What a year it has been...

As I sit here on New Years Eve (avoiding packing to go back to Abu Dhabi after 2 wonderful weeks at home), I just want to use this post to reflect on this crazy, exciting, and unexpected year.

When I first started thinking about all that has happened this year, I actually felt like it all went by so fast!  Don't get my wrong... time has flown by... but there has also been so much that has gone on this year.

Almost exactly a year ago, I had just got approved to BUY a house. Yes, a house. Well, technically a town house... but almost the same thing. I started the year with a tight budget and a Pinterest board full of ideas for decorating and furnishing a house. I was supposed to close on the house in early February...but clearly there were other plans for me. My closing got pushed back and then one night at dinner with my family, I checked my e-mail and saw an e-mail from Teach Away about a prospective job in Abu Dhabi. Everything happened so quick and next thing I knew, I had accepted a job teaching in Abu Dhabi and cancelled the closing of my house - all within about 2 weeks. Things really do happen for a reason. Now, my Pinterest board is filled with all the places I want to travel during these two years and the rest of my life.

Fast forward a few months (after hours of preparing documents for teaching abroad) and it was finally time for my summer trip. I had been saving up for months (long before deciding I would move across the world) for my first trip to Europe. I have always wanted to learn Spanish but took Latin in school. I found a great immersion program and had 6 weeks planned in Barcelona and Valencia to learn the language and soak up the culture (and sun on those great beaches!) The trip ended with a wonderful visit from Will where we spent almost 2 weeks in Valencia and Paris. 

When I got back, it was time to fully accept the fact that I was moving across the world in just a couple of weeks. After lots of shopping, packing, and tear-filled goodbyes, I was on the plane headed across the world. Let me just say that 14-hour flights are pretty rough, but I was so excited and nervous that it went by quickly (sleeping for 6 hours of it helped a little, too). 

Fast forward again. The weeks went by and I started to settle in to my new "home". It still doesn't quite feel like a home but I'm thinking an Ikea trip in the near future will help that situation a lot. All the pictures I printed that I'm bringing back with me will help too. In just 4 months abroad, I have started a new job, met tons of new friends, explored the new city I live in, gone on a desert safari and rode a camel, experienced traditional celebrations, seen a UAE National Day event, attended the Formula 1 race and a Jay-Z concert, saw my first sandstorm, and traveled to Thailand, China (kind of), and London.

So yes, this year has gone by very fast! I am so blessed to have all these amazing experiences and to have family and friends supporting me the entire time. I am so thankful to have made such great friends over in Abu Dhabi to make this transition easier and to give me something to look forward to all the time. It will be hard to say goodbye to my family and dogs again, but there is so much in store for me in 2014 and I can't wait to embrace it all. 

In the spirit of New Years Eve, I just want to share a few of my resolutions. I'm normally not one for these but it doesn't hurt to try something new!

Live healthy and be more active
See more of the world each chance I get
Be open to adventure and new experiences
Follow my heart

I know I've promised a blog post on the desert safari... and I also have one I'm working on about London! I guess I know what I'm doing on my 14-hour flight tomorrow! I should also probably add "blog more frequently" to my resolutions... 

Love,

RLD

Exploring Abu Dhabi

Now that it's not 115 degrees and unbearable to be outside, I have finally had a chance to explore some of the great city where I live!

While Will was vising, we went to the Corniche, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, and the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Crazy!!

The Corniche is a road that runs along the water and the side of Abu Dhabi city. It has a boardwalk, some shops/restaurants, bike rentals, and the beaches! We decided to go on a Saturday (which is bascally our Sunday) and we had a great time! We took a taxi from my island and got dropped off at the main area on the Corniche. There were giant set-ups for the FIFA U-17 World Cup and the Formula 1 event. There were tents, games, activities, falcons (there are always falcons), and much more. We decided to head down to the beach first and check out the events later on once the sun started to go down. {Side note: there isn't any daylight savings here so the sun is setting around 5:30PM and rising around 6:45AM so daylight is very valuable!}We ended the day with some ice cream and a beautiful sunset!

