On Jordan

One word, Jordan was AMAZING.
I got some pics on facebook, and here are some other ones:

PICS

So Jordan, we were only there for 5 days but we got to travel in the country since Petra, biggest tourist attraction in Jordan, is about a 3.5 hours from Amman.
We still didn't see everything, its actually a pretty big country.
I'm not going to give you a day-by-day, but I'll just give you some points on our trip.

- Jordan is safe ! In Amman we were walking around our hotel at night. Our driver suggested we take a walk and to not worry since its very safe, and he was right.
- People in Jordan are very nice. I don't remember the last time I walked into a pharmacy and was greeted with such a big smile.
- They LOVE their King and Queen. He's known for being a very down-to-earth King. In fact our driver showed us a Shwarma place in a market area that he loves and from time to time goes there to eat, and trust me its not a fancy place, just a regular spot.
- The food is good. Of course no pork, but plenty of Lamb and beef.
- You can drink...hehehe. 18% of Jordanians are Christian, so yeah, there's drinking. Plenty of liquor stores throughout the country.
- Petra is absolutely amazing, and its crazy that they are still doing research in the area because they believe that there is still about 70% of it to be discovered. 70 % !!!
- A cool thing about Petra is that once it became one of the Wonders of the World they asked all the Bedouins that had lived there to move out; but they didn't just kick 'em out, they built cement houses with all amenities (even TV) for them. They agreed to move as long as they would be the only ones working in Petra for the tourists. So if you go to Petra, all the tourist guides and pretty much everyone that works there is a Bedouin. This is good because for years they kept Petra a secret as a way to protect it. Historically they have been the guardians of Petra.
- Wadi Rum desert is amazing. It looks like a postcard. Wadi Rum is also run by Bedouins.
- A funny thing is that in the U.A.E it always takes us about 5 minutes to tell people what Dominican Republic is, and most don't even know what the Caribbean is, yet Bedouins (in the desert !!) know what D.R. is! And they weren't just lying, one of them actually said "oh that's near Jamaica right? Like Bob Marley" our guide in the desert said "oh yes, in the Caribbean, right?" so yes, they knew DR which I thought was funny.
- Bedouins LOVE the desert. Its funny being there and thinking "wow, what if we get stuck here?" while our guide is telling us how much he hates the city, and that the best way to live life is in the desert.
- While driving in the desert our Bedouin guide Mohamed looks up and says "oh look mountain climbers !" Both Made and I are like Huh? So he actually drives closer to the mountain and after 5 minutes "..look to the left, now you see in the shade, you see?" we finally spot 2 climbers that look so small that it took me a minute to even spot it again in the picture below
This man saw this while driving !! After I see it he goes "Robert you wear glasses because you sit in front of computer all day, but Mohamed lives in the desert and can see the climbers" He was right. Oh and by the way this man was in his mid 40s, no glasses, and spot it this WHILE DRIVING !!
You're not going to see it, but this is just to give you an idea.

- Its chilly in Jordan, you need a coat, but we lucked out and the second day we went to the Dead Sea and got to go in the water ! You do float like nowhere else on Earth. One thing they tell you is to stay on your back while you float, this way you wont get water on your eyes or mouth. Somehow I managed to get water on both my eyes and my mouth. Seriously, they jury is still out on which one is worst. When it hits your eyes it burns, burns a lot, but its something that you can relate too from going to the beach, it just burns more, but when it hits your mouth ?? oh Lord, its like what the Devils urine must taste like, I cant ever imagine something more disgusting.
You know its salty, you know is very salty, but this is how salty it is, as soon as you step out of the water and you dry out, you can rub out the salt from your body. I was brushing salt out my hair like it was a bad case of dandruff.
We were in a resort so we were to able to wash-off the salt.

