I love booking window seats so that I can watch the changing landscape below, but this was my 2nd flight on the doubledecker A380, a majestic plane, and there's no real point to the window seat because the massive wing takes up about 80% of the windowframe.
From Vancouver, we flew to Toronto for a few days in one of James' former hometowns. It's a city that I have only explored on a few daytrips many years ago, so I was eager to get the guided tour of all the fun places, like:
College Street, the Islands, Saint Lawrence Market, Kensington Market, Spadina, Queen's Park, Yorkville, Yonge & Eglinton, the tunnels and the Blue Jays!
Some of the majestic scenery seen on our travels home to Vancouver.
Settling back into the routine here in Dubai, there were so many noticeable changes in the landscape during our few weeks of vacation. New billboards, new signs, new improvements on our usual driving routes.
A little too blurry to read, but there was a) new graffiti on the perimeter of the construction site, reading "The Plot Always Thickens" and b) a circular cricket field had been traced in the sand (you can see a portion of it in this photo as well).
In the photo below: An older photo, showing in the upper right-hand corner a portion of an entire set of buildings, the headquarters for construction, the parking area for the managers, and a place where the ubiquitous white buses would line up to pick up the labourers at the end of their shifts.
And now, it's just GONE.
Elsewhere, construction has continued to quickly rise in the sky.
And a bulb that was just sprouting when we left has also shot higher in the sky.
Also, note in the garden photo the Venus flytrap that I planted in my garden today, a sudden stroke of inspiration at the Garden Centre, as it will no doubt be well-fed in our window.
(We came home to a confetti scattering of little tiny gentle flies, dead along the windowsills, having hatched somewhere in our air conditioning ducts during our time away and flown into our apartment towards the beckoning glorious sunshine in the windows. They're not annoying like mosquitos or common houseflies, rather they're little softies. They fly like little seaplanes, apparently struggling to take off and then quickly coming in for a landing. Easily swiped with a hand, they are easy to clear away, but now we'll see if our Venus flytrap can take care of the task. It's like getting a cat in a mouse-ridden apartment.)
I love little notebooks and journals, and at a favourite stationery store in Granville Island, we found the "One Line A Day" diary, wherein you write a sentence once a day for the next five years. This will be really neat a few years in, when I can compare one day's summary to the previous years.
As there are way too many stories and photos to share from our North America Reunion Tour, I'll copy the daily summaries that I wrote for the NY part of the journey here. Seeing how much we did leaves my breathless once again, what an exciting city, what a terrific reunion back with such great friends!
May 4 - DUBAI TO NYC: Landed at JFK, taxi to Brooklyn Heights, met Shaleen & Ian at S&Shanty's amazing apartment. Subway to Village, High Line walk, Amy's Bread lunch (fake $50!), Tim Hetherington exhibit, Standard Biergarten, Mets game, Delta Club Seats and sleep.
May 5 - NYC: Woke early, James and I walked Brooklyn Heights Promenade to Dumbo, Almondine Bakery. Brunch at Felix, back to High Line, strolled Bleecker, Suresh & Kay joined us, saw Alison. Over to Chuckie's Kentucky Derby party. Dinner @ Momofuku Ssam.
May 6 - NYC: Woke early again, James and I walked to Smith St. Brunch at Spitzer's Corber. Quiet afternoon at Moma. Back to Bowery for drink at The Wren and dinner at Hecho en Dumbo.
May 7 - NYC: Caught bus to Rutherford, did my banking, bus back to Port Authority. Lunch at Amy's Bread, subway to Washington Square, saw Monsieur Lazhar @ Angelika, dinner at Spotted Pig. Photo Institute pinhole camera gift.
I fell asleep in front of the TV last night, after the first day back in Dubai and back in the office following our North America Reunion Tour. The waves of jetlag had me in a deep sleep by 9pm, and when James woke me at 10 so that I could crawl to bed, I was thoroughly disoriented, certain that I was still in Canada, confused that I was seeing the Burj Khalifa outside (maybe I was still semi-asleep). Two weeks of holiday plays tricks on the brain, crystallizing the Canadian DNA and causing every work-related concern to evaporate in the clear fresh air.
So many stories and photos to share, including stories and photos of all of the changes that happened in Dubai in the two weeks we were gone (they work fast, those builders).
For now, a view to remember out the Seabus window, heading across the water to Vancouver.
The month of April began with an Easter weekend trip to Munich, which had been sparked after an email from Fred asked if we felt like meeting up somewhere. We opened the laptop, checked out appropriate places halfway-or-so between London and Dubai, and Munich was the best/most affordable option. An amazing weekend, relaxed and leisurely, with snowfall and journeys in the belly of the A380.
Here are the Easter egg hunt winner.
Just before our Germany departure, there was an Easter egg hunt at work and a really run Mexican lunch that same day. There have been more weekly fun lunches this year, which are always a fun way to have some laughs with friends.
Lunch setting
There was a funny story at one point where everyone was sniffing the air, "is something burning? is someone smoking?" and a while later, the office coordinator guy goes walking by with a burning waste paper basket, smoking thanks to a sneakily discarded cigarette.
We read a number of descriptions of Koshari, an Egyptian street food, in guide books and regional magazines this month, and then finally ordered it from one of our favourite places. Tasty!
Another funny story, people at work were passing around this piece of trash this month. Look at that description!
I heard something about how there are no cinema ads in Saudi Arabia because there are no movies in Saudi Arabia, and James & I couldn't believe it. No movies? What do they do for fun then? A Google search soon revealed crazy videos (do the search yourself, it's hilarious and crazy) of bored Saudis "drifting" their cars (like the MIA Bad Girls video), doing high speed skid outs in traffic, hanging from the propellers of overhead ceiling fans to spin around, driving through the tight courtyard of villas, driving on two sidewheels and CHANGING THE TIRES ON THE TWO TIRES NOT TOUCHING THE GROUND.
I had a mini celeb sighting at Dubai Mall, seeing the guy who sparked Tahrir Square last January.
We went to the Gulf Film Festival, which shows local film makers' works.
There were sandstorms and rain in the night (which we didn't see since we were asleep). One hazy/overcast afternoon, a colleague comes into the office and says to everyone, "hey, you know it's raining outside," and everyone's heads whip to the windows and there's an eager "really?!" and then she laughs and says she was just kidding, hahaha you guys all reacted so funny.
My faith in the postal system was restored as I sent out a bunch of letters to family & friends. I wrote to one favourite blogger, who sent me back a neat photo of cherry blossoms and then posted the picture below of the stamps from my letter on her blog.
A new cafe opened near us, rising from nothing in about four weeks, and we decided to try it one weekend morning for breakfast. Many points earned for serving a little stroopwafel with the tea I ordered, and a falafel as a standard side item with eggs.
They installed a neat temporary exhibit of National Geographic Wild Arabia photos along my running route, so one weekend evening, we strolled over to check them out.
They had some of my favourites, including the hoopoe.
Honey badger
And this amazing aerial photo of camels, those are their shadows!
I also went skiing!!
A fun month, getting my last morning running in as the heat started to rise, and pretty much counting down to holidays the whole time.
Fun things to keep in mind:
