Burj Khalifa

I’ve been so busy the past couple days that now I have to write the Wednesday and the Thursday post today. Wednesday was great! We visited the spice souk and were harassed by every single one of the sellers! We had to take a water taxi there that was very…interesting. It was this old looking boat with no seats, we just kind-of sat on the edge of the boat. Only cost one dirham thought!  I managed to find some amazing things and perfected the art of haggling. I’d just ask them about a particular object then bat my eyes and ask them to lower the price by 50%. Worked all the time. J So I only ended up spending about 30 bucks that trip for some really cool things. Krys managed to find some really neat things but Nicole, who we had all imagined to do most of the haggling, was too tired and didn’t get to buy anything. It was such a neat place! Loads to people, and it made shopping at the Eaton Centre feel really strange. It felt as if we were really in what I imagined the middle east to be; loads of people, and very cultural rather than this 21^st century place we’ve been experiencing the rest of the week.

The Water Taxis

We also got to visit a really nice restaurant for lunch. It had authentic hummus (which was amazing) and Buba ganoush (sorry for the horrible spelling, it’s late!). On the way there we actually saw a jelly fish! Usually they don’t come in that far to shore. Very very neat!

The night time was fairly laid back. I had hardly any sleep the night before so I was exhausted, and a day in the sun is killer here! We just ate leftovers from the rest of the week but it probably was one of the best meals the whole time. Before dinner Nicole, my dad and a few other relatives went down to the beach to swim in the sea. The sea was like bath water! So warm but insanely salty. We swam and watched the sunset. It was so peaceful and beautiful.

After dinner Nicole and I went out to a club called Caramel with 3 of my cousins. I really wasn’t feeling up to going as we were up late the night before, but for some reason I managed to push myself out. The place was amazing. In Dubai you aren’t allowed to sell alcohol outside of a hotel, so I imagine this place was located on top of a hotel, but once we came up from the elevator the view was amazing. We were in the centre of the city and all the lights from the buildings were on. The architecture here is wonderful. All 21^st century stuff, but very inventive things. So this roof top had huge lit poles, and glass floors.

Textiles Souk

We went in and between about 4 of us we finished about 4 bottles of wine. It was the food that really made the night. Instead of this being a normal club it more of a lounge. My cousin had reserved a table, and got us to order some food.

Now, I was expecting good food but this food was amazing. Think normal bar food, but so classy you can’t call it bar food anymore. There were normal “classy” things like sliders and entrées but in the sides menu there was things like chicken lolly pops and mac and cheese with truffle sauce. When the food arrived…oh my god. The chicken lolly pops were like regular hot chicken wings (which I love) but with some of the bone revealed so you could eat it easier. There was a real blue cheese sauce to dunk them into. And I mean a real blue cheese sauce with massive chunks of cheese. So amazing! And the mac and cheese was some of the best food I’ve ever had. Instead of getting the normal plate of pasta they came in logs wrapped in corn meal or bread crumbs which had been further deep fried. Then you were supposed to dunk it in the sauce which was the best cheese sauce ever….I could eat at that place forever. Mmm.

Harry's Pool

After than we went back to Harry’s and drank more wine and chatted. Knowing that we had to be up for the boat the next day, this probably wasn’t a good idea. We managed to find the food storage room through! A HUGE box of kit kats all for me!! So by 3:30am I managed to crawl into bed and sleep, but I really could tell that I would be hungover the next day…eep!

Right now I’m sitting in the living room watching music videos and drinking tasty wine. It’s 2:30am on Wednesday and we’ve been sitting here for the past few hours chatting and drinking. Nicole arrived today and she promptly decided to give us a tour around the unexplored parts of Harry’s Villa. We actually used the games room today! And oh my god, the massage chair in there is the best thing in the world! I plan to go in that chair at least one more time before I leave! So amazing!

Ariel and Bush

Today we visited a souk which was interesting. The architecture was beautiful, especially since the building was only build a few years ago. Dubai has really managed to capture history in their buildings! I didn’t end up buying anything. This seems to be much more of the touristy area as everything was insanely over priced.

