In Dubai is Rudolph a Camel???

Hello All,

We hope this finds you well!! And that you are all enjoying the start of the holiday season!! First of all we want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you all had a lovely time with your families/friends and we missed celebrating it with you all!! We have so many people and things that we are thankful for!! Mark and I were going to make a big Thanksgiving dinner, but it is kind of hard to make for only the 2 of us. So we decided to head out for a nice meal instead. We went out to a very nice Mexican meal at Le Meridian Hotel in the Marina to Maya….the same restaurant is also in San Francisco and New York (http://www.modernmexican.com/mayasf/index.htm) and we were very excited about that J Our friend Salam joined us for this meal, for it was her birthday and we wanted to celebrate that as well!

We found out this week that Mum and Dad Foden, Sarah & Simon are joining us in Dubai, right after Christmas and for new year! We are very excited for their visit and have started lots of planning for when they are here!!

We had a relaxed weekend last weekend and had a fun bowling and arcade night with the two other couples from Discovery Gardens. Then had a nice day at the beach on Friday and brought stuff to BBQ for lunch. We bought a disposable bbq, some burger patties and Richmond sausages and enjoyed a relaxing time in the sun.

We wanted to head to the Dubai Rugby 7s last weekend, which supposedly is the biggest party weekend of the year here. It is a rugby tournament sponsored by Emirates Airlines, 16 (I think) rugby teams from around the world travel here for the tournament. (http://www.dubairugby7s.com/) The stadium is full of expats and people that travel here specifically for the tournament and there is tons of booze and food stands….it is a 3 day tournament….so 3 days of parties. We didn’t join in the parties or tournament this year, but next year we plan on purchasing tickets ahead of time so that we can join in the festivities.

Since we have television with all the Premier league games we were able to watch United beat City last Monday….which was brilliant to see the self-proclaimed “Biggest Club in the world” get taught a lesson by the Best Football Club in the World!! Come on United!!!

Tuesday was National day here in the UAE. It is a Public Holiday celebrating when the Emirates became united 37 years ago. (http://emiratesupdate.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/significance-of-the-uae-national-day/) All the nationals are very very patriotic and wear scarves that look like the flag and decorate their cars with the green, red, white and black. There were quite a few parades and again huge firework displays for 3 days in a row. “The fireworks display along the Corniche (in Abu Dhabi) is to be the largest fireworks display ever done. One full hour of fireworks launched from a whole bunch of different locations over the Emirates Palace and the surrounding Arabian Gulf waters.” Mark had to work as they have a big deadline to meet before Christmas so didn’t take part in the celebrations, but we watched the fireworks in Abu Dhabi on TV and they were pretty spectacular!

Our friend Laura was celebrating her 27th birthday this past weekend so we went out to a nice Chinese dinner with her and her boyfriend. We then made our way to an English pub – The Red Lion!!, where we felt like we were back in England, and then to a nightclub called the Rattlesnake. The Rattlesnake is known for the Prostitutes / Hookers, who flourish there, but apart from them (which were quite entertaining to watch) the bar had a great live band, and Mark and I were very excited when they played Summer of ’69!!

The weather hasn’t been the best for the past few days. It is still relatively warm 72-76*F (22-24*C) but has been quite humid with sporadic rain. I guess the average rainfall for December is around 3-4 inches, and in the past week there has been a lot more than that. Since the country is not used to the rain there are no drainage systems and therefore all the roads flood very easily, which creates havoc. We don’t mind the rain, but we are keeping our fingers crossed it stops by the time the Foden’s arrive in a few weeks!

We spent Friday a little hungover, but we decorated our first Christmas Tree together! Lots of fun and we found out that Mark cant tie knots very well! All we need now is the Fairy on top!

I had a Job interview on Thursday for an Administrative Assistant ….. got the job offer, so now have to decide if I should take it as something to keep me busy until a better opportunity arises for me. Unfortunately I have not had any other luck with other jobs yet, but trying to be as patient as possible about it.

Mark been working the last few Saturdays and will be working the next few public holidays in December. Work is very busy for him and he is now starting to help with The Dubai Mall project as well as his own project, because of the deadline and need more brains working on it. But since he is working extra now, it means he is able to take off from Christmas Eve through the new year!! :)

We hope you are all doing great and hope to hear from you soon!

All our Love,
Mark & Erin
Xxxxxxx

Some pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2215114&l=98626&id=6402232 (of the Atlantis Fireworks from a few weeks ago)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2215119&l=db894&id=6402232 (some pics of the floods/lightning that occurred)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2217055&l=55fa0&id=6402232 (arcade/bowling/dinners/our christmas tree)