settling

It sounds like I'm not going to be able to post as frequently considering the already stressful environment i walked into upon meeting my house mates - they are a bit overwhelmed by the workload and it sounds like I am going to be right there with them. We are still waiting for the company to come through with our cars (apparently we are each getting a Toyota Yaris, which is great here since smaller cars are much better for parking and navigating crazy Arab drivers), so for now we are sharing one car (an old school Peugeot) that gets us to work around 8:30 and keeps us there until around 7 or so.

I have had a great time so far. I had no problems adjusting to the jet lag and was up early with the group before they left for work on Monday morning. I spent some time unpacking and getting things in order and Hassan, our house manager, took me to Mirdif - Mirdif is a town not too far from where we live with a mall and a really great grocery store. It even has a Caribou Coffee, an Aldo shoe store, and a nice fitness center where we will apparently be joining as members. One of my house mates spent Tuesday and Wednesday with me and we spent most of our time at a beach just next to the Burj Al Arab. We stopped at the Jumeirah beach hotel and enjoyed pina coladas and draught beers before heading to the Irish Village for happy hour. We drove around town and took a peek at Sheikh Zayed Road, which is budding like a weed garden with concrete edifices and shiny aqua-colored glass. Our journey today took us to the Madinat Jumeirah, known for its camel colored stucco exterior, great bars, restaurants, and views of the Burj and Jumeira Beach hotel. The food here is great, as I learned from checking out a few whole in the wall places, including lunch today at "the Chalet" near the Burj - they had everything on the menu from Arabic food to Asian cuisine for the tourists that frequent the area. Strangely, the place was run by Indians and the cooks were Lebanese. It's pretty common to find random ethnicities being represented around here simply because of the fact that Dubai is a convenient 3 hour flight from 3.1 billion people in this part of the world.

Anyway, I have so much more to share but i must tend to my sun burn...