An Eventful Weekend

This weekend is surely one I won't forget anytime soon. First, I had my 1/2 marathon in Dubai on Saturday morning. In order to do this, I had to get up at 4am to eat a quick breakfast and speed my way to Dubai for a 7am start. My race started off great, but I slowed down quite a bit toward the end and I was pretty disappointed with my overall finish. But I have to say that the course was very scenic and is definitely one I'll do again next year. Plus, after the race, I got a free massage so that helped me forget about my race a bit too.

On the way back from Dubai, all I could think about was the nice little nap I was going to take when I got home. However, right as I was pulling in, I got a call from Jeff and we decided that we should host a BBQ that afternoon. So, instead of sleeping, I ran in, took a quick shower, and then we were off to buy food and charcoal for my grill. When we got back, I pretty much had to go straight up to the roof to start the grill.

As the chicken kabobs were cooking, all I could think about was how I was going to go to bed at like 7:00 that night because I was feeling so tired. However, when my friend Hector came up to the roof, he had 3 extra tickets to the FIFA Club World Cup quarterfinal match and invited Jeff, Danielle, and me to go. It sounded like a lot of fun, so I figured I would rough it out and then go to bed when I got home.

The soccer game was a lot of fun. It was between club teams from Korea and Congo, and not only was it a close game, but the fans were going pretty crazy the whole time (especially the Congolese fans, who had a little band there and they were playing music and dancing literally non-stop the entire time). Even cooler was the fact that we got our FIRST RAIN since I've been in Abu Dhabi. I had heard there was a chance of rain that night, but I had no idea that it would rain so hard! We were all soaked through our clothes, but we didn't care because we were just so excited that something different was happening with the weather.

Feeling recharged after the game, we all decided to go to our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Al Nasr Grill, to grab some food. During dinner, we started talking about our favorite Disney movies and we decided that we had to go back and watch Aladin after dinner. By the time we got back, got changed, and watched a bunch of random video clips on YouTube first, it was already well past midnight. We decided to watch the movie anyway, and it was close to 3am by the time I went to bed.

The next day (Saturday), it was still raining and since Abu Dhabi has basically no drainage system (it would cost more than it is worth since it only rains a handful of times a year here), all the streets were partially flooded. It was not that bad to drive in, but kind of funny to watch all the local drivers (who normally throw caution to the wind when they drive) be so overly careful on the wet streets. It reminded me of what I probably looked like the first time I drove in the snow. Anyway, I went to the post office to pick up a package and deliver some more of my own. What would normally be a 5-minute ordeal back home ended up taking me well over an hour because . . . well, it's Abu Dhabi. But I didn't care because I was just relieved to get that all taken care of.

Finally, Saturday evening, Andrew and I went to return our old car and get a new one! Our 3 month lease was up and we decided that we wanted to go with a different company, so we dropped off the Chevy Optra and then picked up our new 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer. The Lancer looks pretty nice and still has the new car smell to it, and it only has about 3000 km (about 1500 miles on it). We're probably going to break her in by taking her camping down south this weekend.

To make a long story short, I had a good weekend!

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt