Starting over again

I am starting yet another new job tomorrow. At least I'm starting a job, as I guess having to go home and pay my loan back in South African rands may have been a bit pants.

Most of you will laugh at how appropriate/perfect this job is for me! I am Project Managing the AC Milan vs Hamburg football game on 6 January. As far as I can gather, this means I am organising everything for the event, including looking after the players for a week - who incidentally include one times David Beckham from early next year, and Kaka - what a damn shame ;-)

It's not permanent but gives me time to find the perfect job. Again.

My housemate, former boss, friend and mostly wife leaves for Australia next week. I am gutted, but know we will stay in touch, and she will somehow manage to look after me from there too... The replacement is a 37 year old Kiwi called Stuart, who is a sports fanatic and is really chilled out and stable - all things that are uber necessary when living with me!

I am off to see some of my wonderful family in Holland in 2 weeks time, and my best friend J arrives on Friday for Rugby 7's, which is end November. Plenty of steak, wakeboarding and delicious beer in store for that visit methinks ;-)

Life is good.

Halloween

South Africans do not generally celebrate Halloween as much as some other nations do. There is no getting dressed up and trick or treating. Perhaps because the idea of walking the streets of SA after dark is as scary as some of the costumes I saw at our Halloween party on Thursday night!

New friends Taner (Turkish Canadian) and Elin (Norwegian) threw a party at I2 Lounge. Wow. What fun! Having had a manicure and pedicure at Lisa's house - yes, beauty salons do house calls here - accompanied by vodka and Medley of Fruits (which forever more will be known as Demon Juice - there's a reason I drink delicious beer!) we set off at 10pm, in our finery. Halloween may be my new favourite holiday ;-)

Although, having counted our public holidays for December, we only work 15 days in total, so the month of December is my new favourite holiday!

Post birthday blues... NOT

The collective sigh of relief after Tuesday's final birthday celebration would have been enough for Del and Carl to kite surf on for a couple of days!

I have had 4 amazing, very different celebrations, and the groans when I suggested we all start celebrating half-birthdays (i.e. 14 April for me) will give an inkling of how much fun was had, and proportionally, how long the recovery period is likely to be...

My friends rock. The majority of them made at least one of the 4 celebrations, and some of them even made 3 or 4. I have no right to ever ask any of them for anything ever again ;-) I was spoilt rotten. In short, I love birthdays!

In an attempt to curb post birthday blues we (obviously) booked a booze cruise on a 70ft yacht, round the Dubai coastline past Atlantis and out to The World for Friday last week.

I am officially a fan of yachts, cruises, HeinePams - they unfortunately do not sell Pamstel here so I have had to rework that slightly - sunbathing, sunset, meeting new people and everything else we attempted to squeeze into our 3 hour cruise.

Newsflash : I have given up smoking. Day 5. I never want to smoke again, so am pretty sure this will be it for me. I also have 1000AED riding on it, which doesn't make much difference, but I will be pretty pleased with myself when I collect that on my birthday next year.

I am planning on a series of rewards for every month I go without. Yes, in typical Pam fashion I hear you laugh. First one is teeth whitening. Suggestions for month two open now...

Oh, and I'm still ridiculously happy here.

Designer Dubai

I love birthdays. And I haven't even had mine yet! I also love that my friends are well established, successful people with taste. So far the bags being handed over have included Dior, Swarovski, Tiffany and a boutique bikini store that I can't spell, and no-one would know it anyway ;-)

I'm not materialistic. I just don't want it if it isn't designer! Kidding, but it is fun ;-)

I'll post more after my birthday, so I can give details of the third and final party at the same time...

Birthday (2) week(s).

I'm so excited. My birthday kicks off with a Jose Gonzalez gig on Wednesday night, followed by a cocktail party at I2 Lounge on Thursday, and then brunch by the pool at Fusion B&B on Friday. Of course my actual birthday is only the following Tuesday, so I will have to do dinner then too ;-) I'm thinking Bussola rooftop pizzeria.

I love that I have no problem getting older. Perhaps because I wasn't particularly nice when I was younger, but I keep feeling that I get better as I get older, so roll on 31!

I am sad I won't make it home this year to celebrate with my family. But we'll make up for it another time...

Pretty Carl

Our group of friends has just met a new addition. Carl, 30, South African, plays rugby and is the New Business Manager for Crocs.

