Finally a break

Pictures; I went out to the Palm Jumeriah today. Driving down the palm center you see the Atlantis resort at the end and the mono-rail runs the entire palm. The tunnel is the part at the end where the outer-ring is not connected, so you have to go underwater to get there from the mainland. Picture of the Atlantis Resort, Water view from the end of the palm.

WEll hello there. I haven't blogged in FOREVER! This past week was the busiest week yet. I started the week Sunday at 8am and ended the week last night at 12Midnight with a birthday party for my boss over here. It was a good week overall, so thought I'd blog on some highlights.

Went to the Marina Mall to see "Green Lantern" in 3-d. This was my first time going to the movies in Dubai, and it was 3-d, so was 75D! That's about $22 American. Crazy! Then Diet coke was to be expected 35D, or 10 bucks. I don't know if it was the 3-d part messing with my brain or the fact that we were in the mall for 3 1/2 hrs, but when we went to leave I knew level 5 is where we're parked. Well when we got in the elevator- 5 wouldn't light up. Nor would 5m, 4, or 4m. I was with a friend from my building and was trying to be cool- like- "that's weird- we parked on 5 right?" he couldn't remember, and it was 11pm, so I thought they might have closed parts of the ramp. So we went down to level three and walked up to the four, then 5, and NO CAR! It was also humid- 70 percent humidity and still in the 90's. So... panic, humid, hot as all hell, and embarrassing. SO we got back into the elevator went down, went back up, went down... eventually finding the car on level 2! WTF. I don't know what happened. I have NEVER lost my car in a parking ramp and whenever anyone told me it could happen I was like "ya- if you're stupid!" So I guess it was the worlds way of telling me everyone's a bit stupid once in a while. :-)
(Also- tonight when I went back to Marina Mall for dinner I took out my phone and took a picture of my space number- just in case ;-)

Last night like I said I went to my Boss's birthday party. We went to the Souk Madinat (pronounced ma-deeen-a) It is a cool mall type thing next to the Burj AlArab- the hotel that looks like a big white sail. It has lots of restaurants, art galleries, jewelry stores. Our whole team went and it was our first time really hanging out outside the office and it was a blast. The way we sat at dinner it just happened that myself, and the other two Territory managers (the one for VS and the other for LS) were on one side, the Pres, his secretary and the ops manager on the other and as the night got on the Ops manager goes "we have some really attractive managers here- I mean really! Look at you guys!" :-) The best part of the night was when we all realized we'll be in Riyadh at the same time next month, so we're all going to stay in the same hotel and be able to hang out there and our Boss is going to join in at the end of the week to tour all our stores. But the way we were sitting too made me realize how cool our team is- each of us managers runs a company here, and then our boss oversee's all three companies, and being together like that for the first time I think we all realized how unique it is, and fun our team is.

Today was Friday and being that I worked 12 hr days each day since Sunday, I took today off. Turned off the blackberry, turned on the "Do not disturb" button to my apartment, and slept in till 1:30pm today! SERIOUSLY was sleep deprived. I had US partners in town this week, so not only was I doing my own job 8-5pm, but then 5pm-10pm was entertaining the US team. I do enjoy the entertain piece- show them the city- being social and fun and knowing the cool restaurants (thank goodness I get free time-out Dubai Magazines each week delivered to my apartment to stay up on the happening places!) but after 4 days, I was done with it and sooo glad to sleep in today.

With all going on this week my apartment became only a place to crash. When I was getting in at 11pm, I'd go right to my bedroom, take out my contacts, watch tv for a few minutes (except when Mr. & Mrs. Smith was on- LOVE THAT MOVIE), and then sleep. When I got up this afternoon the gravity of what my week had done to my apartment became all to apparent, thank god today was one of my cleaning days so I turned off the "do not disturb" and pressed the "Service apartment" button and within minutes the team was here to clean. I literally put on my sunglasses, threw a 50d bill on the counter and shamefully left them saying "thanks & sorry". LOL. Two hours later when I returned it was spic and span "brand new". I love this place.