lions and tigers and...camels, oh my!

i've been a bit of a beach bum the past few weekends so this last weekend i decided to do something a little out of the norm. 

i left our lovely city of abu dhabi and headed out for the greener pastures of al ain (which is another city within the abu dhabi emirate).  we didn't quite see everything there was to see there, but we had animal ambitions in mind for this trip! 

1.  check out the al ain wildlife park and resort (aka the zoo), its only 15 dirhams for adult admission (this is what, $5 US?) talk about cheap thrills! 
2.  find a camel market and take some photos with some camels!

mission accomplished on both counts, check it out!

 new white tigers (their names are sugar and spice.. we named our family dogs the same thing!)

 this is love.

 this is the love of simple things... food!

 did you know that giraffes have purple tongues?

 this little guy is a gazelle native to the region, so cute!

and this one... he just means business!

now, on to the camel market... which was to me anyway, much cooler than the zoo!

 late afternoon in the desert, after one wrong turn, a small issue involving sand and our SUV, we finally made it to the camel market.  which is, for those of you that are wondering, on the road between al ain and dubai about halfway in between the two cities. 

 

 this guy was awesome, hanging out, trying to get us to drink warm fresh camel milk, and generally enjoying our over-fascination with their livestock...

 baby camels, so much better than the zoo babies!

 

the whole time we were here, i kept picturing some role reversal... in my mind the people at this camel market look at us the way we would look at them if they pulled off the highway in the countryside of the US randomly to stare at a pasture of cows... the must have thought we were crazy!

 i think this one liked me!

  he's cute right?! little food in the teeth though...

why did the camel cross the road anyway?!

i can't take credit for any of these photos by the way, they are all taken by my good friend JW... who happens to have a killer camera and used the day testimg out her skills in manual mode. i think she did a fabulous job!

run.

lately, my job has been rather intense.  construction keeps moving.  sometimes i feel like i am being put through one of those dog agility obstacle courses, only when i get to the end there is no treat... just someone telling me to run it again.  when i leave at the end of the day, i just feel exhausted.  i know i should go to the gym when all i really want to do is go lounge on my sofa with a glass of wine. 

don't get me wrong, the end goal is worth it; a sparkly new building where there used to be a plot of white sand!

so how do you fight the little cocktail devil sitting on one shoulder and go for the gym angel sitting on the other?   well... it isn't easy, but a good friend and colleague of mine once put that into perspective for me at the end of one particularly exhausting day.  he said to me:

you are mentally tired.  you are not physically tired.  think about what you did all day...

if you are like a majority of people, your job involves sitting, a lot of sitting.  sitting in your car on the way to the office. sitting at your desk.  sitting in meetings.  sitting, sitting, sitting. 

when you look at it from this perspective, it makes it hard to argue with the gym.  mental exhaustion can trick you into believing that you are physically tired.  


i used to be a long distance swimmer.  i got some sort of high from really intense practices.  after what felt like a "long day at school" (if i only knew what hard work was then)... i'd go straight to the pool, no time to think about how "tired" i felt, and with a coach expecting me on the deck and in the water stat.  i would leave feeling exhausted, but on top of the world at the same time. 

i've been adhering to this state of mind lately, i leave work, lace up my new balance and head directly to the gym regardless of how "tired" i am feeling, and for some reason lately, i have been running.  for those of you that know me you probably just fell off of your chair because i, in the past, have declared an absolute disdain for running! elliptical definitely, weights sure, swimming, spinning, aerobics, you name it... but  running was the last thing i would even consider doing.  seriously, my friends in school called me "track star"  because they knew how little i enjoyed this activity. 

i never thought i'd see the day, but i actually look forward to it!  it is like an eraser for the days events, a rewind, an undo button.  i leave with that same feeling i used to get from swimming... exhausted, but on top of the world at the same time.

check out these new kicks, a collaboration by new balance and j.crew... cute huh?!...

sorry ladies, they only made them for the men this time!

sugar 'n spice

i have a secret:  i like to tell people i hate valentine's day, but the truth is... i don't hate it entirely (shhh... don't tell).

just to get it out of the way, here is what i do hate about valentine's day:

a. hideous floral displays made of the most cliche flowers (e.g. red roses with baby's breath) in the ugliest vases possible.
b.  ridiculous expectations that cause people to get nervous, overplan, and do something cliche, like buy a person the above mentioned item.
c.  prix fixe meals at restaurants that never live up to the food at that same restaurant on any other given day.
d. chocolate in heart shaped boxes.
e. giant stuffed animals holding heart-shaped pillows, cheesetastic!

all of that aside, here is what i do love about valentine's day:  

a.  chocolate (sans heart shaped box. however, i love it as much on february 14th as i do any other day of the year...)
b.  sappy romantic comedies (yes, the ones that ususally cause all of the problems mentioned above).
c.  the hope that one day someone will understand me well enough to know that i dislike all of the above items and would prefer a simple modern flower arrangement without fillers, a meal somewhere far away from a restaurant full of strangers, and even on days that aren't valentine's day... and for no reason at all. 
d.  but most of all, i do love any opportunity to do something nice for my friends and family to let them know that i love them, because the bottom line is that you can't say it enough. 

and since my grandma always told me the way to a person's heart is through their stomach... i decided to bake cookies this year!

depending on who you are, you might think that baking cookies is a pretty easy task, but it turns out that part of the fun of being an expat, is that something that seems easy is always bound to be a challenge...

snickerdoodles, for those of you that don't know... are not only the most delicious cookie ever, but are made of about 7 of the most basic ingredients.  which is why i was surprised when i found myself trekking around abu dhabi to three different grocery stores to find them all! 

here is a little fun fact:  the ingredient commonly known as "baking soda" in the US is actually called "bicarbonate of soda" here... who would have known, i bought it hoping for the best but definitely had to Google when i got home to be sure. 

also, used to having a fully stocked kitchen, i temporarily forgot that i moved here with only three suitcases and all my kitchen gadgets are packed safely away in a storage unit in new jersey (or as my mom likes to joke, sitting in the bottom of the Hudson).  so it was off to the store to buy a mixer,some baking sheets, and a cookie bin.

and lastly, because i can't help but to add a little "valentine's day something" i wanted to find those small jars of colored sugar to sprinkle on top of the cookies (pretty basic in the baking section of any US grocery, oh the things I took for granted!) ... at the third store, after two stores of total strikes, i finally found some pink sugar!

at last i am home and prepared to bake, and i hear my phone chirping from the other room... it is a friend of mine (also an Abu Dhabi expat from the US). i tell her my baking plans, and she says, in a vote of confidence "every time i try to make a US recipe out here it just never goes as planned, but i'm sure your cookies will be great!" 

ha ha.  on that note, i continued on, with caution, but i have to say, the cookies turned out to be fantastic!  my roomie has already had two tonight. 

you can't have just one snickerdoodle...

 

(yes this is a photo of my snickerdoodles... you want one now, don't you?!)

cabin fever

if you've been following this blog then you already know a cardinal rule of mine: 

always have the next trip planned. 

my how i've broken that one in the last couple of months.  people, i need a vacation! 

now, while the side of me that has adapted to this lazy lifestyle of the UAE would like to go to some remote island and sit by the ocean, the side that i used to know says i should do something to push me out of this rut i seem to be in lately. 

so here is what i am thinking, some camping and hiking are in order!  

where:  snake canyon, oman. 

while there are plenty of tours available for this sort of thing, i'm thinking some friends, and SUV, and a couple of tents are the way to go!

i have it on good authority that this is an amazing hike full of killer scenery and adventure... there are even some swimming portions involved!!! this will definitely be a good motivation for maintaining some gym habits in the coming weeks!

now the only question is: when?