Ramadan Kareem

Hi! Sorry for the lengthy delay in posting- apparently in Syria macs are some sort of alien technology and nobody could get me online. We flew in from Damascus last night at 5pm and are already on the road again- thanks to the Doha airport for the free wifi! I must say, Damascus really isn't my favourite place-- actually, if I never go there again, I really won't be upset. It is dirty and busy in the same way as cairo but (and I can't believe I'm saying this) it lacks cairo's charm- I think because of its inhabitants-- Damascenes in general were sort of boring and unhelpful. (Sorry, hope I'm not offending anyone but that was the impression I got, you're welcome to try to change my mind if you like!)

So yesterday marked the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan in the Muslim world- it's sort of annoying for us as it means we can't eat, drink, smoke or chew gum in public- obviously smoking isn't an issue for me, but the other 3 are things I like to do from time to time!

Kelly and I are on our way to Kenya now- we're both really excited about this trip as it's somewhere neither of us have been- also we're staying at one of our own hotels which will undoubtedly be an improvement on the last place AND we're going on safari at the end of the trip.

Here are a few pics from Damascus. Hope you're all well and Ramadan Kareem!!

xoxo C

SL con't

We've been in SL since Friday and this is the only picture I've taken. From the balcony on the interview room. It's been blowing up a storm all day and is raining a lot and we have been interviewing billions of (smelly) people. The train that goes on the track you can see went by every 30 min and the whole place shook like crazy- that wasn't annoying AT ALL!!

We fly back to the UAE tomorrow night for about 15 hours and then are off to damascus the following day (Tuesday I think). It's all go!

Hope you are all well!

C

Colombo

Those of you who've known me for any length of time know about my love/obsession with Dachshunds... well the night be fore we flew out I stayed with Marta and her fiance and they happen to have an adorable little dachshund called Edgar. I tried to get him to pose with me for a picture but he was having none of it (even after I gave him some cheese, his favorite snack). Here are a couple of my better attempts.

After a completely sold out flight where we were both wedged between smelly, drunken, coughing (did I say smelly!!!??) men , Kelly and I arrived in Colobmo this morning at about 5am. It was an old plane and the seats didn't even recline. My ipod died about 30 min into the flight but I kept it on and pretended I was asleep to keep the drunk smelly guy from talking to me more than he was already doing. He didn't seem to care that I didn't speak his language and wasn't responding at all. He also kept pretending to fall asleep and leaning on my shoulder- it took repeated elbowing to get him to stop. I can't remember a recent flight where I was so happy to land!

After all the necessary H1N1 checks, the recruiter met us at the airport and took us to the hotel- the same one we were at last year. We slept till lunchtime and then has some food and tried to find something to do in the rain...the only thing nearby was a mall. We didn't buy anything but spend a while in a bookstore-a good activivity on a rainy day. Tomorrow is the first of 2.5 interview days. Should be fun! Although some of its inhabitants are sort of gross, Sri Lanka has delicious bananas- look how tiny and cute they are! mmmm I just ate 3.

Okay, we're off to the gym now. Hope you're all doing well.

xoxo C

Almost Famous

Click on this link an go all the way to the bottom right of the page - cool eh!!?? It's an article I wrote on my experiences training in Egypt- you can't read it online (obviously they want you to buy the mag) I can't buy the magazine here so and have no idea if they printed what I wrote word for word or if they edited it like crazy but it's pretty cool to see my name there... Can someone buy a copy for me? thx!

C

Abu Dhabi

Sorry for the huge delay in posting- I've been in Abu Dhabi since last weekend and haven't had access to this site or to hotmail so I apologize if you wrote me and I didn't respond (Nicky-- thanks so much for the symphony splash pics!).