Ok, post is getting long, I would highly recommend Jordan, the place is amazing and the people are very nice. By the way our travel agency was Jordan Select Tours if you go try to get Feras as a driver, super cool guy that lived in Cali for a couple of years. Our tour was just the two of us and Feras in a car, which was great because we could stop wherever we wanted, and Feras was very knowledgeable about Jordan, anything from the economy, religion, politics, etc, very smart guy and super laid back.

sorry but I had to do this, dont hate me NYC!! This was me while you guys were 20" in snow:
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Tomorrow we are off to ROMA !
see you in Rome Erwin !

Happy New Year to all !

Off to Jordan

..and we're off !

Merry Christmas ahead of time and Happy Holidays to all !

were have we been???

We're here.

Sorry for taking so long to post.

So where to being?

Well for starters, we are now official UAE RESIDENTS !!! (until 2013...not that we plan on staying here that long, but we are residents)

We had to go get a brief physical at the hospital for our visa. They have something here called "VIP Service" at the hospital which is great. Basically you pay more (a lot more) but worth every penny. You sit in this VIP lounge that's super nice, but the best part is they speed up the whole process so I was literally at the hospital for 15 mins !

We had to get Passport photos for the visa, and it turns out that when you get those pics here your fee also includes some "photoshop" work on the pic, of course this photoshop work is at the discretion of the local "photo guy." Basically his idea of "fixing" your picture.
See below:


Its not a great pic because its from the visa but...Is it me or did he put make-up on me??!! He also did a little "skin-lightening"? Trust me I've been enjoying the sun here, I was a LOT darker than that. You should see Made's ! he almost made her White, kinda like when Dave Chapelle would do his "White Caracters" with the big make up? yep, like that.
Funny, but odd.

2 weeks ago we went to a Caribbean party here.
Turns out there's a very active group of West Indians here and they organize a yearly Christmas party. We went to check it out and it was great. Kinda reminded me of the Caribbean Parties in the 90's at City College, some of you guys remember them.
We met some really cool people there and got invited to a music appreciation group.
Man, there was some goooooood Caribbean food. Found me some goat and just good ol' Caribbean food. Really good time.

I should tell you that Christmas here is a lot bigger than we thought. There are Christmas trees everywhere ! The Souq near us has a 3 level high tree. There's also lots of decorations throughout the city.
We got home last night and even heard and expat group singing "Feliz Navidad" yes, the Jose Feliciano one...lol. Christmas Carols in Abu Dhabi.

Speaking of Christmas, we're going away to Jordan ! Christmas Day we will be at Wadi Rum (not our pic)
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We are super excited ! We're going for about 5 days and going to travel the country to some of the main sites like Petra !


We come back to Abu Dhabi and then head back out to Rome for the New Years.

So my job is done : ( Yesterday was my last day, and I gotta say that I had a good time teaching music to all those kids. At times it was hard, cause you know, they're kids, but all in all it was fun.
This is funny, 2 of the 1st graders were misbehaving in my class, so they're homeroom teacher asked them to come back at the end of the day and apologize for misbehaving in class, and they drew these for me!



Today we got a BBQ at one of Made's Co-workers house, should be fun. The Flan is in the oven !

Just wanna wish you all happy, happy holidays !! and a very Happy New Year. I'll try to get another post in before the New Year.

bye !

Happy birthday MADE !!!

It was yesterday, but don't worry, I did remember.
We spent a laid back day FILLED with food and drinks.

some pics of Made's Bday:







We also got all our bookings done for our holiday travel.
Really looking forward to it, we will be spending Xmas in one place and New Years in another.
more to come !!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving !

So, we had a little Thanksgiving dinner; no turkey though, we actually went to this really, really good Lebanese Restaurant, and in the great Thanksgiving tradition ate WAY too much food.





For the Dominican peeps, yep, that's fried cheese. Its the same type of cheese that is fried in DR, tastes the same. I guess we got it from the Lebanese.

The evening after we went to YAS Island (Ferrari World) for a Nelly Furtado show. I know, I know I'm not exactly known as a Furtado fan, but it was live music, some friends invited us and we had a blast !
The arena was enormous !

We stayed close to the "all drinks" and probably drank back all the lbs I've lost at the gym, but oh well, back to the gym !!!

