To Bidet Or Not To Bidet

Thought I would write about stuff that the girls are fascinated with here in Abu Dhabi. I’ll start with Ashli. It doesn’t surprise me, and it shouldn’t surprise any of those who know and love Ashli, that she is totally fascinated with the bathrooms here.
All bathrooms have either a bidet or a nozzle ( I don’t know the correct term yet). The nozzle has a long hose attached to it and you can use it the same way as a bidet to squirt clean water on areas that need to be cleaned after using the toilet. Please don’t make me explain further!!!!
Because all the bathrooms have either one of these options, they rarely have toilet paper. This is a nightmare for Ashli. Even as a tiny baby, she would have a hissy-fit if her bottom was the slightest bit damp. Luckily, a friend for-warned me of this and I stocked up on mini packs of tissue that I carry with me everywhere. She still gets all flustered when she realizes that there is no paper.
We have a bidet in one of the bathrooms in our hotel suite. Ashli insists that it is a bathtub for babies and no matter how often I tell her otherwise, she stands firm. I feel sorry for her future children. LOL!!!
Now the nozzle is a great source of amusement for her. Fortunately she hasn’t figured out that her own bathroom (in our future house) has its own nozzle. (We REALLY need to figure out how to turn it off). But, she did find and experiment with the one in the second bathroom in our suite. I was in the other room when I heard running water on the floor of the bathroom. I went in and found Ashli on the toilet with a stunned look on her face and water all over the floor in front of her. I asked her what happened and she recovered quickly. “I don’t know” was all I got. I asked how all the water got on the floor and she shrugged and said, “Somebody must have touched that thing.” The “thing” was the nozzle that I had given her strict instructions not to touch.
So far she has only touched it a few more times (I’m not looking forward to her being alone in her room with one) and I’m hoping that there are no dirty babies around her while we are still in the hotel!

The Grocery Store

We aren’t officially in our house yet since our furniture is still not here (we’re hoping this weekend sometime), but there comes a time when you need to buy a few items from the store. The first day we were here we were desperate since we had no luggage. In the land of 100+ and high humidity you cannot live without deodorant and soap!!
We are living in a hotel apartment which is adjacent to a large mall. There seems to be a large mall every 20 feet or so in Abu Dhabi. I’ll post more about them later, but right now I want to talk about the grocery stores. Each mall has a “grocery,” store in it. I’m talking 2-3 story behemoths that are like Super WalMarts on steroids. After arriving without our bags, we needed to do some shopping. We walked next door and went to a LuLus (yes..actually name of a chain of stores). Their logo is, “Where the world comes to shop.” This seems very appropriate since you see someone and something from every continent every time you go into one J
All I really wanted from this first venture into the land of shopping in Abu Dhabi was a toothbrush and some soap, but it took us nearly an hour to do this. The store was so huge, I became disoriented several times. Thank goodness that Steve was with me to point me towards the exit. Otherwise, I might still be wandering around in there (and I thought I had a good sense of direction).
I was happy to see several American products (like the type of deodorant and toothpaste that I usually use), but they all seem to shrink on their way over here and their prize tags grow J I was adventurous and did try a few products that I was not familiar with and so far have been happy with one small exception. I am not a fan of the vegetable soap.
My first real experience with the grocery store on my own was yesterday (OK…I went with my friend Eileen). Eileen and her kids got here the same time we did and they are in the same boat. We decided to try a store that was rumored to be filled with Western products. Now, I’m all about trying new things, but it would be nice to use a familiar product every once in a while. There was also the rumor that this particular store has GASP……pork products.
We entered Spinneys with our 4 children (we both have 2) and immediately started finding things that we thought we weren’t going to get for a couple of years. I was very excited to find Jif peanut butter and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray (it’s the little things in life that make you happy J). We also found things we couldn’t identify and for the most part left them alone. This was a comfort trip after all and we needed some stuff that was familiar to us. We’ll be more adventurous another day.
The produce section is always exciting. There are all kinds of interesting fruits and vegetables from around the world. Just today I found that I could buy grapes from 5 out of the 7 continents. I need to find someone who has been here a little longer to give me a tutorial on the different items available and how to eat/use them. I was thrilled to find nice avocadoes that weren’t too expensive. Can you say Guacamole and Margaritas by the pool?
Then, we found the (dramatic pause) Pork room. Since UAE is a Muslim country, all pork products must be housed in a separate room and have non-Muslim staff operating it. There is a large sign on the door warning all Muslims to stay away. Eileen and I immediately went in and looked around. Not only did we find all the items you expect, but in the pork room you find Pop Tarts and Marshmallows (both made from pork lard).
I was able to find all the ingredients to make a cheese tortellini dish that I make all the time back home much to the delight of the girls. I wasn’t able to replicate the taste from back home exactly, but as Caitlin said, “It’s really, really close Mom!” She then went on to have 3 helpings J

Our Travails

Well, our trip was definitely exciting! Where should I start? How about the 2 hours that it took us to check in at the Delta counter or almost missing our connection in JFK? It wasn’t all bad….I enjoyed a very luxurious business class flight from JFK to Abu Dhabi. Steve let me sit by myself on the long flight and the girls were absolute angels.
Starting at BWI we waited in line at the Delta counter for about an hour and then found out that a couple of our bags were too heavy. (I knew that they were going to be) Because our flight was delayed we decided to repack some of them. That took Steve and I another 30 minutes of sweat and tears, but by God we got them all under 50 pounds! By the way….we had TEN check ins. By the time we got our boarding passes, we had been at the airport for 2 hours and still hadn’t been through security J Luckily security was a breeze . We got to our gate and found out that our flight was delayed indefinitely due to some computer glitch.
We left BWI 2 hours after we were supposed to and prayed all the way to JFK that we would make our connection (we had a 3 hour layover). We got to JFK and had to go to another terminal to get our boarding passes running the whole way. Which is not so much fun with tired 4 & 5 year olds and six carry-ons. We get to the ticket counter at 10pm (our flight was scheduled to leave at 1050). We were promptly told that we were too late. I went into meltdown mode and irritated everyone there enough that they allowed us to get our boarding passes. The only condition was that we had to run (which we did until we hit security and came to a screeching halt). Some nice people let us cut in line and went through in a record amount of time (pretty impressive with 3 laptops and 2 kids). We then proceded to run all out to the gate (which was the 2nd to the last). We made it to the gate after near cardiac death (I consider myself in decent shape, but carrying a 4 year old and 3 bags while running nearly did me in!). We got on the plane sweaty and exhausted and didn’t take off for another hour J
The girls slept a good portion of the 12 hour flight (Ashli was asleep before we left the gate) and we all enjoyed the amenities of business class including a seat that reclines completely and free booze (well Steve and I did that part). All in all it wasn’t a horrible trip(the business class seats made up for the bad parts). There were only a few meltdowns (mostly mine) and it went faster than I expected. Now…should I tell you about our lost baggage????