Today is July 9th. As of today I have had my new position for 5 months. I have been living in Dubai for that time and I can say whole heatedly that I am enjoying it a little bit. I am missing a lot of the comforts of home, but for the most part, this is a great experience. I am enjoying my job, but it has kind of become mundane. I pretty much know what is going to happen and what is expected on a day to day basis, so it has become sort of not interesting. Hopefully some new things will happen that will get me out of that.
In the past 5 months, I have gotten the opportunity to do quite a bit of traveling. I have been to a lot of different countries and will hopefully be able to go to at least a few more before my time is up. I am planning on taking some vacation in the States near the end of the year to do some hunting. Other than that it would be nice to plan a trip to somewhere in Europe, South Africa, Australia, while I am on this side of the world.
I have been in my current apartment for about 2 months now and it is pretty nice. Definitely better now that I have an internet connection, but even before that it was ok. I like that it is a short walk to the grocery and a lot of restaurants. It will be great when the new mall opens down the street and I can just walk down there to see movies and such. I have a gas stove, and love it, and my washer/dryer works much better here than in my previous apartment or the one that I had in Aberdeen.
Some interesting things have happened in the past few months. For one, a building caught fire across the highway from me. That thing must have been burning for an hour or two, but the following day, they were back to work as if nothing had happened. While it was burning, people sat on the balconies and watched it, so I wasn't the only one.
Some movies are released later here, so sometimes they are for rent in iTunes before they are in theaters here. The most current example is Semi-Pro, which just came out in theaters here two weeks ago. It went up on iTunes about 2 weeks prior to that. The delay must come from money saved by the theaters by not getting a copy for months past the release date. That makes ok sense since movies are so cheap here. The big movies come out either a day before they are released in the US or about a week after. I typically spend about 40 Dirham total, which equates to about 10 dollars, for the ticket, a big bucket of popcorn (the only size they have), and a soda.
I eat out quite a bit and I like to say its because eating at home with one person, or at least cooking, is not practical. I think it has more to due with the fact that I am lazy and just don't want to cook. On the other hand, when you go to fast food restaurants here, they don't serve the enormous portions that we serve in the US, and in some places there are warnings that read, "Caution, American Portions." Typically you get a 12 or 16 ounce soda and something like a small french fry that I am used to. Even the sandwiches seem a little smaller.
Anyway, things are going well, but I am excited for what the next step is, which at the moment is 19 months or less from now.