Long Time Gone!!!

Well, so much for blogging about our summer vacations.  Since June 1, I have had new employees starting every month.  I had 5 start June 1, another 2 on July 1, August 1 and September 1.  It's like having new babies EVERY MONTH!!!  We start the process all over of teaching them the rules, training them on systems and bringing them into our work "family".  It's exhausting and fun at the same time!  We have been training on the systems and processes all summer and we're all anxious to start the real work!!  BRING IT ON!!!

                Back to summer vacations.  We did go on a fabulous cruise in July out of Barcelona that headed to Monte Carlo, Rome, Pisa, Pompeii, Sorrento and Sicily.  AMAZING!!!  Just some brief interesting things we saw:

Barcelona:

·         When we arrived in Barcelona it was like a breath of fresh air hearing a familiar foreign language that we could actually speak!!!  I LOVED speaking Spanish there!

·         In Barcelona among all the historical buildings, Mitchell was enthralled with the....GRAFITTI!!!  Really!  There was graffiti everywhere and he seemed to like looking at that more than the old buildings.

·         In addition to little cars and double decker busses, there were also TONS of Vespa's everywhere.  We saw many women driving around on Vespa's with skirts, flip flops, high heels.  Pretty much anything goes.

·         It was tough adjusting to paying for everything in Euro as opposed to Durham.  We went to a Tapas (no...not topless) restaurant one night along Las Ramblas (a very famous and busy street in Barcelona) and got absolutely robbed when we realized our dinner was $160 euro!!!  For basically drinks and some plates of hot appetizers.  That's about $200!!!  Yikes!  Another afternoon after a long day of touring and walking we stopped along Las Ramblas for drinks.  We spent 30 Euro ($40!!) for one beer, one sprite and one sangria!!!  It was almost worth it to be able to sit down and people watch.  Actually while we were relaxing there, we were able to watch a street performer (a guy who dressed up like a bronze cowboy statue) get ready for "work" and put his outfit and makeup on.  It was a pretty cool experience.

Monte Carlo:

·         Such a small country that we couldn't find a taxi ANYWHERE so we walked all around the city.

·         Around where all the famous casinos were, we saw 7 Ferrari's cruising and 3 of the 7 had Dubai plates!

Rome:

·         Too much history to even list it all...The Coliseum, St. Peter's Basilica, Trevi Fountain and more!

·         We went to a great Italian restaurant with the most delicious tiramisu!!  I have never really liked tiramisu but I tried it there and WOW!!!  I said I would never eat it again because it would never be as good!

Pompeii/Sorrento:

·         We went to a Cameo factory in Pompeii and saw an 80 year old man making a Cameo by hand.  They use conch shells to carve the Cameo's.  He had been making Cameos since he was 10...70 YEARS!!!

·         They make a lot of Lemoncello in Pompeii and it is made with lemon rinds.  They grew lemons there that were as big if not bigger than grapefruits!

Out of all the excursions and sightseeing we did on the cruise, I think Mitchell's favorite thing was going to the Carnival Kids Club!!!  CRAZY!

I had about 11 days in Dubai during Ramadan the beginning of August...this is where the Muslims fast from all food, water, basically they can't put anything in their mouth from sun up to sun down.  The only Muslims exempt from the month-long fast are people who are 1) really old, 2) young children 3) insane, 4) pregnant or 5) menstruating.  I heard on the radio that Muslim leaders got together and decided that it was OK for people to wear nicotine patches during Ramadan but people could not use nose or ear drops because they all end up in their stomach!!  People are not even supposed to swallow their own SPIT!  I had some guys working for me who were constantly using tissues to spit into.  YUCK!!!  During Ramadan, all public restaurants are closed during daylight hours.  Mall food courts were closed.  Most restaurants would deliver all day long.   No restaurants would open until evening call to prayer, which I started calling (very disrespectfully) "the dinner bell".  We would be at the mall in the evening wanting to go to dinner and no restaurants would start serving or even taking orders until the music sounded that it was "call to prayer."  It was a little more relaxed where I work in the Free Zone because our food court was actually open with people eating there in public.  Quite interesting!

In August Chad & Mitchell went to Washington DC for a few days on their way back to Houston.  Chad started up his business again while he was home.  I met them in Houston for a whirlwind week of visiting friends and family....Chad's dad's 70th birthday party, Chad's 20th high school reunion and lots of other running around and shopping. 

After that we headed to Walt Disney World in Florida for a week.  We met my parents there for the week and my aunt Barb even came to visit us for 4 days.  We had a BLAST (or should I say "A Magical Time!")  We stayed in a Pirate room where the beds looked like ships, the carpet looked like wooden deck boards, the dressers looked like crates and our refrigerator was inside a wooden barrel!  We wore ourselves out walking all over the parks, seeing the shows and riding the rides.  Mitchell actually got picked to go on stage and help during a bird show at Animal Kingdom.  I will say that Mitchell is a complete dare devil and LOVED all the rides...the faster and crazier the better!!!

One of the highlights of the trip for Mitchell was going on two different pirate adventures.  During one they went out on a pirate ship and looked for buried treasure.  The other was at Magic Kingdom and he was made up to look like Captain Jack Sparrow!  We paid for the costume (he may be a pirate for the next 5 Halloweens for what it cost us!)  They had make-up artists do his face up like a pirate, scars, a black-eye and all!  After he was looking like a true pirate, they had him take the pirate oath!  That same afternoon, they gathered all the kids who participated in the "adventure" and had a small parade and got "pirate lessons."  It was really cute!

We got back to Dubai via a 27 hour trip from Orlando to Washington DC to Zurich!  Luckily we arrived on Wednesday August 31 and had a long weekend before I had to return to work on September 4th and Mitchell started school on September 5th.  Whew!  We needed the rest!

Since we've been back we've been getting into a routine again.  Mitchell started Cub Scouts and is having a blast.  Mitchell's teacher is GREAT!!!  Very observant and consistent with discipline...just what he needs!

I'm still "studying" the city and its differences/idiosyncrasies. 

·         I am a greeter at our church and we have navy golf shirts that really only look good with light colored pants or jeans.  The Friday after Labor Day I was getting ready for church and went to wear my white Capri pants with my greeter shirt.  I asked Chad if it was OK to wear white after Labor Day in Dubai....His reply "Go to any mall and look around!!!"  There are ALWAYS men wearing their white dishdasha!!  When I got to church, two other ladies were wearing white pants with their navy shirts!  Whew...no fashion faux pas here!

·         A man I work with bought a new Lexus and after a few weeks I noticed he still had the plastic wrapping on all the head rests.  Me, being the nosy (I prefer inquisitive) person I am, asked him why (since I have noticed a lot of people do that here.)  His reply...he was too busy to remove them.  WHATEVER!!!  I KNOW there's got to be a better story than THAT!

·         For over a month there was a leaking pipe in our parking garage.  Instead of fixing the leak, building "maintenance" put a bucket under the dripping pipe that was too small to hold all the water that would leak each day.  Every morning I would go into the lake AKA parking garage and see guys using a squeegee to push the water into the drain.  I guess plumbers are more expensive than laborers!

·         On a similar subject, when I was driving down the ramp in our apartment parking garage one day, I saw a guy CLEANING THE WALLS of the ramps.  Yes!  Seriously!!!  Priorities here are JACKED UP!!!

·         Our Cable TV and home phone went out on Sunday, October 2nd.  We called that evening to our service provider and they told us someone would call us within 48 hours to schedule repairs.  Four days later I missed a call on my cell phone while I was in a meeting.  I called them back, only to be told that since I didn't answer, my service ticket had been cancelled BUT, I was more than willing to file a new service ticket and someone would call me within 48 hours!!!  SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!  I went crazy on the poor customer service person.  They kept telling me the problem was fixed and all I had to do was to turn off the MAIN POWER SWITCH to our apartment for a few seconds and everything would be reset and working properly.  After doing that 3 different times (yes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results)...I insisted that they send someone out!  They finally did on Sunday, October 9th and all is well.  It really is exhausting getting anything resembling repair work done around here!