom always hated going to mine and my brother's indoor soccer games when we were kids. They were early in the morning and we played at a gross, smelly field house in the middle of no where. Here, moms can drop their kids to play soccer for a couple hours and go off and drink cappuccino's while shopping for their designer clothes. What could be better?

Also, why not throw in a Bowling Alley for a sense of completeness (which is coincidentally located in the whole 'kids fun area' pseudo indoor amusement park with games and rides including an indoor roller coaster). Personally I just enjoyed the fusion of Arab to Western cultures going on here. "Yalla! Bowling" Yalla is an Arabic word that means "go." Love love love it!

Then to cap off our Mirdif City Centre experience, Jared and I were ecstatic that it has a P.F. Chang's. We love P.F. Chang's but never went all that often in Boston because a) it was on the expensive side (for Chinese food), and b) there are millions of delicious [American] Chinese restaurants to choose from, and we always tended toward our fav. dirty Chinese delivery "New Hong Kong." Well, fake Chinese food is one thing seriously lacking in Dubai. We haven't found a single decent place and I haven't had a crab rangoon in going on 10 months. That's a big problem for me, so P.F. Chang's will definitely fill that void. The food was just like home, and the American staff was still there training the Dubai staff, so the music playing was all 90's rock off one of the American's ipods. Truly delightful! We'll definitely be going back, probably sooner rather than later.