Eid Mubarak!!

Finally - after 7 straight weeks with no days off (other than one sick day that totally doesn't count) - we had our first school break!!  The dates of the break were hotly contested - when all religious holidays are based on the lunar calendar (and apparently, some important guy's mood come decision time), dates for vacations can become a little confusing.  We were all hoping the Eid holiday would begin on a Sunday - which it did - and allow us to take an entire week off of school - which didn't happen.  We ended up being required to return to work on Wednesday and Thursday (still during the official Eid holiday, mind you) to finish off the week.  Most teachers had a very small number of students on the first day back.  I, personally, saw six of my fifty-three students on Wednesday.  On Thursday, one student in our entire school showed up for the day.  This was the case in nearly all schools in Al Ain.  Some lucky teachers (such as myself) were allowed to use these days to work in our classrooms.  Others were not so lucky and had to spend the day in blah meetings that we all despise but nobody says anything about it because you know you will look like the jackass of the group if you are the one to speak up about their complete lack of necessity  =)

Enough about the shortened vacation - what did we do while we were off!?  Jeremy and I had grandiose expectations and a number of exotic plans in mind.....but we decided to skip those and just enjoy ourselves wherever we happened to end up.

Our first destination was our local, yet famous, Al Ain zoo.  Little did we know that this gem is only 5 minutes from our flat.  We loaded into the car, got Dalila all settled in, and BOOM - we were there!  Great start to the Eid weekend!  We chose to visit our zoo in the early evening, hoping the weather would cool down nicely while there (sorry to the people back in Idaho enduring a high temp of 35 degrees and snow.  I promise I won't brag anymore about the 90 degree weather here =) ).  The zoo was packed!  But we still had a terrific time.  They have SO many animals - and all of them were active and fun to watch.

Dalila enjoying one of the first animals we saw....and pretending the sun was too bright...?

 One of the highlights for me was seeing a cute little kitten down in one of the habitats in the Big Cat area....only to find out they weren't actually trying to be humorous by placing this tiny little house cat on display.  I looked to the left of the little kitten to see the official dweller of the habitat, a huge crocodile, waiting patiently in his pond...... Good thing kitty decided to climb the tall tree, and hopefully wander away to safety!  Here is a clip of one of the crocodiles enjoying his dinner (not the one with the darling little feline visitor, thank goodness!).

I HAD to see the giraffes too - and we stood to watch them for a very pleasant twenty minutes straight.  The best part here was when the wee little baby giraffe wandered over to snack with the older members of his family.  Absolutely adorable!!  Check out the fantastic picture Jeremy managed to snap of the giraffes bending down to snag another delicious bite:

Next, we headed over to Abu Dhabi to visit the newly renovated Corniche Beach.  I was somewhat hesitant here because I hate changing in those beach changing rooms and driving around for the rest of the day with a lovely coat of sand on every belonging we choose to bring along.  I was extremely happy with the way that our little day plan turned out, though.  Dalila had SO much fun!  She was happy for almost an hour straight charging into the waves from the beach, picking up handfuls of sand to dramatically throw as hard as she can (but usually succeeding in miraculously flipping it ALL into her hair), and destroying other kids' sand castles.  Yep - she has a little bit of a wicked streak.  Usually, the parents who were really doing the construction of the castles would wave me off when I tried to save their beautiful work from Godzilla Baby - saying "she fine, she fine."  So I know there were no hard feelings.

The beach itself was perfect!  We paid 10AED apiece (about $3.50 US) to enter the closed-off portion with restaurants and well-maintained facilities.  The price was well worth it, and Dalila was free!  We liked it so much that we're headed back today - this time in the evening to enjoy some of the free festivities focused on the F-1 races this weekend in Abu Dhabi.

(Normally - this is where I would post some adorable pictures of Dalila throwing sand and practicing her Godzilla moves on unsuspecting sand castles, but I forgot the camera.....in my purse....which was just sitting in the car the whole time.  Yay, Amanda.)