Iftar and Eid al Fitr

As we near the end of the holy month Ramadan, I am enjoying my first public holiday in the UAE.   For a variety of reasons, my whole team ended up working on the last public holiday and through most of that 3-day weekend, so it's been nice to enjoy a little "time off" that doesn't involve getting on an airplane.

Eid al-Fitr, or "Festival of Breaking of the Fast" marks the end of a month of fasting, prayer, and charitable giving for Muslims.  For public sector employees and school children, it is a 3-day celebration with opportunities to see friends and family. For public sector, it's a 2-day holiday with most non-essential businesses closed in observance.

For me, the break is a little a little bittersweet.  My father is getting married this weekend, however we will  not be in Boston to celebrate with him. The timing is actually pretty good with the 2-day public holiday, but at 32 weeks pregnant, I am opting not to make the long journey back to the US for what would have been the third month in a row.  I'm far enough along that the airlines require doctors' notes within 48 hours of departure for both long-haul flights, and that means I'd have to find an obstetrician in Boston to clear me to fly back to UAE.  Compounded with sitting in economy for 12+ hours with my big belly, I just don't think I can do it.  Dad and his fiance understand, and I still wish I could be there with them.  Luckily, my brother-in-law who took photographs for G and my wedding is also photographing Dad's wedding, so I'll get to see lots of pictures!

G and I did get to celebrate an Iftar (daily breaking of the fast) and it was quite an experience!  We made a reservation at the upscale Lebanese restaurant called Li Beirut in our building and we were not disappointed. When we arrived, there were several tables of other patrons who were still fasting, and the restaurant had the television turned to an Arabic channel that covers daily prayers.  They started bringing out dates, fresh juices, and cold appetizers for breaking of the fast, and since we were clearly not fasting, we were politely instructed to wait until the prayers on the television were complete and the Iftar canon had sounded.  It was all very civilized, unlike some of the stories I've heard of celebrating Iftar with large crowds at the local mosques.

The cold mezze or cold appetizers were enough for a meal!

The food was delicious, although as non-fasting patrons, it was quite a lot!  I tried to limit myself to just a tiny sample of everything, knowing that there was still soup, hot appetizer, main, and dessert courses left to go! Shortly after the Iftar canon sounded, the servers brought us a yummy lemony lentil soup which again, I had to resist finishing.

Hot Mezze course with green salad and tahini

The hot mezze consisted of various fried things stuffed with meats, cheeses, and unknown tasty bits of vegetables.  I can see how people gain weight during Ramadan since after fasting all day, it is hard not to gorge yourself on delicious foods that you've been missing for the past 12+ hours.

Main course - so much food, particularly for only 2 people!

I didn't quite get a snapshot of the main courses that came out before G and I dug in, but we barely made a dent in it since we were getting so full!  G's favorite was the lamb chop (there were two, you can see one in the photo), and my favorite was the eggplant and grape leaves stuffed with rice and baby marrow (the bowl at the top). The eggplant was probably the least "pretty" thing they brought out with its dark muted colors, and it was so rich flavorful. I wish I had brought the leftovers home, but our fridge is tiny and was already full so we let the servers clear it all away.  I've checked and the dolmas & eggplant is on the regular menu so I will definitely be back at Li Beirut after Ramadan is over!

Dessert was hit and miss, there was a sweet cheese dish with bananas and berries that neither of us cared for, and there was a plate of baklava that was devoured before either of us thought to take a photo.  I mean really, chopped nuts, buttery layers phyllo dough, all doused in honey...what is not to love??

We saw another pair of non-fasting expats leave after Iftar with 2 large shopping bags full of leftovers.  Honestly, if our tiny refrigerator had room, we would have followed suit because everything was so delicious -- lesson learned for next year, no grocery shopping before Iftar!  It was a fun an interesting experience, and we enjoyed seeing the other tables with groups of people breaking fast together.  Some ate very quickly and were on there way, others stayed and relaxed an enjoyed the food.  This time next year, we'll be in Dubai with a little one, so we may or may not be able to go out for an Iftar celebration, but we will certainly try!

Kim and G as Nearly 3

I found Lacey through one of the several Abu Dhabi mom's facebook groups that I subscribe to. She was advertising looking for a model for birth stories, which I've been on the fence about for a long time.  On the one hand, I really want to remember those first newborn moments.  I also remember a good friend of mine, Brenda, delivered at a hospital in Houston that had a professional photographer come the day after delivery to take a professional stylized newborn shoot - it seemed so easy and convenient since Brenda and her husband were new parents; how nice to have that service at the hospital! On the other hand, I'm sure if I'll be ready to be photographed right after delivering, and the hospital I've chosen here in Abu Dhabi definitely doesn't have a designated photographer.  It seems a little weird to have a photographer in the delivery room too.

Enter Lacey.  I skimmed through her examples, and I loved them!  Her birth story photos are tasteful, but still real.  I emailed her right away to tell her I was interested, and unfortunately as fate would have it, she is planning to spend the summer back in the USA - her return date is right about when I'm due to deliver.  I still wanted to work with her, so I asked if she'd consider maternity or newborn photos and she said yes!  So we squeezed in a last minute appointment before she jets off to the States.

We went through a big "Apartment Cleaning" exercise since we wanted everything to look pretty neutral for the photo shoot. Our apartment has no storage (as discussed in #FirstWorldProblems) so we moved as much clutter from the living room and our master bedroom into the guest bedroom as we could.  I commented on how nice the apartment looked, and G looked at me and said "You know this is all fake right?  We are clean, but we're not THIS clean.  This is not how we actually live!" That's the nature of photo shoots...enhanced reality 😉.

Anyway, Lacey was amazing.  Lacey IS amazing!  She is super professional, and she came with a mood board of shots she wanted to capture.  This was great, because other than one particular photo I had in mind, I had no idea what I wanted.  She also improvised with our space, and took some fabulous photos of G playing his guitar.  One of my favorite moments was when we were playing around with ideas for showing off my baby bump, and she asked if I had a robe. I showed her a magenta cotton robe that I love - I purchased it when I was visiting Tokyo in 2010. She asked if I had a steamer since it was wrinkled. I jokingly said "no, but I have a G...." and he actually took me seriously and pulled the ironing board and iron out of the guest room ironed it for me while she finished setting up.  She was so impressed at his mad skills that photographed him. My husband is the best ever!!!

Anyway, a few of the shots from our session are below, and she also put together a short video of the full collection (including a little surprise at the end!).

Photos courtesy of Lacey Sexson Photography!   We had so much fun working with you, and we love the photos that you've given us.  We can't wait to work with you again when Linh is born!

#FirstWorldProblems

Ok blogosphere, I'm going to go on a little rant about our apartment. I recognize that all of my complaints are first world complaints.  G and I generally enjoy living in Abu Dhabi - in terms of places to expatriate to, its relatively easy.  People speak English, they drive on the right side of the road, you can buy almost everything that you would in the USA.  From a cost perspective, since G resigned from his job and my company has a tax equalization policy, we break even.  We gain this priceless experience abroad and he is able to work on his degree. We're not really "making bank" like a lot of expats do.  There are a lot of little things that irritate us, most of them are tolerable - things like driving with the locals takes a lot more energy and patience, you can't weigh your own produce at the grocery store - no big deal.

Except our apartment.

Our apartment drives us bonkers.

Because our mobilization to Abu Dhabi was very quick and it was classified as a short-term assignment of less than 12 months, we didn't have a choice about where we were going to live.  The company chose a fully furnished, serviced apartment for us, negotiated and signed a one-year lease, and paid for it all upfront while we were in transit from Houston to Abu Dhabi.  I remember exchanging emails with my company relocation services about whether it would be a one bedroom or two bedroom apartment literally the morning we were supposed to depart for the airport. THANKFULLY we ended up in a two-bedroom.  It affords me another bedroom to go to when I'm having bouts of pregnancy-induced insomnia...which is often nowadays.

Don't get me wrong, it is a BEAUTIFUL apartment.  It has floor to ceiling windows, frameless glass showers with rainfall shower heads, sparkly black waterfall granite counter tops.  The furniture and artwork is all very tasteful and neutral and it looks like it came out of a magazine.

Our main living space - you can see part of our kitchen counter, the living room, G's office in the back corner, and our dining room.

I'll start in the kitchen since this is our biggest source of disappointment.  The kitchen has everything you would need in a kitchen, except there is very limited storage space, and no pantry. We purchased a utility shelf to serve as our pantry because we just didn't have anywhere to store food.  Our refrigerator/freezer doesn't have auto-defrost, and the freezer door doesn't close easily, so we have woken up to a freezer full of frost buildup more than once. The sinks are a tiny pair of round basins which means whenever we move the faucet from one basin to the other, water gets all over the counter top.  And the thing that G hates the most about our kitchen is the combination washer/dryer. Laundry takes forever because rather than moving wet clothes from the washer to the dryer, he has to both wash and dry them in the same machine.  He'll line dry as much as he can, but again the limited space in our apartment means there is limited clothesline for line drying.

Who designs a kitchen sink like this?!?

Since there is no built-in shelving or closet space anywhere in the apartment, we've resorted to using the window mullions as shelving.  The lack of storage space is really a frustration throughout the entire apartment. There is no coat closet, no linen closet, nowhere to store any "non-essential" items, so we are thankful that we only used half our shipping allowance coming here. We're constantly trying to maximize our space so that we can find homes for all the baby items that will be shipped to us next month!

We have two very large bathrooms with shiny white tile finishes.  We often lament that we wish the guest bathroom had a linen closet instead of a bathtub. The only thing we really use that dead space for is line drying clothes.  Both of the showers in the master and the guest room have these lovely frameless glass enclosures.  The doors to the glass enclosures are flush to the floor with no lip to hold water in, and no slope on the shower floor to help water move towards the drain, so water tends to spill out of the shower when we're done.  This would easily be solved with a bath mat, except that the bath mat gets pushed out of the way by the shower door because...you got it, it is flush to the floor!

Guest bathroom - we wish the tub were a linen closet

Shower doors that you can't open without pushing the bathmats out of the way = water everywhere

Finally, the bedrooms.  We love the big blackout curtains, and the view of the Marina from our bedroom. We do not love the size of the closets in the bedroom - they're  definitely too small for two people!  G is using the closet in the guest room, which is even smaller than my closet.  Management has also recently decided that the bed linens no longer include a flat sheet between the duvet and the fitted sheet on the bed.  It's over 100 degrees every day here, and we'd like to sleep covered by something other than the duvet!  Fortunately, the day-to-day housekeeping staff are great, so they sneak us an extra sheet on our bed.

My master bedroom closet.  The left door is actually shelves and drawers, so I only have the two right doors as "hanging" space.  This is about 25% of the closet space that G and I have back in Houston. :-(

Last complaint that G suggested was that the internet in the complex is bad.  Since internet is provided by the apartment management, and it's "corporate" internet, the cost to upgrade to a guaranteed higher speed was almost $300/month.  No, thank you, we will suffer.  Sorry to all the family who has put up with our crappy skype calls.

I've been telling myself for months that I shouldn't complain because it really is a beautiful space with stunning views (when they actually clean the windows, which is not very often).  Having day-to-day housekeeping is also super nice - we have fresh linens and towels 3 times per week. The staff remembered G's birthday, and brought him a delicious slice of chocolate cake. The big windows let in some really nice natural light.

Trick to getting the pregnant lady to stop complaining about the apartment...deliver chocolate cake!

It's a really, really nice apartment -- if you're staying for a few weeks or maybe a month. It's a bit awkward and non-functional for long-term living.  I would gladly give up some of the flash of fancy finishes for storage space and functionality.  With the the move to Dubai, we're super excited to be able to choose the space that we live in, which will undoubtedly have more storage solutions than our current situation.  We'll post more details on our new home hunt as it gets closer!!

We have AMAZING friends!

When I lived in Houston, I joined a triathlon training group coached by my fellow yoga teacher and friend Cyndy.  We had spin class led by Cyndy followed by short jogs on Tuesday and Thursday morning (triathletes call these "Bricks".  I'm not sure why, but I think it's because your legs feel like bricks after you get off the bike and try to run), and we had an hour-long swim sessions on Wednesday evenings with Rice University's women's head swim coach, Seth Huston.  Shortly after I joined the coached triathlon group, Cyndy moved to Toronto, and the group mostly stopped being a "triathlon" group and became of just a "swim" group - we're not really motivated enough to be in Seth's masters swim program, but we still wanted to get together to swim, so Seth agreed to keep coaching us after Cyndy moved away.

The swim group is a super fun group of really interesting people from a wide variety of backgrounds. They usually have dinner together after swim on Wednesdays, and it's just a really easy group to hang out with - people that I probably would never have met in any other circumstance except that I was interested in triathlons.  I actually met one of my best friends through the group (Kim 1 - she and I ran together for years, and I couldn't have done my first half marathon without her coaching me through it!), and when I started dating after divorce, this was usually the first group of friends I would introduce "the guy" to.  When G and I started dating, he would meet us for dinner after swim, and after we got engaged, he started swimming us to train for his first triathlon.  It became our Wednesday night treat to swim and have dinner and laugh with friends. We both miss our Wednesday nights with swim group terribly!  I was especially looking forward to swimming while pregnant as the other ladies in the group who have done it told the baby actually makes you more buoyant.

Anyway, our swim group decided to host a virtual baby shower for us, which we think is such a super sweet and thoughtful idea.  They had cupcakes in our honor...

I believe these are from Celebrity Cupcake, one of my favorites in Houston!  I wish I could have been there to have one!!

Served on fun pink plates....

And they brought photos of all the gifts that they purchased off our Amazon Registry and had sent to G's parents house since they couldn't physically give us the gifts in person.

From L to R, Brad, Alaina, Kim 1 (I'm Kim 2), Fugy, Bette, and Gay

The sign that Brad's holding says "I have a 21 yo... in lieu of baby gifts, I bought you two boxes of condoms, to help prevent this from happening again"

Alaina also sent us 2 videos that I can't figure out how to download and upload, so I posted links back to facebook :-)

Video 1

Video 2 

We have to give a special thanks to Gay on the far right side of the photos for bringing cupcakes to everyone, and another extra special thanks to Alaina (with the visor on the left) for organizing the virtual baby shower.  And of course, a thank you to the whole group, including a few swimmer friends who couldn't make it to the actual cupcake shower, for all the new gifts that showed up as "purchased" on our registry (despite the sign, Brad did actually send some very nice items!).  We are so incredibly blessed to have such wonderful friends.  Even when we're half a world of way, they are still showering us with love!  

It's Official! We're Moving to DUBAI!

Most of our friends have family have heard through the grapevine that we are planning to move to Dubai in November, after the baby is born.  My project team manages a portfolio of projects, and our portfolio in Abu Dhabi is winding down so it will soon be time for us to either move on to back to the main regional office in Dubai. Well, this week, it is official! I received my "formal" offer letter from the company to move to Dubai!  We're so excited!!!

Don't get me wrong - we have liked living in Abu Dhabi. I think the biggest source of stress with Abu Dhabi has been the limitations that come with a short-term assignment with our company - we only have one car, we live in an apartment that drives us nuts, and for the first few months of our assignment we had very little certainty about the future (Uncertainty is hard!).  We weren't sure if we'd be here for 12 months or 3 months!

In fact, most families that I've polled at work have said they actually prefer Abu Dhabi to Dubai.  Abu Dhabi is easy to navigate with a (mostly) grid-based traffic system, and pace of life here is not super crazy.  I think the schools here might be easier for the expat kids to get into as well, I'm not well versed in that since we're not at that stage yet.

The exciting part of moving to Dubai is that this is a regular assignment, affording us a full expatriate benefits package.  We'll be able to actually choose where we live (big plus for G since he'll be home with the baby all day while going to school online), we'll own both our own cars instead of sharing a rental, and while we're still not sure exactly how long the assignment will be, we know we'll be in Dubai at least through 2018, possibly longer depending on how my company's Middle East portfolio changes in the next few months.  Plus, we'll get to bring another shipment from home, so G will probably travel back to Houston once we sign a lease in Dubai so he can sell our cars and pack some boxes.

We have some major decisions coming up!  Do we lease a villa (basically a house in a developed neighborhood) or another (larger) apartment? What neighborhood in the city will we live in? What will we bring back to Dubai from Houston?  We've already decided we're not bringing much furniture, we'd like to keep our furnished home in Houston well...furnished.  Plus, a sea shipment takes 6-8 weeks, whereas an air shipment only takes 3-4 weeks, so we'll likely just take another air shipment with small household goods.

I'm always curious to know what other expats miss from home...G really misses having a yard with plants and a dog to come home to.  We will likely end up in a villa because of this...although we'll see how he feels about having to pack up the kiddo in the car seat every time he needs to run to the grocery store.  I really miss my boxes and boxes of crafting stuff - scrapbooks and sewing projects. I almost brought my sewing machine and I'm glad I didn't - I literally have nowhere to put it our apartment.  I am, however, super excited to have all of that shipped to me when we move to Dubai.  I know that I likely won't have much time for it with the kiddo, but I've been crazy busy before and still managed to squeeze in a project or two.  There's just something about finishing a project that is really satisfying!  Even if it's as simple as a set of potholders or napkins, it still gives me a boost of serotonin-induced gratification.

Anyway, we're both thrilled!  The move will be messy and complicated with a lot of moving parts - a baby being born, house hunting, family visiting, packing a shipment, buying new furniture...and we can't wait!!!

Pregnancy during Ramadan

First - happy birthday to my wonderful and amazing husband!  Second - there's been a bit of a gap between my last post and this one, mostly because we've been catching up from our whirlwind Midwest trip.  Not much exciting on our end, just trying to get organized around the apartment before the baby makes her grand entrance.  One thing of note since we've returned to Abu Dhabi is the start of Ramadan.  This is a pretty new experience for both of us, so I thought I would share what I've learned in the past few weeks about this religious month.

Ramadan is a holy month of fasting for Muslims.  This is not like fasting as Catholics know fasting - I grew up fasting on Ash Wednesdays and Good Fridays during Lent, which meant abstaining from land meat and eating about half as much as I would during a normal day.  Water is allowed. Ramadan fasting is no consumption of anything (no water, no gum, no mints) from sunrise to sundown in addition abstinence from any generally pleasurable indulgences (smoking, sex, alcohol) during that time.  Once the sun sets, the fast is typically broken with milk, dates, fruits and other light foods and after evening prayer, large celebratory feasts are served.

Living in a Muslim country during Ramadan is interesting.  It is actually prohibited to eat, drink, or smoke in public places, so non-fasting residents of Muslim countries must eat or drink either in the privacy of their homes or behind screened off areas of restaurants.  Work hours are shortened to allow the fasting population extra time for rest and prayer.  Shopping malls and restaurants shift their hours later as business will pick up significantly after sundown.  I also find it interesting that since Ramadan is based on the lunar calendar, the time of year that it occurs changes - every Gregorian year, Ramadan will be 10-12 days earlier than the year before.  For countries near the equator like Indonesia or Malaysia, this doesn't matter much since there are 12 hours of sunlight per day, every day, all year long.  Imagine fasting from sunrise to sundown in a country like...say Norway or in Alaska when Ramadan falls in June!  Iftar (the breaking of fast) and Suhoor (the last meal before fast) would almost be at the same time!  Alternately, imagine a Ramadan in Norway in December where the opposite holds true, and it is a very, very short fast.  Somehow, I don't think the Prophet Mohammed took latitude into consideration when writing down Allah's instructions.

I was curious about how pregnancy was treated among Muslims, and I have yet to find a consistent answer.  Among Catholics, it is pretty clear - pregnant women are exempt from fasting obligations. For Muslims, it's not so cut and dry as various Imams will offer different advice, depending on whether fasting is an impact to the health of the mother or health of the baby.  If the health of the mother is impacted by fasting, the pregnant woman may feed a poor person for each skipped fast. Recent medical studies show that fasting can cause several different issues for newborns, and in these cases, pregnant women are advised to skip fasting and make them up after Ramadan - and this is challenging in all the same ways that it is challenging to be a Muslim in a non-Muslim country during Ramadan.  For this reason, some pregnant Muslim women try to fast intermittently during Ramadan to minimize the number of "make-up" days they have after birth, particularly since fasting while breast feeding is an extra challenge in addition to lack of community support. This seems to contradict medical advice to avoid fasting, so I'm not sure how well this information is dispersed among the community.  In the end, it is a woman's choice, I supposed, how she wants to handle the situation, similarly how I occasionally (gasp) eat sushi. I am very intolerant of being hungry so the concept of being pregnant AND hungry sounds horrible to me.

For me personally, the only major impacts so far to my daily routine are that I have to keep closing my door every time I eat or drink, so it is is closed for 5-10 min every hour, and that a lot of the restaurants near my office that I frequent for lunch are closed.  I work in an office tower within a shopping mall, and some of the sit down options have carry-out available, while others have just closed for daytime food service. The food court has about half the restaurants open with a large walled off section for non-fasting people to eat.  The downside to the giant walled off area is that the smell of grease from fast food has less space to "disperse" so the smell sometimes makes me nauseous.  Fortunately, my favorite food venue Jamba Juice is still open for me to have a smoothie and salad in my office if I so choose!

Another minor impact is that the restaurants that ARE open and typically served alcohol no longer serve until after sundown.  This was actually a bit of a bummer for G's birthday yesterday because we prefer to eat an early dinner, around 6pm or 6:30pm.  The restaurant where we had birthday dinner for G was not serving alcohol until 7:30pm and we didn't want to stay long enough for him to have a margarita, so he had to settle for a margarita-less chimichanga.  #firstworldproblems

Other than that, we've been enjoying the lighter evening traffic (since everyone goes home early) and we plan to try to attend at least one Iftar before the month is over.  Suhoor at our apartment is served at 3am, so we will probably skip out on that one, but as I understand the community Iftars can be a lot of fun.  Hopefully, it will be a blog-worthy adventure!