I am loving the UAE-- it's so clean and organized, the traffic is normal and the people here don't smell quite as much. I've been helping in the HR office of our new property for the last week and either tomorrow or Friday will fly out to Sri Lanka for the start of a recruitment trip- after that we head to Syria and Kenya where I am going on a SAFARI at one of our hotels there!!!!!!! It's only for 24 hours and it's pretty expensive but I have no idea when I might be back there so I jumped at the chance when it was offered! I can't wait- it's not till the end of the month but I wish it was sooner! I am getting the chance to reconnect with some old friends here, Marianna and Marta I worked with in Victoria and there are countless others who I've crossed paths with along the way...

For the last week I've been living in what is affectionately known as the 'frathouse' it's the staff housing for ass't managers- it's a series of five 7 room villas all attached together- we have males and females mixed, which is actually illegal.... so don't tell. Being Ass't Managers, they are all mostly in their early-mid twenties so it's been funny hanging out with them and watching the soap operas ensue! It reminds me of our co-op days in whistler!!

It's funny, although it's over 40C every day here, and realllllly humid, I have actually become quite accustomed to the heat and actually can't imagine surviving in temps lower than 30C now, it sounds positively frosty! Apparently it'll be winter in Kenya and can get as low as 10C at night... I wonder if there's anywhere to buy a parka in the UAE in August....

My camera has remained in my suitcase the last few days so I have no pics to post but I should take some pics of the hotel- its not finished yet, but it's going to be pretty cool looking when it's done. (which should be soon, inshallah)

Okay well I should get to bed but I hope you're all doing well. xoxo C

Excitement in the pool!!

FINA world aquatic championships are in Rome right now- Michael Phelps smashed a 100 fly record even while wearing an "inferior suit", again beating an old rival from Bejing.

weekend

I know, I know, I should have my blog license revoked- it's been over a week since I posted last, but you would all be dying of boredom if I wrote anything here, seriously. It's been all work and no play this week.

It was our chef's birthday on Thursday, so we went out that night, which was fun- we went to a bar/pub and they were having a promotion- if you bought 3 of the local beer, you got a scratchcard and could win something verrrrry exciting, so of course we all wanted one to scratch -you do the math with how many beer we had to order (and drink!)- but we ended up with some pretty cool prizes- (including, but not limited to: more beer, playing cards, an arabic/english moive trivia game and a tray with the logo of the beer). I think chef enjoyed himself, (sometimes it's hard to tell with him) but we had fun anyway!

In other news, a new american (a chef) has joined the posse of work people I hang out with making it 3 against 1 now so I get constant harassment about my beady canadian eyes (southpark reference) and mispronunciation of 'about'. It's all in good fun though, and we have a lot of fun together- I'm really lucky to have such great friends here- it makes it a lot more tollerable when someone elese knows exactly what you're going through.

In other, other news- next week I am off to the UAE to help with the recruitment for our new hotel in Abu Dhabi- it sounds like I might be on the road for a while, like last summer, I have no idea where they will send me but honestly I don't really care- I'm just happy to have a break from Cairo for a bit (a month actually)- the other great thing is that Marta, who I used to work in Victoria with years ago is the HRD there so I am really looking forward to catching up on the last 5 years!

There was a time when this blog was almost exclusively about running and I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't run much at all lately- most of the runners have been on vacation lately and then I got bronchitis and didn't feel like doing anything for a while, so I haven't run in over 2 weeks (maybe close to 3 actually...yikes!). My cough is better now so I really don't have an excuse but I don't really have the energy at the moment, which I know is a direct result of not running- but after a 12 hour day at work most of the time the body wins the argument over the brain. I know I need to just force myself to get out there- I am SO much more positive, productive and happy when I'm running regularly. I'm not sure if I will be able to get out this week- I've got a lot of loose ends to tie up before I head to the UAE, but I'm hoping I'll be able to track down a treadmill when I'm away (no running outside in the UAE- temps get up to 50C!!!).

Wow, that was a lot of writing about nothing, I haven't even taken any pictures lately- this is one of my one of my bday felucca rides last month- Tanya and I.
xoxo C