Even met some Dominican guys !


Lil clip of the performance:



I'm going to be alone for the next couple of days. Made leaves tonight to Bahrain for work which is good for her, but sucks for me. 1) I'll be alone here for a couple of days 2) and more importantly, I want to go to Bahrain also !!! : ( Maybe next time. I have to work, so cant go.
Forgot to put this pic up, this is from when we went to see the Berlin Philarmonic at the Emirates Palace. This is how crazy Abu Dhabi is, on your way to see the BERLIN PHILARMONIC you pass by an exhibit of Alberto Giacometti.


By the way we got these new friends that always come to our ledge.



A couple of weeks back me and Made went to the Corniche to check out some bands, and they had this huge campaign going on. Yep its people playing a sideways soccer game while hanging from ropes. Pretty cool. Think they're trying to get the World Cup? You bet !!



Have a great week everybody !!

A Couple of Points

So, we've been living here for over a month, and while we're not Abu Dhabi "experts" I would still like to address some questions/concerns/misconceptions that our friends and family brought up before our trip.
So here we go!

- Is Made going to have to cover her head?

This was by far the biggest question brought up. No, Made doesn't have to cover her head. While there are many women in the UAE that do cover their head or even wear a burka, its not mandatory. So when you see here women covering themselves it is more of a choice, or basically an embrace of their culture.
But if women go to a Mosque (yes, you are allowed to enter a Mosque regardless of being Muslim or not) they do have to cover their head, and of course men are not allowed to enter in shorts or sleeve-less shirts.

- Alcohol !!??
..and you know I lovesss me some drinkage.
Yes, you can drink here, BUT you can't drink everywhere. Alcohol is mostly sold in hotel bars. So, to get your drink ON you have to go to a hotel. The nightlife here revolves around hotels.
You're not allowed to keep alcohol in your house unless you have a liquor license. To get a license, you have to do some paperwork. Basically your boss has to approve your license and based on how much you earn you're allowed a certain amount of alcohol a month (from what I hear its a substantial amount) to keep in your house.
We don't have a license, but its ok since we have a bar practically on our backyard....hehehe.

- PORK
Yep, you can get that too ! Some Delis/markets have a "Pork Section." Muslims are obviously strictly forbidden from entering there, (trust me there's a big sign reminding them) but you could basically get your bacon on ! I love Pork, but I honestly have not had the crazy urge to go and get pork, so its ok. Plus, it doesn't really look fresh, probably been sitting on that freezer for months. But if you want pork you could get it !

- is it dangerous?
Nope, its not Iraq. Basically, there's almost 0% crime here, and I LOVE IT !! Of course if you commit a crime here you pay dearly, so I guess people think twice before committing a crime. And again, its not 0%, there is crime, but very little. Most common crime is a mugging of some drunk expat walking down a lonely dark area by himself at 3 am. At that point you almost deserve it.
That's one thing that makes you almost stay here. Think about this, going to an ATM and not having to watch your back, leaving your car outside unlocked, kids leave their toys in front of their houses and no one touches it, unlocked bikes, etc, etc.
Yeah, I can get used to that.

- Other religions
Since I'm not really religious don't have much to say about this, but there are churches in the UAE. In fact, just a couple of days ago I read this article on The National

- Women can't wear revealing clothing
You can, but its best not to, mainly out of respect, but trust me I've seen mini skirts in this city that would make New Yorkers blush, and yes, Arabic women wearing them. This of course is mostly at nights going to the clubs and things like that. Again, you could wear it, but it's still best to respect the local custom.
Plus some people might assume that you are a "lady of the night" and yes, they got those too.

- Holding hands and Public Displays of Affection
Yep, you can hold hands. You shouldn't go around making out in public, but its ok for me to hold my wife's hand or hug her. In fact, its not completely out of the ordinary to see Arabic couples holding hands.