We haven’t gotten to see many sites yet as the real activities start of Thursday, so we’ve been shopping and relaxing before the big events! Anyways, Krys is going to skype now so I’ll update a bit more in a bit.

I wasn’t able to finish the post last night so here I am sitting at breakfast writing it now. Last night was fun. My dad made his signature chicken souvoki which required the use of an “instant barbeque” that was hilarious to set up. Though the package said 15 minutes the BBQ must have taken near to an hour to get ready. Meanwhile the dogs of the house were trying everything to get near this thing. Krys and I decided to stay out of it and simply sit with our feet in the pool with Pimms while everything was being prepared. I think ours was the best plan.

Nicole arrived today looking far better than we did when we arrived (according to my Aunt). I don’t know how she is up after only 5 hours of sleep in 48 hours. Epp!

After dinner we went over to Harry’s place again and played around in the pool room until Harry came home. Again we ended up staying up until close to 4am. Way too late considering all the things that we have planned to do today. I got to try an insanely expensive but very very delicious class of scotch whiskey! Mmm and we started into Harry’s wine cellar that has a very nice wine! I’m excited to try more of the bottles at the bar.

The Souk

So since I’m exhausted and am running out of things to say I will go finish may tea and start getting ready to go to the gold and spice souk today. Then, unfortunately, we are heading off to a club in the evening. I’d rather curl up with a book in the state I’m in right now. Ah well, It’ll be fun once we are out!

Uncle Michael drinking the winning wine

The day started with Krys and I waiting around to be picked up by one of my aunts house staff (how crazy is that?). He was supposed to come at 9am so we could get dropped off at my aunts for breakfast (as all we could find to eat in Harry’s house is Wheatibix and protein bars). Today we actually got up rather early and were dressed and ready to go by around 9:15. We waited around the house until close to 10:30 before the man arrived. Apparently he had never driven far around Dubai before, and going over to Harry’s was a big mission. It took him about an hour to do a 20 minute drive.

So by the time we were dropped off we had enough time to have a cup of tea and then we were rushed off to our nail appointment. This time the man didn’t get lost. He was such a nice guy, but asked us some odd questions. He was talking to us about how he came here from the Philippians, and how he (and I assume his wife) are supporting his children back home who are all in college. He asked us if Canada was a rich country as there are a lot of Philippians people who go there for work. I found that so strange. The divide between the rich and the poor in Canada is so small. There is such a gentle flow between “classes” that it’s hardly noticeable unless you are at one of the extremes. Coming from a middle class family it’s strange to have someone call my aunt madam and ask about the financial state of my country. It seems as though having a house boy or some sort of help is the norm around Dubai. This was something I was completely not expecting.

Dad after a few glasses

We went further into the city today and visited the Mall of the Emirates. This is where they have that huge indoor ski hill. My sister really wanted to go on the hill but we didn’t have time today. Instead we visited Carrefour, an Arab version of Costco, or Target. You could find anything there! I found a really cheap watch, and some really nice white board markers. They had a whole section devoted to Hooka’s or Sheeshas (I believe that’s how it is spelt). Those large tobacco bongs, what ever they are…

We then went to a really nice French café where I had one of the best sandwiches ever! It was a mozzarella, tomato, and pesto sandwich on olive bread. It tasted like tomato and Boccaccini salad. (Kevin don’t critique me on my spelling, it was written with Krys’ guidance ). So good! There was a load of food for what we ordered. The café was called Paul, and all the waiters would walk around with nametags beside the logo. All I kept thinking was that all their names were Paul. Heh.

Preparing some of the bottles for the tasting

In the night time we had an amazing wine tasting party! My uncle and I spent a good amount of time covering all the bottles. There was enough wine for a bottle each, and by the end of it we had to pick with wine for the party on Friday. I think by the 8^th or 9^th bottle all of our taste buds were numb to taste. And we all seemed to be feeling the wine. It’s really a wonder that two of the last free wines were the ones that won. It was interesting to drink it without any knowledge of the wine before hand. The two that won were not the ones I would have thought would have won. We also got to sample a lot of the foods for the party on Friday. The best cake. Mmm. I can’t wait to eat it. Apparently on Friday we are getting steaks, and smoked salmon. There will also be an open bar with loads of cocktails, and a dessert buffet. The best thing is that it’s held in Harry’s villa so if I get tired I can just come up to my room and fall asleep. 

