"Body-Odor and Perspective"

Dear Reader,

These first 7 weeks in Abu Dhabi have been wild...and even though I still don't have a mattress, we're finally starting to get settled.

Here's how life is going for me in Abu Dhabi:

I wake up in the morning (feeling like P-diddy) and roll off of my little mat. I'll grab a towel and head towards the "maid's shower" because it's got hot water and my bathroom's shower can barely reach lukewarm. (For those in the States, I'll explain why it's called the maid's shower. In almost every apartment and villa in Abu Dhabi, there is an unbelievably small bedroom and bathroom that is used by the maid, if you have one. We don't have a maid, so we use the room for storage and the bathroom for it's beautiful shower.) After cleaning up, I'll get dressed, and by then, my mom will usually have some sort of awesome breakfast ready for Sam and I. After breaking our fast, Sam and I have to figure out how to get to school.

We have two options: Take the city bus, or share a cab with some friends of ours. For the past week or so, Sam and I have had to take the bus. I don't know about you, reader, but I don't find it very pleasant to be caught between a glass window and 15 funky-smelling men. Sometimes, Sam and I can find a seat.....or, in other words....Sometimes, we don't have a terrible experience on the city bus. But unfortunately, there aren't many seats, and we've have had to stand and endure that 40-minute ordeal one too many times. I guess that you get what you pay for..............I just didn't know that I was paying to be uncomfortably close to sketchy looking men.

Fortunately, my brother and I figured out that we could share a cab with Ella Sullivan and her little sister. Trust me on this one: riding in a cab with two Aussies is awesome, especially compared to our experiences with Abu Dhabi's public transportation system.

One way or another, we make it to school alive and....well..........alive.

As I walk up to the main gate of the school, I always wave to the guard, and he never fails to wave back. Once Sam and I are inside of ACS, it's essentially just like being in a high school back in the US. Except, there are only 90-ish kids in my entire class, and no one is "normal". (What is normal, anyways?) Almost everyone has some insane cultural identity and proficiency in some foreign tongue. After learning a little bit about the countries and cultures that everyone else comes from, I've begun to look at my time spent in the US and my American identity differently. Having to introduce myself as an American really helps me to recognize that the country I've come from has (in a significant way) shaped my ideals, my personality, and my cultural identity.

Our school is fantastic. My classes are academically grueling, but I'm learning, and that is what matt-......Oh my gosh. I just realized that I have a BUNCH OF HOMEWORK.

Well....in a nutshell, I'd just like to say that no matter how crazy things get........Life goes on.
Even if you move to the other side of the world in the middle of high school......Life goes on.

Keep rockin' it, have a slammin' Halloween, and thank you for reading. NM

(Sorry to be abrupt. I really do have homework.)

"Mall, Sweet Mall"

Dear Reader,

The Merrill family has finally moved into a “permanent” residence. That’s right, y’all. After kickin’ it for a month in a hotel, we’re now occupying an apartment on the 24^th floor of Bayview Tower.

In case you don’t already know, staying for one month in a hotel is like eating an extra-large pizza by yourself. Sure, the first slice is delicious……..But by the end of that thing, you never want to see a piece of pizza again.  You get the idea.

(Truth is, I don’t really have any room to complain. There are people I’ve talked to here that lived in a hotel room for more than 4 months. I don’t know how they did it…)

What’s really important is that we HAVE AN APARTMENT. It’s wonderful to have a place that is “yours”. I honestly don’t care that my bedroom has zero furniture and that the only thing between the cold tile floor and me is a rock-hard mat. I’m just flipping happy that I even have my own bedroom. There’s a lot to love about our new home, and some of it is almost unbelievable.

Bayview tower is literally on top of a mall and a supermarket. I’ll repeat that. Just so that it sinks in.

Bayview tower is literally on top of a mall AND a supermarket.

So, whenever we need to go to the supermarket, we take an elevator and BOOM. We’re there.  To illustrate just how little time it takes, I decided to use my watch’s stopwatch function to time a one-way trip. From the front door of 2401 to the automatic door of the supermarket took me a full 2 minutes and 3 seconds. I kid you not, reader. 2 minutes, 3 seconds.

Get this….After you get your groceries at the store, you can roll your shopping cart into the elevator, up to your floor, and into your apartment. Once you’re done unloading, all you have to do is take the cart back to the supermarket. Do you remember the time I said before? Yeah….I got that time when I was returning two shopping carts.

I wasn’t joking when I said that this stuff is almost unbelievable.

And now, I’ll talk about the mall. The mall that we live above is called “Abu Dhabi Mall” (…I’m not sure where they got that name, but that’s beside the point.) In my opinion, Abu Dhabi Mall is really nice. It’s a 3-story mall with a variety of stores. Now, I’m not really into malls and shopping, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll be down in that mall more than a few times getting an ice cream cone at Baskin Robbins. Or maybe I’ll go down there to get an ice cream cone at Baskin Robbins. Who knows! I might even go to the mall to get ice cre- NO.

It’s going to be very difficult for me to practice temperance here. And I hope that the convenience of living 2 minutes and 3 seconds from the supermarket doesn’t spoil me.

The apartment itself is VERY nice, and it has a great view of the bay. Hence, “Bayview Tower”. The entire floor of the apartment is tile, and only my parents’ bedroom has furniture, so the whole place echoes a lot. A lot. A lot. A lot. A lot.  If you're interested in looking at a few photos of our place, sorry, but I'll upload them later. 

The sun went down long ago, so I guess that it’s time for me to wrap this blog post up and go to bed. I mean rock-hard mat. Thank you for reading, reader.

Rock on. NM