We decided to visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque after I got done with school one day and got there just in time for the 5:00 tour. Our tour leader was great - funny, informative, and very knowledgable about the mosque and culture. We started outside just as the sun was going down and then went inside. You can't wear your shoes inside so there were tons of shelf things to put your shoes so you could enter the mosque. It is truly an amazing place to visit. The architecture was stunning and the inside of of the mosque was absolutely beautiful. 

We also had the opportunity to attend the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November! We decided to get the 3-day tickets so we could attend all of the practice races, qualifiers, and concerts. On the first day, we walked around the circuit grounds and saw the marina and the giant yachts. We had some lunch, had a few drinks, and then watched some of the practice races. The best part of the day was getting to see Jay-Z in concert! We were lucky enough to win some "golden circle" tickets for the concert, which meant we were front sections. We ended up being about 10 feet from the stage! It was an awesome show… probably one of the best concerts I have been to! Saturday at the race was basically the same, except for no Jay-Z concert afterwards. Sunday was an Islamic holiday so I didn't have school. I was able to attend all the race events and see the final race! It was much more entertaining seeing the cars actually race, rather than just practice driving around the track. Here are a few pictures from the race!

Next up: Pink Polo, desert safari, and national day! 

Love,

RLD

Thailand - Part 2 - Ko Samui

Ko Samui was my favorite part of the trip, and probably one of my favorite places that I've ever visited. I feel like I just need to start this post with a picture... 

It's pretty easy to love a place that is this beautiful. Our resort we stayed at was the Renaissance Ko Samui Resort and Spa... and it was amazing! We decided to splurge a little bit on this part of the trip since we were only going to be there two days, so we ended up getting a villa with our own private pool.

The nice thing about Thailand is that even though we "splurged" on this villa, it still was very cheap compared to a normal hotel room anywhere else we could have traveled. Enough about that though...

The first day in Ko Samui, we explored the resort (and probably looked so out of place with our wide eyes and chins hitting the floor) and then we decided we wanted to explore a national park nearby. The resort set up a taxi for us and took us to the park. When we got dropped off, the first thing we saw (after the amazing jungle we would be hiking through) was elephants!!!! The one thing I wanted to see while in Thailand was an elephant and I got to see a bunch up close! They were doing elephant rides but we decided to just hike instead. The elephants were so cute though!

Next time I go to Thailand (and I sure hope there is a next time!) I will be riding an elephant. Now, on to the hike. We were hiking up to a waterfall in the jungle and had a great time! I love hiking and exploring so it was a great way to spend the day. The jungle was beautiful and the views were amazing. 

There was also a totally random mini-waterpark inside the national park (?) with two big slides. Seemed a little weird to me but it sure would have been refreshing after a long, hot hike! When we got to the waterfall, of course we wanted to hike more. So... we found this little off-path trail that took us up higher and higher. We literally had to pull ourselves up the mountain with ropes and branches to get up. We ventured about half way to the top before decided it was time to head back down. Getting down was just as hard... I felt like I was rock climbing! It was so much fun though (and I didn't fall, yay!). After the hike, we headed back to the hotel to enjoy happy hour and an amazing sunset over the water.

On our second day in Ko Samui, we signed up for a speed boat tour through Ang Thong National Marine Park. This was one of the places I really wanted to see while in Ko Samui but to get there, you really need to book a tour. We wanted to kayak and snorkel as well so we found the perfect tour!  The guides were awesome and we got to do so much in a short day. We started the trip by taking the speed boat out about one hour towards the national marine park. Our first stop was snorkeling at Koh Wao. They gave us or snorkel gear and we dove right in! The corral and fish were so pretty - we had a great time swimming around and looking under water. 

The next stop of the trip was to hike up to a lookout point at one of the islands. We climbed tons and tons of stairs (seems to be a reoccurring thing on this trip...) to where we could see many of the islands, the beautiful water, and a lagoon.

