Heartstrings 14.0: catchin' up

What's this... two posts in two days?!? Someone must be stuck at home waiting on a rental car agency to bring her a car. I've caught up on Criminal Minds, NCIS, NCIS: LA, and Dancing with the Stars Premier episodes, so I thought I'd do something productive and post a couple more pictures of my week...

Last week, a couple friends and I decided to hit up the beach for a nice relaxing Saturday morning. So we drove to Al Raha Beach (which is only like 10 minutes from here) only to find that the public beach was closed due to... drum-roll please.... construction. Shocking... it's everywhere here. They like a good crane, wall barrier, and the color orange here. So we attempted to go to a hotel beach... 185 dhs and we said, "no thanks," and went on our way.

While trying to find our way to highway so we could hit up the Corniche family beach, we stumbled upon this lovely architectural gem (which, by the way, you can see in the distance out of my balcony):

"the purse building" as someone once called it

Not too shabby of a place to get turned around in... after snapping some shots, we went on our way to the Island. It was beautiful... the water was a perfect temperature (you'd think since it's hot outside, the Sea would be hot, but it wasn't). I actually got cold if I got out of the water from the breeze. I swam around for a little over an hour in this:

family beach on the Corniche... across from the tallest flag pole in the world

I also attempted to write my name in the sand, but it was kind of hard with your foot whilst eating some peanut butter crackers... food is very important to me here.

When we left, the sand was insanely hot and I got a good ole workout running to the shady part of sand.

Speaking of running, my friend Cathy and I decided that we're going to attempt to do a 10K at this wonderful place:

Formula One's, Yas Marina Circuit

Yas Marina Circuit view

Yas Hotel at night

Only thing is, the event takes place on November 24th... so two days AFTER I will celebrate Thanksgiving and eat until my heart is content. Yeah, we'll see how this goes. Weather should be about 88 degrees by then... so it's good running weather.

Hmm... what else has happened.

Had a male co-worker tell me last week that women here do not wear color (as I was wearing color) and that they wear black here (as in an abaya). That royally aggravated me to no end because I DO wear abayas to work... he later went on to tell my HOF that he was just kidding. I don't buy it for a second--but whatever.

Lets see, this week:

• I raced a friend up the escalator at the mall (and won!)

• Purchased a dining room table/chairs, a sitting chair, and a desk/hutch

• My kids made a connection with a map on activInspire to a map on the wall... and the moon. They were pumped about it--and so was I! It came on the board and one boy raised his hand and goes, "Ms. Ms..." stood up and walked over to the map on the wall and said, "map," and pointed to the map on the board. It was cool. Another little boy made his way over to the chair where I had vocabulary cards we'd been working on and found the moon. "Ms. Ms! Moon!" and held up the picture, "Moon!" and pointed to the board.

• Played bumper carts in the grocery store 

•  Paid a million dollars for a hair cut and blow dry because apparently, I have a lot of hair and it should cost 200 dhs ($54) to blow dry one's hair. Ridiculousness... 

• If you're grossed out easily, you shouldn't finish this post... went to the store and stumbled upon an unpleasant form of food. And you may think it's just because I don't like a lot of things, but no... they actually sell this in the meat section of the grocery stores here. 

Australian Lamb Brains... yes. Grossness.

 'Til next time... adios!