This wasn’t the end of our night. Krys and I went back to the villa and finally we got to see Harry again. We thought he was a bit of a mythical creature, or a figure of our imagination created by lack of sleep. We ended up having a drink with him and his…girlfriend from Lebanon. It was nice catching up with him. It both Krys and I glad that Shane and Kev hadn’t come with us. Harry would have tried to take them out to all the clubs to give them the “Dubai experience”….which pretty much means throwing woman at them. Needless to say Krys and I weren’t too impressed. Harry also said he’d try the reverse if they had come. Get all his guys friends to come hit on us…not sure how I’d feel about that either . Probably wouldn’t be too bad! Heh. Harry also showed us his booze cellar, and told us to have loads of the red wine since he never drinks it. Man this house is amazing. It’ll feel great when Nicole and the rest of my cousins come to stay here.

Though I’m not really sure where everyone is going to sleep.

Anywho, we’ve finally got the password to the email at Harry’s place so now we are stilling in bed at 3:30 in the morning watching the Amazing Race, and sending emails. It feels much nicer to have the internet available most of the time.

Tomorrow the plan is to visit the indoor Souk (traditional shopping centre) and I’ll probably try an pick up some authentic things to bring home. Then Nicole is coming. Huzzah!

Today went by much faster. I woke up early, but Krys was still asleep so I ended up staying in bed munching on Goldfish and watching TV until my aunt came in and forced us out of bed at 1pm.

We went down to my Aunts and had a quick breakfast before we all went on a walk along the beach. The area reminds me so much of Cuba. This could be due to the insane temperatures (45 degrees Celsius or so), and the palm trees.  It is very humid here; I can’t imagine what summer time is like. It would kill me to be outside for a while, and I like the heat!

Our walk was beautiful. The Burj Khalifa was very prominent and we could see planes taking off from the airport in the distance. Very muggy due to the humidity so we couldn’t see the sail boat hotel. We got a good look at it tonight as we drove to Harry’s. We were able to dip our feet in the water a bit and the water was so warm. It felt like bath water. Really put Cuba’s ocean to shame! The walk was really nice. Hot, but very nice.

After the walk we went back and took a dip in Lizzie’s pool before my mum and aunts went off to get their nails done. My sister, father and I on the other hand went off to the supermarket to shop for that night’s dinner.

There were loads of neat things at the market, a lot of things that I remember from England. Krys and I went to the hula hoops right away and have been munching on them all evening. Loads of things I saw in there that I want to bring back to Canada. I think one of my bags is going to be mainly food. There is this amazing cheese spread that I can hopefully grab a couple jars of. Mmmmm.

Dinner was nice, and I got to chat with Shane for a little while which was really nice. I miss him like crazy. I just have to keep myself busy all the time and the days will fly by and I’ll be having much more fun. The whole trip seems to be leading up to the party at the end of the week. All the rest of my family is going to be arriving Tuesday onwards and that’s when the festivities really start.  Hope I can make it alright until then!

Tomorrow Krys and I are off to get our nails done (my aunt just decided for us, we didn’t get much of a say ) and then we are visiting a large shopping area… maybe do some indoor skiing. Then in the night time there is a wine tasting event at my aunts. Loads of wines and I get to hang out with my cousins more. Hopefully I can get the internet password to Harry’s place so I can actually put this up when I write it! It’s a bit frustrating not being able to check my email right now. May that be a sign that I’m addicted to the internet? Maybe so.

In my head I keep thinking its Monday which is making it really hard to think that time is passing by fast. Maybe tomorrow (real Monday) it’ll feel like Sunday and then Tuesday will be great! Bah! Go faster time! Be the weekend already!

This was a very very very long day. I spent most of Friday marking away then had to rush to get on a 13hr plane ride across the world. Its 2am Dubai time, and only 6pm Toronto time, but I’ve been up for almost 36 hours straight. I think I’m beyond tired.

Leaving was very hard. This trip would be much better if Shane was able to come along with me. Before I left I kept trying to make the amount of time I’d be spending there seem longer, and now all I want it to do is zip by. I felt this way in Spain through, and I ended up having one of the best weeks of my life, so I am very hopeful this will be the same.

Despite the wishful thinking the trip had a bit of a rocky start. Both my sister and I were so upset that we made ourselves nauseous (nauseated as Shane would correct me). At the first smell of food (the lamb in particular) I actually puked. Ick. Needless to say the plane ride wasn’t the best after that. After all that Emirates was hyped up to be, I found that I like Air Canada much better; much nicer service and less cramped space. But I’m a bit biased as I didn’t get to eat any of the food that I was looking forward to tr

y. It could be also that I was feeling a bit homesick for Canada and I like the familiar creature comforts.

The plane ride went by fairly fast and I managed to catch some snooze while listening to Aladdin, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

It was strange, we completely missed daylight. We left at 9:40pm on Friday in Canada, and arrived at 6pm on Saturday in Dubai (where it was already dark). The sun rose for the plane at 3:30am just over England, but the stewardess didn’t allow us to open the shutters so we basically remained in darkness until we landed.

So here I am ahead a whole day and I haven’t seen the sun in quite a while. How strange.

We made it through the airport alight, but my Dad seemed to freak the hell out of the Dubai Duty Free cashiers by buying 16 bottles of Moet Champagne…..for the party at the end of the week. I swear!

When we got off the plane we were taken to my Aunt’s place where we met up with some of my cousins and Aunts and Uncle. We all chatted until around 1am, and then Krys (my sister) and I were taken to my cousin Harry’s villa.

Oh my god….

The place is insane. We walked in and the guy has a huge bar with any alcohol you can find, with glasses hanging from the racks just like in real bars. This is beside a massive (and I mean massive) flat screen TV and huge couches. Beside this is a kitchen but it isn’t really a kitchen as Harry has an “outdoor kitchen”. Beside this kitchen is a games room which has a full size pool table, massage chair, video games, poker table, and probably more and more.

Dude.

I was half asleep when we toured the place so I’m probably missing things like the guy has a complete gym outside, and a hot tub, and pool. I could keep going. In the room Krys and I are staying in there is a 46 inch TV with satellite cable. The whole place has a very hotel feel to it, and its ridiculous that my cousin lives here alone.

My words probably make no sense right now, and my yammering on about Harry’s place because this whole thing just feels so surreal to me. It doesn’t feel like I’m half way across the world about to go to sleep in some crazy house. Yet it does. Right now all I want to be is in my own bed. L

It is insanely hot and humid here and I haven’t even been out during daytime.  Tomorrow should be interesting. We are just going over to my aunt’s place, and maybe start exploring the area. I need to stay busy! Until tomorrow!

I think I’m addicted to cornmeal. About a year ago my mother bought a pizza slate from a Tupperware party she often frequents. It’s really neat! Its a stone slab which makes the crust of any pizza placed on it nice and crispy. Anytime I go to use this pizza slate I’m always wishing I had cornmeal for the bottom of it to make the pizza crust even crunchier. So after a year of having this slate I finally managed to get some cornmeal. Since Friday I’ve been trying to put it on everything!

Today I woke up with the urge to eat something cheesy, so I went through my recipe book and decided on Kraft Cheese Biscuits. Before I attempted this recipe a few years ago I had never tried my hand at biscuits; actually I had never really even eaten a biscuit! But these just looked too good to pass up.

So I tried them and they turned out well despite the small floury taste that seems to accompany every bite.  This is quickly taken away by a small spread of cream cheese. Still, I wanted to find a way to get rid of that… and today I think I’m suceeded!

I reduced the flour by about 3 tablespoons which let the dough slightly sticky. I then cut the dough up into 8s and placed them on a baking sheet which was covered in cornmeal. Moving the biscuits around a bit I was able to get the bottom of each round covered in a thick layer of sweet, glorious cornmeal. After 10 minutes in the oven at 450C the turned golden brown and awesomely cheesy. You may notice in the picture to the left that I added cheese on top of the biscuits. I found that this makes them look more appetizing and obviously adds to the cheese flavour.

The cornmeal went really well with the texture of the biscuit and cut down the floury taste. It also added a nice crust to the bottom. So here’s to one successful experiemnt with cornmeal!

One of the trip’s has come and gone! The Chicago trip was very different then what I thought it would be, and went by in no time.

First off, the 13 hour overnight bus ride down there was nothing short of hell. No one slept more than 3 hours that night, and by the time we arrived in Chicago we were all beat. Nonetheless we all went out to dinner and had the most wonderful pizza in existence. One slice was enough to fill everyone. I believe the place was called Giordano’s, and I would recommend it to anyone travelling to Chicago. Nothing else exciting happened on my part that night.

The next day we spent at FermiLab which was freaking amazing! We got to explore down underground and see neutrino detectors, we were given tours of the actual collider system. All and all it was a fantastic day of science.

The evening of the day had to be the best. A small group of us explored downtown Chicago. This started by us trying to find a place to eat, because apparently Chicago does not have anything open past 7pm. Half of the group gave up, but the ones who stuck around were able to find a small Thai restaurant near the heart of downtown. After this we explored up and down the streets of Chicago.

This is an absolutely beautiful city but not at all in the traditional “pretty” sense. The real draw of this place is the architecture. I was told this before I went to Chicago, but it really didn’t hit home until I actually visited the place. Except for an appreciation of the Toronto skyline I’ve never really seen the huge draw to architecture, but as we walked around the streets I found myself completely drawn into the style of the city. The Gothic buildings gave the city a dark style. There would be gargoyles everywhere, and  lighting set up to hit a part of a building in a specific way that would make it look gloomy. It was fantastic.

My favourite parts had to be the canal that ran through the centre of the city, and the above ground subway that had support poles in the centre of main streets, and ran only about 10 metres above your head.

All and all it was an interesting trip. Not quite as exciting as I had expected, but the experience was well worth what ever hell we went through on the way there.

….now apparently there was a smell to Chicago that I never noticed??

Busy day today. These 5 hour days of class are killing me. I hardly get a chance to eat before I have to run out to class. Then by the time I leave for home, it’s dark and basically time to go to bed. Yet, the days still aren’t moving fast enough. I’ve only been back at school for two and a half weeks, but it feels like so much longer, and the next 2.5 months seem unbearably long.  There are only half hopes to look forward to. I feel that things that had been the highlight of my day are no longer as fulfilling…I just want to be done.

Anywho, one of the upsides of this year is the amount of travel to be done:

Feb 16 – 19: Chicago
Feb 27 – 28: Montreal
End of April:  Caribbean
May: Europe?
September: Niagara
November: Dubai

And in all of this, I may be moving to B.C. or Hamilton. And I’m graduating, and being a Brides Maid, and potentially starting grad school… I really shouldn’t be as depressed as I seem at the beginning of this post. I just have to keep in mind these upsides, and just last through these next 2.5 months.

And now just because I want to start thinking about my camera again, here’s a picture from my cottage. Needs to be a bit lighter, but at the moment I have no adobe on my computer so I can’t edit. Mohwell.

Oh god. I was literally waiting for the 196 for over 30 minutes today. The time between getting off the subway at Downsview to the time that I arrived at York was over 40 minutes. There was a line up all the way around Downsview station, and must have contained about 500 people. It was insane! This delay caused me to be about 30 minutes late for my class, and mainly make me peeved about having to wake up early for no reason. And trust me, I wasn’t a very happy morning person this today.

All well, I guess that teaches me not to leave 10 minutes late for class so at least I’d have a bit of leway time to get to class….Why oh why do I have to have class at 10am…?

In other news, I get to teach astronomy to 30 cub scouts today! Too bad it’s cloudy!