He is also an ex-model, and quite possibly the prettiest (most enormous!) and most metrosexual man I've ever met. Much to the disgust of my Kiwi mate Carl - who, to be fair, has been around for a lot longer - we differentiate between pretty Carl, and well, just Carl. But Carl thinks we differentiate between pretty Carl and ugly Carl. So we changed it to big Carl and well, little Carl. But Kiwi Carl is a fairly big guy so he's still not happy!

Who would have thought boys were so concerned about how they are perceived! Maybe they should be brunette Carl, and sandy brown Carl? MetroCarl and ScruffyCarl?

They're in this pic on either side of my gorgeous friend Barbs - suggestions?

Debt

I wanted to explain my plaintive wail of the last few weeks 'I can't afford to, I'm broke'. Not because it's a lie, but because people are feeling sorry for me, and they shouldn't.

In the year that I have been in Dubai, I have bought a Rav4, brand new, off the showroom floor. I have done my PADI scuba diving course, and my Advanced Course. I have learned to wakeboard, and do so every weekend, at a tiny beach club outside of Dubai. I have invested in off shore trusts (watch this space - it sounds very grown up!). I have taken my whole family for high tea at the Burj Al Arab.

I have been back to South Africa once, to Holland twice, to London and Thailand once, to Jordan and Beirut for long weekends, to a music festival in Denmark, and of course to Brazil for 3 weeks over Christmas and New Year.

I have bought the basics of a new wardrobe, twice, once for losing weight - finally - and once for starting a new job, in a new field, that requires 'meeting clothes' that are not jeans and a t-shirt! I drink delicious beer, which is probably the only thing that gets taxed in this country, so it's bloody expensive.

I have also just paid a years rent up front, after not working for 5 weeks in July/August. I'm broke. But happy ;-) And I forbid people to feel sorry for me, I certainly don't deserve it!

Exercising makes the heart grow fonder

Please can everyone remind me what a nice person I am when I'm exercising. It takes weeks to get me into the gym, and then once I am in there, I rarely last longer than 1 week, before 1 hangover keeps me out and I never go back!

I have taken up running, on a treadmill, although will run outside when it gets cooler. I am planning on running a 10km race at the end of January. I remember now why I carried on swimming long after I decided I wasn't going to make it - the time in the water gave me a chance to sort my thoughts out. I am enjoying putting all the stormy thoughts of the last couple of months into little compartments while I'm running.

It makes everything a lot more manageable. And I'm such a nice person again! Please remind me of this, often...

Facebook vs. block

Social networking faux-pas? I took the enormous step of blocking someone on Facebook last night. I'm pretty sure it was the right thing to do. I'm pretty sure it is not the equivalent of sending them to purgatory, and I'm also pretty sure they won't even notice for the first couple of weeks. And I suppose, more to the point, when they do notice I'm pretty sure they won't care.

What I'm not sure about, is why I still do.

Missing my wife

Update on the last post - No-one got arrested at the birthday pub crawl through Bur Dubai, but it certainly wasn't as much fun as drinking behind closed doors, with music ;-)

Vanessa, my housemate, also known as my wife, has gone back to Australia indefinitely. What this means to me is that no-one is doing the food shopping, cooking my dinner, letting in Pest Control, Maintenance, Plumbers, Electricians etc. Hopefully from that list you realise how much shit has been going down in my house lately. Obviously because neither of us have any money, this all had to happen at once.

I also now realise how much I rely on my fabulous housemate in my weight loss and healthy eating quest. I miss you Ness!

I managed to do the shopping after work last night and cook my own dinner. If I'm honest, it really wasn't hard. And it tasted great ;-)

Hopefully my first work trip will happen next week, to Oman, will confirm asap...

Birthdays vs Ramadan

Ramadan started here on 1 September. For those of you who don't know what that entails, for a Westerner it means no eating, drinking (including water), or smoking in public during daylight hours.

Alcohol is only on sale after 7pm every night, at bottle stores and hotels. No live music is allowed, and even 'piped' music is forbidden in bars for the month. Western women are advised to dress modestly if walking around town, even after dark.

What happens when this coincides (collides!?) with birthdays? On Monday we investigated one option - for Sarah's birthday - we had a sit down 3-course meal for 30 people, at a Bed and Breakfast, with all the alcohol you can drink, behind closed doors so music was played and general merriment abounded, with no interference from the outside world.

