Dubai Creek Striders Half Marathon

Today we ran the Dubai Creek Striders Half Marathon. It was an absolutely glorious race with a fantastic route all along both sides of the Creek (including running through the textile souq, which was awesome and not something we will ever have another opportunity to do, given that it's always mobbed -- we were passing through at about 7:45am though). It was a perfect temperature too -- probably about 65-70 degrees. We hadn't been able to train as much as I would have liked (for a 13.1 mile run, it's hard to find places to go for long runs in a city that has very few sidewalks and is by no stretch of the imagination a 'walking' city), but we were both able to finish it in good times. Jared felt really good about halfway through and took off, so finished 8 minutes ahead of me in 1:47, and I finished in 1:55. The last half marathon I ran was in 2007 (the Boston BAA Half Marathon), and I finished that in 1:51, feeling like I was in much better shape than I am now. My goal was to finish in under two hours, so I was pleased. Then after the race, we had a free breakfast buffet with a full English breakfast (including pork!), that was included with the race. Just delightful! And by 9:45am we were on our way home. What a lovely way to start a Friday!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Our little Dubai Christmas tree... Quite similar to last year, but cute and we love it... Jared is getting so good at stringing popcorn and cranberries too!

More so than last year, everywhere you look in Dubai it is completely Christmas (with Christmas music even playing in stores...)! Not what you'd expect in a Muslim country.. They even had the most expensive Christmas tree in the world at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi (decorated with gold, diamond, and rubies... however, it was soon after removed due to extreme criticism for being in poor taste. Go figure.). Below are some of the decorations seen at the Dubai Mall.

Giant Gingerbread House at Brunetti Italian Patisserie. Quite cool actually.

The Dubai Mall Tree: 4 Floors of glowing fiber optic effervescence.

Life-size gingerbread house next to the tree, which was coincidentally also a stand where children could make their own gingerbread houses. For some reason I couldn't convince Jared to make one with me.

While some of the displays are completely tacky, the abundance of Christmas decorations in Dubai really did make it feel a little bit more like home... Even if it is still 75 degrees everyday... Oh well, you can't have it all.

Qatar 2022!

Congratulations to Qatar for winning the FIFA World Cup bid for 2022! We were delighted to hear the news this morning, despite how unpatriotic it might seem (sorry USA, you know how much we love you...). It will be tremendous for the World Cup to come to the Middle East for the first time, and may just be a good excuse to plan a return visit to Doha. They have a lot of work to do, but they have the money and infrastructure, so I'm sure they can do it and the 2022 World Cup will be a smashing success! Yea Qatar!

Happy 39th Birthday UAE!

December 2nd is National Day in the UAE (think the 4th of July, UAE-style). For us it is a day off work (woo!) and an excuse to BBQ in the middle of the day. For Emirati's, it is a day to display more national pride than I have ever seen shown by all other nationalities combined. And usually the method of expressing said extreme amounts of UAE pride is by decorating their vehicles in an over-the-top manner (because you know, it wouldn't be Emirati if it wasn't over-the-top) and then drag-racing down Beach Road for all the world to see... Oh, there is no where else quite like Dubai.

Nothing says "I love my country" like spray painting your car with your country's flag...


This display is a bit more tame, as it doesn't involve vandalizing your own car.

Hail, Father Zayed.

And, not unlike the 4th of July back home, there are, of course, fireworks. However, unlike fireworks displays (and safety regulations) back home, in Dubai, they show their pride by strapping fireworks to the world's tallest building. We were lucky enough to catch the show from our garden.

Pretty awesome, but not as grandiose as when the Burj opened (Jared tells me)...




Oh Dubai, you never cease to amaze.

Thanksgiving, Dubai-Style.

We are completely exhausted, but had a lovely Dubai Thanksgiving! [for the 3rd time in 4 years]. It gets better every year and we are getting more adept at being prepared and organized and less stressed. But it is still a toooon of work to host a dinner for 15 people... After cooking my own Thanksgiving dinner for the 3rd time, I can safely conclude that I like Thanksgiving the best when I am not running the show, but am a helpful guest. Oh well... hopefully next year...

Gobble Gobble! My Kindergarten sign greeted our guests.

The Turkey! (and the chefs)

Our 24 pound turkey. It barely fit into our oven (and the borrowed roasting pan we used also did not fit without being squeezed in), but in the end it came out well.

Jared indulging in his traditional turkey leg, Medieval Times-style. Clearly, not as appealing to me.

Group Photo.

Another group photo. Missing a few...

Beth and Angela [+ bump].

The dessert spread.

All-in-all it was a wonderful night, with the last guests not leaving until 3:30am. We will have enough left-overs to last the next two weeks (one of my students mother's also sent us a cooked stuffed turkey and vegetables. So completely generous and nice I could not believe it. Making the grand total about 40ish pounds of turkey in the house...). I think I can safely conclude that our 3rd Dubai Thanksgiving was a great success!

Happy Thanksgiving from Dubai!

Happy Turkey Day from the Desert! We are starting our day with a flag football game at my school (in true American fashion) and then will be cooking up a 24 pound turkey and hosting about 15 of our closet friends. Wish us luck on fitting the bird in our tiny oven and have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Report to follow!

Kindergarten Celebrations

Well, while I've been busy not blogging, my time has been fully occupied in K2. It seems the celebrations have been one after the other for the last month, and so I wanted to share some of what I've been up to at school...

The most recent celebration was for the Muslim holiday last week, Eid al Adha. It's probably the biggest Muslim holiday of the year (think the Christmas of Islam), so the kids had the whole week off, and I had a 5 day weekend (only having to work two days... quite nice actually). The Thursday before break we had two Mom's from the class come in and present Eid. The kids learned about Muslim prayers, the Hajj, and the Festival of Sacrifice. Interesting and informative for all, and I got to take home lots of Arabic sweets, so what could be better?

The week before Eid was the Hindu Festival of Lights, Diwali. A Mom also came in to present that, and the kids had a great time learning all about it and doing some fun crafts and activities...

Diwali Table Centerpiece. The fresh flowers made our whole classroom smell amazing, and reminded me a lot of a Hawaiian lei.

Diwali chalk Rangolis, a traditional decoration for the festival. And the kids had fun making them on the sidewalk.

Then after all the activities and crafts were done, the Mom who came in demonstrated the Hindu blessings that are bestowed on Diwali. First she moved the incense around my head three times, then marked my forehead with a dab of saffron water and rice, threw rice over my head, and had me eat an Indian sweet.

Finally, I got a flower garland tied on my wrist. It was a really fun and interesting experience.

And the week before Diwali was, of course, Halloween. I wasn't feeling very inspired on the costume front, so took the easy way out and wore the jack-o-lantern costume that I found in the storage room at school...

And so did my teacher...

The Halloween party consisted of a parade with all the K2's (which totally brought me back to the Halloween Parades we used to have at my elementary school growing up), a couple of crafts, and then capped off with a game of "Mummify Your Teachers"...

So the kids all took turns wrapping me and my teacher up in toilet paper as fast as they could. And because our kids are all 5 and couldn't really reach our shoulders and heads, the Mom's helped finish the job.

And some got a little carried away.

The finished product. The kids thought it was absolutely hilarious.

I love K2. Now we are gearing up for yet another celebration next week for Thanksgiving. The fun just never stops in Kindergarten.