 Our next stop was a small fisherman's village on the only inhabited island in the Ang Thong National Marine Park. There were children selling crafts, people just hanging around, and a delicious traditional Thai lunch (including yummy shrimp!). 

Last but not least... kayaking. Kayaking was awesome! We were give a couple of hours to explore in the kayaks or lounge on the beach. We decided to kayak first and found some cool caves and rock formations in the water. 

On the way back, we saw a rope dangling from a rock so of course Will had to climb the rope and jump off the rock :) 

We lounged on the beach for a bit, then it was time to head back. I was so exhausted that I dozed off on the boat ride home. To end the night, we had dinner at the resort restaurant. 

The next morning, it was time to fly back to Bangkok. We were both very sad to leave this beautiful, tropical paradise. I would absolutely love to return again and explore all that the island has to offer.

Overall, Thailand was definitely a success. I hope to spend about 2-3 weeks in Thailand again in the near future to see more! Hope you enjoyed this post and all the pictures :)

Love,

RLD

Thailand - Part 1 - Bangkok

Beware... these posts will be quite long! 

For Eid (an Islamic holiday in the UAE), we were given 9 days of holiday. This is unheard of - normally they only get 4-5 days off so I knew I needed to take advantage! Will was already planning on coming later in October but since I had such a long break, we decided it would be a perfect time to travel! As you can tell by the title of the blog... we chose Thailand! We had been talking about going there so it was the perfect choice. (PS. most of the pictures were taken by Will - his photographs are awesome! Much better than the iPhone)

Our flight had a connection through China on both ends of the trip. The layovers were in Kunming, China, which was a rural town and very few people spoke English. When we got off the plane, we were planning to go straight to our gate since we couldn't go through customs. Americans need a travel visa to enter the country and it takes days to get before the trip. If you enter without it, you can pay huge fines or go to jail. Well... we got off the plane (without the travel visa) and the workers kept pushing us through customs. We knew we weren't supposed to enter the country but they didn't give us a choice. We had to go through customs then go back through check-in and security to catch our flight to Bangkok. We were both very worried. They ended up giving us a temporary 24 hour visa so it ended up being ok, but it was very stressful for a while. The way back was even worse. We had a 22-hour layover and didn't make the best decision about where to stay that night - some airport worker (we think...) encouraged us to stay at this cheap hotel in "town" so we got into this sketchy van, the van picked up two random girls wandering down the road, and got dropped off in this tiny rundown town where nobody spoke English. At that point, we decided we wanted to go back to the airport to stay at the airport hotel but since no one spoke English, it took many hand motions and to get back. The story is much crazier but I don't want to have to relive it to write about it. Basically, I won't be traveling to China for a very long time after that experience. 

We finally made it to Bangkok and took the sky train and metro to our hotel. We stayed at the Grand Millenium in the business district of Bangkok so it was really nice! We were exhausted that night so we didn't do much except plan our next few days in Thailand. We wanted to go to Khao Yai National Park but it was too far for just a day trip. Then we decided we would go to Ayuthaya but found out it was flooded. Our next option actually worked out! We went on a boat hop-on/hop-off tour on the Chao Phraya River where we were able to visit all the temples. The temples were amazing! I really loved getting to explore Wat Pho, which has the giant Reclining Buddha. The reclining Buddha is supposed to represent the passing of Buddha into nirvana. The temples and grounds were beautiful and very fun to explore! 

We got back on the boat when it stopped at the dock again and headed to another temple - Wat Arun, Temple of Dawn. 

We climbed tons and tons of stairs to get to the top area (well, it was more like pulling ourselves up the stairs with the railings... it was very steep!). There were beautiful views of the river and city from the top. We had to get a few pictures from the top!

