Settling in

So I cooked dinner again tonight at my place. There is a boutique grocery store (like a Whole Foods in the States) down the street from my building so it is a very short walk and so convenient. I am amazed at the selection of meats and fresh fruits and vegetables they have. I assume it's because all these buildings in my neighborhood have condo's and apartments, so it probably does a great business. The other great part of it is that the prices are really reasonable! I got 5 steak kabobs for only 15Dirhams, which is about $5- and 10 fresh made ravioli pasta's for only 25D ($8). The lady said the fresh made stuff has to move quick so they price it low as opposed to things that have a longer shelf life. These prices compared to the hotel's and restaurants are 1/4 the price so I am VERY happy with this.
My apartment appliances are taking some getting used to. I had to do laundry and it's one of those all in one units. I ended up washing the same load 4 times yesterday, but then did figure out how the cycles work and how to use the dryer function. My stove is in Celsius- which is so hard to convert C to Fahrenheit- needless to say my steak kabobs were not raw :-) WHo knew 250 Celcius is 482 degrees farenheit ???

I had a very busy week at work. I started all my days off before 8am and then 2 of the days didn't get home till 9:30pm. This is just how it is though with the US conference calls and visiting stores then having to go to the office for meetings. Honestly though I don't feel overwhelmed. Like today was Friday so I went in at 10am, left around 2- visited a store for an hour and was done round 3. My president over here wants us to comp our time, so it was almost like taking a 3 day weekend today.

I've been figuring out different ways to get from here to there around the city. I finally concurred the "Business Bay Crossing"- another highway system that I needed to figure out. It takes 1/2 the time off my trips to the outlying malls. This morning I was singing along to a song, and was like "I need a starbucks before I go in" so took the exit to Dubai Mall, but then all of a sudden I was going underground, and I had a moment where I was like "ummmm, I wonder where I'm going to end up?? I hope it's somewhere nice!" LOL. Luckily it was Friday morning so there was NO traffic (it is their Saturday), and I ended up over in an area called the DIFC and there was a Starbucks there! So learned a new route- and a new place for coffee!

Well that's a brief snapshot into the week, I'll post more over the weekend. I'm going to try and NOT go to the malls- I need to distance myself from the Zara stores before I get a restraining order put on me. :-)