rugby

friday night, jeff and i attended the abu dhabi harlequins rugby gala ball at the intercontinental hotel. we were the minority in that we're not rugby players and we're from the u.s. we were invited by steve and kathryn from hartlepool, uk.

we made some new friends from dublin - carina and declan, and from tennessee - kathryn and freidrich.

everyone we met was so nice, but we probably wouldn't know if they weren't -- they all have such heavy british or irish accents. and as americans who speak 'twang', we had a hard time understanding them. i'm sure they all think jeff and i are hard of hearing or retarded because all night, we kept saying, "huh?"

the entire evening was pretty awesome; we even danced! and i'm here to testify that the more you dance, the better a dancer you think you are (or maybe that had something to do with the bottomless glass of wine).

steve does his saturday night fever imitation; declan is speechless and kathryn is oblivious:



kathryn is a dancing queen!



yesterday, we ventured to the 'souk at qaryat al beri' for our own little pub crawl and some dinner. the souk is one of the few places that is not a hotel that serves alcohol (does anyone notice a theme here? always in search of our next glass of geriatric grapes or scotch). our first stop was 'the meat co.' who is supposed to have really great steaks, but we just sat at the bar for cocktails. then we moseyed over to 'left bank' where jeff consumed a giant platter of deep fried goodness - fish and chips - and i had a daquiri which looked suspiciously like a martini.

very hot and windy here:

hazy view of the grand mosque and the construction of the ritz carlton from the bar:

now that its june here, the mass-exodus of ex-pats has begun. everyone i've met is leaving to cooler climes in the next few weeks. 33 days (and counting) until we leave for dublin!

the tv is tuned to kourtney & kim take new york; i think i just lost 20 iq points and i feel the need to start speaking in nasal tones.

i gotta go; missing the balmy texas days,

t.