- Family life
No one really brought this up since we don't have kids, but I do want to say something about it. If you don't like kids, DO NOT come to Abu Dhabi. This is one of the most children-friendly places I've ever been to. It seems like children can pretty much go to any restaurant; so everywhere you go there's always large families with their kids; and waiters, it seems, are almost required to play with the kids and take care of them. A common sight here is to be at a restaurant and see a family eating dinner while two of the kids are running around the restaurant playing, and this is completely normal here. So its great for families.


hugs and kisses to you all !!!!

Dubai

Dubai

Dubai is very cool; I dig it, yet somehow I seem to like Abu Dhabi more. Dubai is of course spectacular, and we were only there for about a day in a half so we only scratched the surface. The thing about Dubai is that its not really a city; or at least it doesn't feel like a city. It looks more like what a city in the future would look like, but in a kinda' spooky way. When you enter the city there's tons of buildings and roads/bridges everywhere but it almost feels like you are in the set of a Sci Fi movie of the 70's.


Our fist stop of course was the Dubai Mall, which is the largest mall in the world, and its amazing. Needless to say they got all the big stores, and they added an aquarium, a souk, ice rink, etc, etc, I mean its huge.
They also have the biggest fish-tank I've ever seen, maybe the largest in the world, its like 3 stories high! Huge !


That first night we met some friends at a very cool outdoor bar near the beach and that was a lot of fun. I didn't take any pictures 'cause I guess we were having too much fun.
Next day we went to the Gold Souk and that was very cool.



We were seeing gold pieces worth thousands of dollars, pretty crazy how there's not that much security around. Maybe they are undercover??



We also tried to get to the top of the Burj Kalifa.


This is the tallest tower in the world and Made's company built it, but it was all sold out; so we had to appreciate it from the outside. Maybe next time.


Drive back was cool, by the way its about an hour drive. Our cab driver was this really nice man from Pakistan who apologized numerous times to us because it was almost time for his prayer (you know, 5 times a day?) and he had to stop at the gas station to pray.
(That's him on the left, prayer room on the right)

We stopped and he went and came back running. I always wondered how long the prayer takes but its only about 5 minutes.

There are prayer rooms everywhere here, even malls ! But when you hear the call to prayer is not like everybody rushes in; I guess its more like a suggested time to pray? not really sure. It seems like you can pick on your own 5 times of the day you're going to pray. I do like the call to prayer. As a "Western musician" I love hearing the Arabic melodies that they sing when they call to prayer.

Dubai - Abu Dhabi Road

Arriving to Abu Dhabi


My teaching job is going well. The kids can be a bit much, but over all its a pretty cool job, and I am enjoying myself. You're NEVER bored at this job. I've heard from the School Principal that they are enjoying the music class, so maybe they're also learning something.
The kids are funny. One little girl always hugs me when she comes to class, she's REALLY excited about class, can barely sit still.
The Six graders are funny as well, they keep asking me if I speak Arabic. The other day they asked again and I said "I'm sorry I don't speak Arabic" and this girl replied, "well, we ask because you look Arabic, but that's a good thing ! We don't mean it in a bad way!".

Last night we went to the Emirates Palace to see the Berlin Philarmonic Conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Man, that was AMAZING !!



They have these great concerts here as part of their "culturization" of the UAE, so you get to see all these amazing bands, and orchestras for practically half the price you would pay in the States or Europe and there's tons of free concerts !

By the way next week is a holiday here, we get 3 days off for the Hajj Pilgrimage. Thankfully the Education Department of the UAE decided to just give the kids the entire week off, needless to say us teachers are pretty excited as well.
Oh by the way last night we experienced our first (thankfully mild) sandstorm.
Its kinda scary, and again this was mild, but the sky gets kinda cloudy and the wind is blowing this very fine grain sand all over.
A student of mine told me that last night his older brother left the one of the windows in their car open, and well, this morning they found tons of sand in it ! That's gotta suck !
This pic actually makes look worst than it was:


Here's a quick video I did. You can tell it wasn't that bad, but at times it really blew, and it went on all night.


anyway, talk to you guys soon

p.s.
Some more Dubai pics

So...