The second option - for Lisa's birthday - happens tomorrow, and seems to be by far the riskier of the 2! We are embarking on a pub crawl through Bur Dubai. Starting at 7pm, obviously, we are supposed to be visiting a few bars at various hotels in a specific area, in the Old Town. Bearing in mind we will all have to be dressed conservatively, and will have to walk between bars, the potential for being arrested for being drunk/underdressed/rude etc in public, is huge. Quite frankly I would not be surprised if it all goes horribly wrong.

I will not be drinking and quite cunningly, I think, will be timing my walks to different bars so as to avoid all the people with me ;-)

I'll keep you posted.

New friends

I'm not sure when the fear of meeting up with someone I've never met, disappeared. This week I had the pleasure of taking out Natasha, a Brazilian girl, who lives with my best friend from high school (Romy), in London. Never met her, she was over to see Dubai and go for some interviews to check if she wants to move here. A few emails later, and Bob's your uncle - I picked her up from where she was staying and went to Barasti Beach Bar.

Accompanied by another new friend, Tom, who is also over from London and is training me (see previous blog), and my boss Joe, we spoke absolute rubbish until at least midnight. Joe is helping her find a job, Tom and I went out with her again last night, I met her friend Mike who lives here, and who I will drink delicious beer with again - all in all, this going out with strangers is rather fun!

I keep saying this, but promise it's true this time - I start swimming training again on Sunday. I'm scared.

Training Day

So I started training on our product today. I have 5 days to learn a software that has taken 5 years to write the code for. Ouch. So much for deciding not to do IT as a career ;-) Luckily the guy training us is the guy that wrote the software, so he's brilliant, and really good at teaching.

I had an awesome weekend, if I discount the sporting results. What a shocker for the Boks, the Proteas and Arsenal. Moving swiftly along. Wakeboarding was great - I did my first 180 degree switch, and got it first time, and 3 times after that, which is apparently quite impressive!

On day 8 of Weigh-Less, and Day 14 of missing my best friend beer. And all is well...

Work and play

So I've been at my new job for a month now. It started really slowly, more because I didn't really know what to do, and am out of practice with the whole being able to do what I want thing, than because there was nothing to do. It's a 4 minute drive from my house, which is bliss, and I finish at 5pm. Yes, every day. No more waiting on other people to finish, ads to go off etc, I am literally home at 5.10pm every day.

This would be a prime opportunity to get some gym sessions under my belt, and still be on my couch eating dinner before I would normally even get home, but to be perfectly honest, the first few weeks consisted of an afternoon nap between 5 and 7pm, before dinner, rather than something energetic like gym ;-)

I had my first client presentation today - I was shitting myself. I didn't get much sleep, and as my boss Dom kindly pointed out, my hand shook the whole way through. Which is a little embarrassing. But it went amazingly well, and I am uber-confident that next week will be even better. Bring on the commission! I had to pay 55 000 dirhams rent up front last month and so am exceptionally broke. All donations welcome.

I will take some pics of the new office on Sunday to post up here.

Weekend plans rock - wakeboarding tomorrow morning, Hopfest tomorrow afternoon, Lunch on Saturday, then rugby on The Palm, then my mate Michael plays a gig in Bur Dubai Saturday night. For those of you concerned about the welfare of my liver - I haven't had a drink for 11 days, and am not planning on having one for a while... It's about time I took a break.

Later.

Let's try this again

So, it's been about 8 months since my last post, and I was apparently really crap at this blog thing before that anyway... I used to write once a month maybe, and then pack it full of news like a much-loved-by-all group email. I have been advised by my older (and much wiser) sister - who maintains her own blog for my delightful nephew, that this is not the way to do it. So, it all starts again here.

I am once again footloose and fancy free. The thing masquerading as a relationship, that I prophetically told everyone to wait for it to last 3 months before I would give out details, is over. Surprise. He wants to be friends. Surprise again. Oh well, a girl can never have too many friends I guess!

The problem seems to be my love of sport. And perhaps my love of beer. Altogether = tomboy. Even though I have purchased 6 (expensive) pairs of heels in the last 4 months, am wearing Dior (yes, Dior!) make-up every day, and have never been girlier, that curse of growing up South African where sport is a religion, a part of your personality, a love like that of travelling, has struck again.

Except it's not a curse. I couldn't be happier than when I am holding an ice cold beer, and yelling for the Boks. Or for Arsenal. Or for the Proteas. Or even for Holland now I have made myself an honorary Dutch football supporter ;-)

I will not change. I will just date a better class of man from now on. Watch this space.

Oh, and here are some pics of me wakeboarding on Sat - damn it hurt!