Showing posts with label paddleboarding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paddleboarding. Show all posts

Monday, October 14, 2013

Our empty nest

It has been over a MONTH of living in a hotel. And though the hotel is dignified and such - it has a very grand lobby, and looks kind of like an MC Escher print from the elevator....


....we are so excited to move to our new house, a block away.


Which house, you ask? We are living in one of the blue towers on the right hand side. Doesn't look like a house, does it? It is a bit funny looking, we admit. At least one of our parents thinks that the architecture is absolutely hideous. But it has a Waitrose (yes, the Waitrose that gave us our groceries on trust) and ... a lot of jewelry stores. And we like it.

It is near our favorite camel burger joint....


....and across the street from the Corniche and our windsurfing/paddle board rental spot....


...and best of all, it has room for visitors, which isn't true of our current abode. Here is the guest room. It is the most furnished room in the whole house (the process of said furnishing was an epic cross-city adventure from which we are still recovering).



And here is where your breakfast gets cooked. No windows, but there is a washer-dryer and an ice maker - all the better to make smoothies!


 Based on our current habits, this is what you will get.



And this is our study/yoga room/mini-library. That's Coconut Island behind the two buildings.



And here is the bedroom. We haven't figured out how to cover the extremely creepy window from bathroom to bedroom (not pictured), but there's time....



And this is the future room of ping pong, movies, reading, and lounging of all kinds. Nick is happy because he can see Coconut Island from here. And I am happy because I can see the Emirates Palace helicopter pad. To each his own. We can also see a football field (not the American variety - poor Nick), the real palace (where the Sheikh lives), and Marina Mall.



We can't wait to settle down, play some ping pong, and get some bikes to hang on the wall like trophies. Nick's sister Katie has got us dreaming of indoor hammocks....and Margaret is contemplating electrical DIY projects to spoof the local chandeliers and testify to the glory of the mason jar....but those things may wait a while. In the meantime, come play!



Saturday, September 21, 2013

In which we paddle board and make a curious acquaintance



"What? You moved from San Francisco to here?!! Excuse me, but I have to go to the bathroom..." the guy we met at the Hilton bar spluttered. He has lived in AD for 30 years - but somehow, our move was beyond belief. He had similarly required a good deal of explanation to process our paddleboarding attempts, so I suppose his skepticism was par for the course.

Paddle boarding is a thing here. Amid a sea of jet skis, paddle sports are doing quite well. Helpfully, there are areas where motors aren't allowed (many of which are full of jet skis anyway, but some of which, like the mangroves, are blissfully empty).

We rented boards from Watercooled at the Hilton Beach Club, where there's also sailing and windsurfing and kayaking. It will be a short walk across the street from our new apartment (more on that pending). Paddleboarding was pretty easy at first.

 We paddled.   We did a little yoga.

We approached the shore dangerously closely.

And then our yoga poses got rather ambitious, and the falling began.

 Apparently, standing on one foot is hard on a paddle board.



And that is how we made friends with people at the bar, who (unbeknownst to us) were greatly entertained by our antics. Our skeptical friend had two cold beers waiting for us on the patio - our first drinks in AD!