happy national day

today begins the 3-day 40th national day celebration here in abu dhabi. its kind of the same as independence day in the states, but i'm not sure exactly who they would have gotten their independence from. basically, its just the 40th anniversary of when the uae became a country. so apparently things are about to get a little crazy here. supposedly there are fireworks for 4 days and traffic comes to a standstill for the entire time.

my school celebrated today too. they've been decorating for a week, all the teachers dress up in national dress -- dishdashas and abayas, and there were assemblies and henna tattooing and 'uae is awesome' films, etc. i was going to take pics at the assemblies, but muslim women can't be photographed, so i was told no. i did get these shots of the rotunda (or 'lobby' is what i call it):

the 3rd pic (which is kind of a crappy shot) is of a mobile (like you'd put in a baby's crib) with photos of the sheikh's on it. i found that incredibly hilarious. the last shot is of my boss, rob, who is from canada and not a muslim. he's an amazingly nice guy for a high school principal.
hopefully there will be more pics of the emirate shenanigans when jeff and i get out on the corniche this weekend. i was hoping we'd go to dubai for the rugby sevens, but according to several taxi drivers, if you haven't left for dubai by now, you'll never get there and jeff is probably working - again.

the movies here still suck (and jeff and i are old now and only go to matinees, eat early dinners and pass out by 10). 'puss in boots' has been in theaters for a couple of weeks, but get this: they have to call it 'cat in boots' in all the advertising.

we did go to al ain last weekend (one of the other emirates) and had a fabulous time. we went to the tallest point in the uae - called 'jebel hafeet', drank some cocktails, had some lovely room service (and a bubble bath in the jacuzzi tub! - just me) and went to the zoo. i posted most of the pics on fb, but here is one of my favorites:

the zoo animals were a bit lazy except for the lions that jeff is sure were having sex, the meerkats who were playing a game of chase and the monkeys who were randomnly picking bits off of themselves.

we stayed at the 'al ain rotana' -- 'aaaaarrrrrrrr':

starting the countdown to my texas visit - 18 days.

xoxoxo

tricia