A-Town Count Down

Wooo-hooo! We’re heading to Hotlanta in October. A great month for beautiful fall weather and what we seem to miss the most- football!! We arrive on Saturday October 4th, after spending a couple of nights with our good friend Mark in Amsterdam. I’m hopeful that we can push through the jet lag to meet up somewhere like Stats to watch whatever games are on. Just the sound of the whistle and sports commentary in English will be a welcomed change. (I’ll do my Arabic impersonations of the US Olympic basketball game commentary later.) On another note- my hard drive is dead so my computer access and therefore blogging abilities are very limited now. The good news is, I can catch you up in person! Can’t wait to see all of you and meet some of the new additions to your families! Go Gators!

Wifestyles of the Rich and Famous

I know, I know. Everybody wants to know what I do all day. Well, its not just me. There are hundreds of us "wives". Some older, some young. Some married for many years and whatever job their husbands took is part of their retirement plan while others are trying to jump start their careers. Then there's the group that is smack in the middle and just trying to shake things up a bit. Whatever the circumstances, we are all here because of our husbands. Many who are engineers, construction managers or business men working for oil companies. So what is it that we do all day? Judging from my own experience and the information that I've gathered...We wake up. Read the paper. Do the Sudoku puzzle. We blog and keep in touch with our friends and families. Do the laundry and find homes and decorate them. On Tuesdays and/or Wednesdays we meet for "coffee mornings" at ten. We pay 25 dirhams to get together with the larger group. We welcome the new wives and sympathize on what they must be feeling. We have lots of advice for them and can answer questions such as, where do I get my nails done? What grocery store do you like? Have you found a good sushi place? And the big one, do you know of any open apartments? There is a huge shortage here due to the growing population of foreigners. We exchange phone numbers with people that we like or those who seem especially resourceful. I like her a lot plus she speaks Arabic. We get personal right away. Like when I asked, "Have you found an OBGYN here? I think I might be pregnant." The women in charge of the coffee mornings share their various announcements. I heard about Ramadan rules for the upcoming month, who needs to sell what, and even some job opportunities. We also get information about upcoming excursions. This is how I got to see the Grand Mosque with a tour guide and plan a weekend getaway to Jebel Dhanna and Sir Bani Yas Island with a small group. I even landed a free defensive driving course in the Dubai Autodrome. After we mingle for a bit, we have lunch with our core group of friends. These are the women I get together with the rest of the week. We talk about what we are making for dinner and try each other's recipes. We grocery shop together and tell each other when we find something unusual. (I shared when Michael found grits at the Lulu Hypermarket in Khalidiyah) We exchange books and DVDs. These are my girls. Apart form my family, they were the first to know I am expecting. They've driven me to my doctor's appointments and hugged me when Sherlock was put down. The first time Pattie, Gina, Mel, Patty and I lunched together, we talked about our B.A.D. lives (Before Abu Dhabi). I heard about their careers and families and shared with them how I am a National Board Certified teacher with nice job lined up before we came here. Mel used to travel the world opening up call centers and Patty worked for the same company for 20 years. You can imagine the bonding. The importance of having others know of all the things we did or accomplished before taking on the sole role of wife. Sharing just how it was that we all came to the decision to leave the United States to come to the United Arab Emirates. We are all American and until I came here, I don't think I realized just how American I really am. The majority of the women here are from the U.K. and for some reason they kinda stick together and we do too. Of course there are exceptions, but I had never stopped to think about the cultural differences between Americans and Brits. Some of us get pregnant. Some of us get jobs and some are still trying for either. Not everyone is here for the same amount of time. Gina left after 90 days and I teared up. We made promises to meet again either here or there. Two days before that, Suzy came back, and that's just how it goes. We introduce our husbands and hope they get along as well as we do. They discuss their experiences in the office and the pressures to meet the somewhat unattainable demands of the client. We all have a good laugh, sharing our recent experiences with locals or taxi drivers, feeling glad to have found each other here.