More Meetings + Some Fun

So for the past few days, things have been pretty much the same: Wake up early, go to meetings all day, then find something fun to do in the evenings.

Yesterday, about 6 of us went to the Marina mall after meetings, where we spent about 3 hours at Ikea. I got most of the kitchen/household items I've been missing, but mostly just had fun goofing around with all of the weird and interesting stuff they have there. After that, the guys and I hit up the gym to get (more) buff.

For dinner, we went to an Indian restaurant, where I felt adventurous and tried some squid and biyirani rice. I was expecting something pretty exotic, so when the squid came out pretty much whole, I wasn't really that surprised. It was pretty spicy and pretty delicious.

After that, we headed over to Chi Chi's to grab a much deserved margarita. We ended up staying there until 1 in the morning sharing stories.

This morning, 7:30 came awfully early but I managed to stay nice and chipper through all of my meetings. Go me.

After meetings, we headed to the mall to go . . . where else, Ikea! I didn't really need anything but it was fun to just chill out in the nice air-conditioned mall. We also ended up going to a place called Carrefour (pretty much like Wal-mart). I got some laundry detergent so I can actually clean my clothes, and Jeff and I got a football to throw around when we go to the beach.

Speaking of which . . . Jeff, Erin, and I went to the beach this evening. We felt like we had worn out our welcome at the Meridien hotel for a while, so we decided to sneak into the Beach Rotana, a five-star hotel near the mall. This place is ridiculously nice on the inside, and also pretty nice on the beach side too. They had 2 swimming pools, one with palm trees coming out of it. Pretty cool.

We swam around for a bit in the pools, then we went to the beach where Jeff and I played some good old-fashioned catch with the football. Then we went back to the pools to watch the sunset.

Afterward, we went to the mall to grab dinner in the food court. I had my first Abu Dhabi McDonalds experience, at which I tried the McArabia sandwich. It was basically a slice of flatbread with some lettuce, tomato, and 2 beef (well, "beef") patties on it.

Tonight, the 2nd wave of teachers arrived at the hotel so we felt like it would be nice for them to have some of us who have been here a week to greet them (in English) and help them get their suitcases up to their rooms, things we wish we would've had when we first got here.

After that, Jeff, Andrew, Erin, and Kate came up to my place to get our Wii on. We played about 6 games of Wii tennis before we all decided it was time to get some rest.

Tommorow is our last day of meetings with everybody, and from here on out any meetings I have will be at my school at the southeast end of town with just the other people who will be working there. I'm not sure how many people will be at my school, but I know that Andrew will actually be teaching there with me so that should be fun.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt