I'm a little tired of the elevator conversation right now

Dear Elevator People,

You know what I'm sick of? I'm sick of people commenting in the elevator about how hard it must be to have dogs while living in this apartment building. Just when I get comfortable with it all and think everything is balanced and zen again, someone has to open their big mouth on the four floor elevator ride and burst my bubble.

Do they think that somehow I don't KNOW how hard it can be?

YES- There are two of them
YES- The brown and white one is old
YES- they have to go out four times a day to pee
YES- There isn't a lot of grass nearby and therefore;
YES- they have to pee on the sidewalk, although I make them pee over at                 the side of it near the potted plants so that people won't have to walk  through it.
YES- I walk them myself. This is usually followed by shock and horror on the face of the asker and the question "Don't you have a maid!?"
YES- I have to pick up their poop in bags
YES- I realize that it is hot and that it's going to get hotter, and that it will be rough on EVERYONE in Abu Dhabi including the dogs. What I want to say to that is that these dogs come from a place where it gets to -40, and yet somehow they have survived 7 and 12 years respectively, obviously we'll take the proper precautions.
NO- this was NOT exactly where I wanted to live but its best for our family right now and frankly I am not going to explain to a stranger why I chose not to live in a villa.
NO-I don't think abandoning them in Canada or Italy would have been a better option and I want to punch the people who think that it is. (Yes Mr. Self-Righteous Australian man in the elevator I'm talking to you)

Also to the tenants who glare at us: If you don't want dogs in your building then I suggest you move to a building that doesn't allow dogs. Its quite simple really.

I was quite sympathetic at first with the people who screamed and threw themselves against walls when they saw the dogs but I have now lost all of my sympathy. Don't get me wrong, the guys out on the street who are seeing them for the first time and are scared, I am still sympathetic towards, and do everything to keep the dogs near me and assure them that I won't let them go. The people who live in this building have seen them enough times now that they should be able to recognize a LEASH when they see one and know that me HOLDING the leash means that the dog is restrained.(just like EVERY other time you've seen them) Screaming and jumping back is only going to rile my dog up more and make it more difficult for me to make her heel because now she thinks you want to play. I want to slap a few people in this building.

But I won't.

Because I'm yoga breathing and practicing the art of biting my tongue really hard. I'm worried that one of these days I might just bite it off!

So to all of you people in the elevator, having two dogs here is trying enough some days without having to answer your questions about how horrible it must be for us. If you'd like to chat about their age, breed, colour or how happy they are that they got to stay with their family during our expat adventures then I'd be more than happy to reply.

Sincerely,
Rachel with a very sore tongue.

Picture yourself being shot like a bullet out of a gun....

...and that's what it feels like to ride the Formula Rossa, the world's fastest roller coaster.

   We stood in line for about half an hour watching this thing blast off in front of our eyes so that by the time it was our turn I was actually quite nervous! They give you these stellar looking safety goggles to put on so that you don't get your eyeballs sandblasted during the ride and the ladies wearing shaylas had to wear these tight, grey zippered jobs on the outside so their headpiece didn't fly off!!!!!

  The rollar coaster looks like a Ferrari car...of course. It slowly takes you out onto the track where there are the lights to start the "race" So basically you're counting down to the scary part!!!!

  Then the light goes green and you're off, and by off I mean that you are literally fired from the starting point and reach the speed of 240km/hr in about 4-6 seconds. So now you know why I used the bullet from a gun reference. That is what it felt like!!!!! I closed my eyes for a few seconds so my eyes are squeezed shut in the picture that they took of me. I made myself open my eyes just half a second before we shot up into the air and over the first high peak of the ride. It felt like we were about to launch to mars!

  It didn't really slow down the entire ride, you constantly had the feeling that you were going WAY too fast, up and down and around and around in circles. I can honestly say it was the most exciting roller coaster I have ever been on! Its quite a simple design, up and down and circles, no loops. But its the SPEED that you're travelling that makes this roller coaster so awesome. We got off and I really just wanted to run around and get back in line!!! However, we had to go and collect the three year old so that Auntie Jenna and Kristin could have a turn on the roller coaster. I will definitely be taking my thrill seeking guests out there to try it out!!!!!!

Ferrari World also had some other rides worth checking out, there was a drop of doom type ride but that was closed the day that we were there. Richard and I paid to go on the Ferrari F430 Simulators where you sit in an actual Ferrari F430 which is attached to a large screen and then you drive on the F1 Abu Dhabi track like in a video game. The difference is that the car tilts and shudders depending on how good (or crap!) your steering is, and how fast you were going. I was actually thoroughly nauseated by the time I was done on that simulator but I had a HUGE grin on my face!!!! I crashed six times, mainly because I would just give it on the straight parts to see how fast I could get my simulated ferrari to go and then I'd try to Tokyo drift the corners which I can assure you does NOT work on a formula one track!!!!!!!

There were simulators like at the arcade where you raced 10 other drivers that were free and tilted like the big simulator just on a smaller scale. There was a simulator where you sat in with a formula one driver and raced along with him in the passenger seat of the car. There was a log ride that took you through a Ferrari engine and then spits you out the exhaust pipe for the final drop of the ride, pretty freaking cool.

Reese enjoyed Bella Italia, which is a car ride through a miniature Italy in "vintage ferraris" They did a great job recreating Italy and the cars you ride in are super cool!!!! They have mini F1 and ferrari car go-karts for the older crowd and for the little ones. Reese ran a stop sign, took the roundabout the wrong way and crashed into the wall about eight times but she had a blast doing it :)

There is also another rollercoaster where two roller coasters race on two parallel tracks with all these areas where you're slingshotted forward, it was pretty fun as well but not as cool as the Formula Rossa!!!!!!!!

I highly recommend Ferrari World, if you like scary rides, or even if you're just a fan of Ferraris( and come on.....who doesn't like Ferraris!!!!!)

The signs as you're heading into the MASSIVE building!

The tunnel leading to the ticket area

This is what it looks like from the air!!!!! The top right side of the picture you can see the tracks for the Formula Rossa

Such a cool looking building

Whoever designed this deserves a medal

DROOL!!!!!

Just like the Italians to go hanging cars on walls

The engine part walkway, all lit up

Belle Italia!!!!

In a vintage FERRARI!!!So cool

Apparently these two thought it was a roller coaster 

The F1 Simulator

The Go Karts!

The Track

The F430 Simulator

Oh that's right I'm sitting in a freaking FERRARI!!!! Harder than I thought to drive this sucker on a simulator!!

Richard having a go

Reese's first time driving!

UhOh!!!I crashed my Ferrari!

Showing off her ride

For the first time in my life I will not "Spring Forward"

The UAE doesn't do daylight savings time, so I am now only 10 hours ahead of Alberta, Canada instead of the 11 that I was a few days ago! I did some research to figure out why they don't do the daylight savings time over here and came up with this answer..........

They don't want to save any daylight!!!!!!

The day is fairly consistent here throughout the year with the longest and the shortest day only being an hour and a half difference(compared to Canada where its like a 6 hour difference!!!!)

The reasoning is that it gets so HOT here in the summer that they don't want to delay the sun going down until 8pm, because literally nobody comes out of their houses until sundown when things start to cool off and the shops open up again!!!!! So normally that happens between 6:30-7:15 ish and that gives people the extra hour to do things that they need to get done before they go to bed for the night. To spring forward once a year would just mean that they lose an hour of getting stuff done!!!!!!

During Ramadan they aren't allowed to eat or drink while the sun is up, so why the heck would they delay it by an hour changing clocks around, the people are starving as it is by the time the sun goes down!!!!

So yes.....for the first time in my life I'm not going to lose an hour of sleep in the springtime. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. 

Talk to your taxi driver

If you know me, you know that I never stop talking..........ever! Unless I'm mad of course and then if I've gotten to the point where I'm silent then you're really in trouble!!

So I find it FASCINATING to chat with my taxi drivers here in Abu Dhabi, and most of them are more than willing to share stories, tidbits and chat about life in Abu Dhabi. So this is what I've learned this week.

-The gossip from my Indian taxi driver about his friend who is dating a Phillipino girl but won't marry her(or perhaps CAN'T marry her) my driver was of the opinion that they'd been dating five years and he should just marry her already or break up!!!

-I learned the words in Arabic for fog and penis(yes that's right my immature friends I said penis)  The two apparently sound very similar and my lady driver was telling me a story where she radioed in and said there is too much penis rather than too much fog. BIG OOPS!!!!!( but also quite hilarious!!!) Samoura is fog and Shamoura is penis. Who knew!?

-I also learned the Arabic phrase for F-You...but I won't post that here.

- I got to use my very scarce Arabic when one of the drivers thanked me in Arabic. Shukran is thank you and Afwan is you're welcome.  

-I saw pictures of my lady driver's kids, two of which are nurses and we discussed the HAAD exams that foreign nurses have to take here.

-Also saw pictures of Pakistan and the mountain region which by the way looks quite beautiful!!!! I didn't even know there were mountains in Pakistan so I learned something new that day. 

-Learned the short cut to Reese's dance class which cuts at least five minutes off the drive!

So yeah, talk to your taxi drivers people! It makes the time pass quickly and they have some very entertaining things to talk about :)