Oh! I almost forgot about the flower market!! Off one of the docks where the boat dropped us off, it said there was a flower market about 1km down the road. I love flowers so we decided to head that way. After walking a while, we thought we were either lost or that it was way farther than we thought so we got a tuk tuk (a bike taxi thing) to take us to the flower market. We went all around then when he dropped us off, we realized all we needed to do before we had got on the tuk tuk was cross the street and we would have been there. At least we got to experience a tuk tuk! The market was great and the flowers were beautiful. They were SO cheap too! Large assortments and arrangements of flowers were less than $10. It's too bad I couldn't bring some back to Abu Dhabi with me! 

That pretty much wraps up our Bangkok adventure except for the hookers. Yes, thats right. Hookers. Funny story - we were walking back from the metro one day and saw this restaurant/bar called Country Road. We thought it would be a nice place to get dinner and drinks that night so we got all ready and headed down there. Something seemed a little off about it when there were about 10 girls standing out front with lanyards with some card in it, but we thought they were just waitresses. Well, they may have been waitresses but we definitely stumbled upon the red light district. We realized soon after sitting down that the girls were there for single men (that's all I'm going to say about that..). Then, we decided to wander down the street after dinner just to see what other crazy things were going on. Well, it was all strip clubs and more hookers. And some were just walking around half naked in heels. Don't worry, I'll spare you from seeing the pictures. It was quite an interesting night that's for sure!

Can't wait to write about Ko Samui next. It was by far my favorite part of the trip :) 

Love,

RLD

Marhaba and Eid Al Adha

The past week has been SUPER busy but also super exciting. Let me start by talking about an event that was held for the new staff at our school - Marhaba. Marhaba is an event that was thrown by the 9th grade girls and some of the Arabic staff to welcome all of the new staff to the school. It was amazing! Wednesday after school, the girls gave us a short presentation to tell us about the history of Abu Dhabi and UAE, the 7 Emirates, and weddings. They put together a Power Point presentation and had music and pictures. It was a great learning opportunity!

Then, we went outside where the courtyard which was set up with a traditional tent with rugs, pillows, games, and coffee set up. There were also tables and tables of traditional Arabic food for us to try. In addition, one of the girls brought her pet falcon. I did not hold the falcon because I got to hold a falcon earlier in the week at a class field trip to the Falcon Hospital (I'll talk about that later!). The girls also brought in jalabiyas, which are their traditional dresses, and we were able to try them on! 

After trying on the jalabiyas (and deciding we all wanted our own, which we bought at the Gold Souk later that night) we ate some yummy food! At Marhaba, there were two ladies doing free henna, so of course we all had to get some! I got mine on my right hand but many of the girls got it on both hands and feet. The women did a wonderful job... I love it! (You can kind of see the how the tent looks in the background.)

I wish I could have taken more pictures but the students are not allowed to be photographed for security purposes so it was really hard to take good pictures without them in it. Overall, I really enjoyed Marhaba and am so thankful that I got to experience such a big part of the culture.

On to Eid Al Adha...

Eid is a holiday here that is determined by a moon sighting. On our school calendar, we had tentative days marked off for the holiday but nothing is official until a special sighting of the moon. It is all a little confusing to me. We were pretty much guaranteed to have Wednesday and Thursday off of this upcoming week but there was a chance we could have Monday - Thursday off. Well... On Tuesday this past week, it was announced by the government that we would have off the ENTIRE week (Sunday - Thursday)!!! Instead of having a 4 or 6 day weekend, we were lucky enough to get 9 days off for Eid. This is completely unheard of and crazy, but I'll take it! 

Since we have 9 days off... I'm flying to Bangkok, Thailand tomorrow!! Thailand is somewhere I really wanted to travel to and even though it won't be a ton of time there (6 days), it is better than nothing! I'm so excited and can't wait to blog about my experience there. I don't know if I'll be able to blog while I'm in Thailand but I promise to post the full update (with pictures!) when I return to Abu Dhabi :) 

Time to start packing...

Love,

RLD

To-Do List

Now that I've been in Abu Dhabi for a whole month (WOW!), I feel like I can begin to make my to-do list for things I want to do and see while here!

Let's start with the most important thing on my list at the moment - traveling. One of the reasons I came to the Middle East to work was so that I could have the opportunity to travel. There are so many places I want to go that I'm hoping I will be able to do it all! Here are my "Top 5" travel destinations...

1. Thailand
2. Australia
3. Italy
4. Greece
5. Maldives (round trip plane tickets are under $500! Spring break?!)

Another big thing on my to-do list is to go to Dubai! I think a trip to Dubai will be happening very soon :) I can't wait to post pictures and write about it! One of the sayings here is "Dubai has the flash, but Abu Dhabi has the cash". I'm ready to see some flash!

In Abu Dhabi, there are a few things I want to do and see but I need it to get a little cooler first! It's still getting to around 105 degrees every day so hopefully in October it will be more pleasant outside. 

• Desert Camping - I was planning to go with my dad in October but he has postponed his trip until Spring so my visitors can be more spread out. Hopefully I'll still be able to go desert camping very soon! Some of the activities on a desert safari or camp trip are dune bashing, camel rides, henna, and eating lots of yummy Arabic food!
• Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque - I think a picture will sum up why I want to go here. It is so big and beautiful. 

• the Corniche - similar to a boardwalk... it is a beautiful path around the water and beaches. You can see it winding and curving around the water in the picture below. I think it will be a wonderful place to walk!

In other news... I have tickets to the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November!!! I will be going to three days of races and 4 nights of concerts. The practice races are on Friday and Saturday and then the qualifying race is Saturday night. The big race will be Sunday night!! I can't wait! AND Jay-Z is one of the concert performers I get to see! I'm so excited for this event!! 

I'll update on school in an upcoming post! 

Love,

RLD

Getting in the swing of things

Abu Dhabi is definitely starting to feel like home. It really is a great place to live and I feel more and more settled each day.

Last weekend, I got the chance to go to the exhibition center to experience the Abu Dhabi Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition with two other teacher friends. It was not what I was expecting at all! We were hoping to make it in time to see the camel show (I want to see a camel SO bad!!!) but we just barely missed it due to a long dinner and a long taxi ride. One thing I've learned from being here is to budget way more time than I think I need. I'm an early person in general and normally get everywhere 10 minutes early but here I need to plan to be places almost 30 minutes early! Dining can take a long time and you never know what kind of taxi ride you are in for!

At the exhibition, it was mainly local Emirati men and very few women or expats. We were expecting it to be all hunting and equestrian exhibitions but there was so much more! There were many falcon sales (some falcon's were selling for up to 45,000 AED, which is about $12,000)! There were also exhibits where you could buy traditional garments and other items, like baskets and local crafts. A huge weaponry section took up a large section of the exhibition hall where there were rifles, shotguns, and many, many other types of weapons. There were also boats, cars, RVs, and much more. Overall, it was a great experience and I'm so glad I was able to go! Next year, I want to see the camel show and auction!!

In other news, I am done with week one of school! I survived!!!!! It was a great week but I have definitely realized that this year will be much different than teaching 2nd grade in the US. Since our school is on an international curriculum (Common Core and international assessments), it is a very rigorous curriculum. All of my students are Emirati, meaning they are all ELLs (English Language Learners). This poses a challenge when we are supposed to be teaching them a challenging 2nd grade curriculum, but I know they will succeed! The students are so sweet and seem to love school, which is always good :) One very different thing about teaching at this school is that the children, K-12, all call their teachers and administrators by their first names. So, this year I am Miss Rachel! Here is a picture from the school's Instagram account of my on my first day:

The only pictures that are allowed of the kids are ones that administration takes to put on the Instagram so feel free to follow @szpag to see the adorable kids!

I know this will be a challenging but great year for me, not only as a teacher but also as an expat in a country half way across the world. 

Check back soon for my list of things I'm looking forward to doing and seeing this year :)

Love,

RLD