I got the job !
Well, temporary. Basically I am the Substitute Music Teacher. I'll be there until the December break. Teacher is on Maternity Leave.
I am working at a private school and I teach children from Kindergarten (yes ! I know!) to 6th Grade.
This school? wow, I wish I had gone to a school like that. The Music Room, (yes, they have their own Music Room) is bigger than some of the "big" classrooms at Berklee !
They have tons of percussion, 2 pianos, guitar, full sound system for playing music, I mean, this is what a music room should be !
So I started on Tuesday (which is 3rd day of the working week here)and I was a little intimidated, but it went great ! The kids actually have a music education; they can already read music, so that makes it easier.
Now the Kindergarden kids? whoa, those are a little scary, but luckily their teacher is there and helps me out, they have the most fun though, they get a blast just by clapping loud or fast or slow.
So yes, definitely more blog posts to come about my new job.

By the way the school is in Khalifa City which is close by but the area is developing so its got a desert feel because of the distance between buildings.
Oh and speaking of buildings, from the front of the school you get a side view of this famous building: (by the way NOT MY PIC).

Also Masdar City is only about a 5 minute drive from the school. Made and I are eventually going to Masdar but we're trying to get a tour of the city.

Plans for this weekend??? DUBAI !!! baby.
We're finally gonna' go this weekend just from Friday to Saturday.
Its going to be hard leaving the hotel in Dubai. Made is going to cash in on her free hotel days, so were going to stay in a very nice place.

See you soon.

I'll definitely post Dubai pics.

Ooops ...

Almost forgot !
a shoutout to J-MONEY in the BX !!!

he's our new blog reader !

TGIT !!!!

How's everybody doing? I hope you're all doing well.
Have been away from the blog for a little bit, but everything is good.
The TGIT title comes because today is Thursday ! In most places in the world you wouldn't be that excited but here you do get excited, why? Well 'cause Thursday here is like Friday in the U.S. You see the weekend here is Friday and Saturday. It use to be Thursday and Friday like in Saudi Arabia, but they changed because that way people doing business here with the U.S or Europe would get an extra day for business with those countries.
So this also means that the first day of the workweek is Sunday; still getting my head wrapped around that, but you do get use to it because Sunday here is not only the first day of the work-week but you feel it like its a Monday in the US, weird I know.
By the way, I got a job interview coming up..yep Job interview baby !!! So my job interview is this Sunday at 10:00am. Its like I'm going to church.
Its for a Music Teaching position. I'll let you know how it goes.
Ah the weather ! Man, its getting really nice here. It's like late May/Early June in NYC. In other words...PERFECT.

no new pics on this post, but heres a lil' video...

the weekend ...

Lots of partying.
The Abu Dhabi Film Festival is going on and we were hanging out with friends and the next thing you know we are at the gala party.

Lesson of the day is that whenever you go out at night in Abu Dhabi you should be at least "well dressed" 'cause you really don't know where you will end up, and the next thing you know you're "THAT GUY" wearing shorts.
The party was lots of fun, they also gave out awards for their scriptwriting competition....oh and free alcohol and food : )

The day before I got my hand on some Montecristo Cigarrillos so I was rocking them

Me and Eddie; another fellow Dominican and super cool dude. That was his 30th time in the UAE.

Met tons of cool people at the festival party including some people from NYC. Even met a guy from the BX !!! Fordham Road. He's been here with his wife for 5 years, and works for the Film Commission.
What else??
Oh ! Lots of Lebanese food here. Including this super cheap all you can eat spot:


By the way, there's actually a long canal connecting this entire hotel. Its like a mini-Venice, and its kinda cool. Here's us riding it to the main Hotel.


I'm also loving the Shisha Pipe. Its really great here, you get this whole package that includes a Shisha Pipe, with Tea and a plate of fruits. Really, really good.

by the way this is my view while smoke the Shisha:

Last night at the festival I saw Patricio Guzman's latest film titled "Nostalgia De La Luz." A great film by the way.
Going tomorrow to check out more films.