Sri Lanka Series 3 - Days 2 + 3: Waskaduwa to Kandy

I've decided to bundle days two and three into one final blog post on Sri Lanka, not because it's been so long that I've forgotten what exactly we did (I remember it really well actually) but because I don't have a lot to say about either day and this post is pretty much long overdue.

I also want to add that despite the tone of the last blog post, which apparently came off as extremely negative, I really, really enjoyed this trip to Sri Lanka and the refreshing look at a different culture. The experience was a little not so great at times, but I would go back in a heartbeat (especially if I got to do Sri Lanka on my own terms) and overall, it was still a beautiful, worthwhile trip.
 

One of the many shots of the road to Kandy.

Day two of the Sri Lanka tour saw us getting up extremely early for our trip to Kandy, but with the added benefit of being able to get FRESH breakfast, and not the leftovers we were saddled with the day before. After a night of good sleep and a decent buffet meal, we hopped on the bus to Kandy - not realizing we were about to spend another good 3 hours of travel on this tiny bus with a bunch of strangers, albeit ones slightly less grumpy thanks to the sleep/shower/breakfast combo they actually got to have. The drive to Kandy was GORGEOUS, as we got to experience the change from the flat Sri Lankan coast to the inner mountains. Despite the long drive, I was really excited to be able to see Kandy - it wasn't on our initial itinerary, and it offers a wealth of different, authentic Sri Lankan experiences we may have never had if we'd just stayed on the southern coast. Kandy was the last bastion of the Sri Lankan kings, and as such, holds fast to its cultural heritage. Unlike Colombo which has become a fast-paced, modernized vision of a city, Kandy is a sleepy little place, without the nightlife and bustle of the capital. I loved it, even though we didn't get to spend a lot of time there in the end.

Our first stop was the elephant orphanage, which was a totally cool experience because we got to see the elephants at bath time, which means they'd been walked down from the main orphanage compound to the river to splash and play for a few hours. Babies and mommas alike were frolicking in the river, and as an added bonus, it was raining/did rain while we were there. It was lovely - unlike most of the tourists who ran for shelter, Jon and I just walked through it, laughing - it wasn't very hard at all, just a light shower that lasted maybe five minutes, and Abu Dhabi does make you miss the rain.

Unfortunately, it was RAINING, and this isn't the most well developed, pedestrian friendly of areas. Now I'm not particularly known for being clumsy or anything (the internet really needs a sarcasm font), but after three hours of being cramped into tiny bus seats and with the slick, rocky conditions of the road/sidewalks, I managed to trip and fall on the way down to the river, and landed hard on my left knee (I'm still convinced it hit a large rock). I came out of it with skint knuckles and elbows, but my pants managed to save my knees from blood. More than anything, initially, I think I hurt my pride a little, as several concerned locals and a police officer rushed over to make sure I was okay and help me up. After reassurances that I was fine and just needed a minute to get my feet under me, they let Jon help me (sidenote: he was walking in front of me so he didn't actually see it happen but he did immediately turn around and become part of the crowd trying to help) and I got up and powered through the pain so I could get down to the elephants (cute animals are powerful motivators).

Not only did I get to watch the pachyderms frolicking in the best way pachyderms know how, but one of the locals helped me over the rocks to pet one (of course, like the man with the monkey the day before, he expected a tip for this, and we did tip him, but come on you guys, it was an elephant). The mugshot of this extremely cute encounter is above. Excuse my awful hair, but keep in mind I did just suffer a fall.

Once we'd been with the elephants for a little while (and time was pressing us to head back to the shuttle), we headed back up the road from the river and I noticed that my knee was actually very much NOT okay (on second thought, climbing river rocks right after might not have been the best course of action). We bought a bottle of water to drink and used it to clean my open wounds (don't even judge, I'd fallen on a street that was littered with elephant poop) and I popped some Aleve, determined not to let it ruin my day of touring. It helped, but only to some degree.

We hopped into the shuttle and headed off to the next stop, because suddenly seeing elephants wasn't enough, and nearly the whole bus voted that they wanted to go somewhere to ride elephants. That's all fine and good, but you won't see pictures of me on top of an elephant for two very important reasons.

Firstly, I object on principle. The elephants at this camp were not a part of the orphanage, so they weren't as carefully cared for as the others. it was pretty obvious to me once I saw them that the large metal chains that had been wrapped around their necks as "leads" were chafing their skin, and all of the operators had those horrid spiky poles with them as they walked the elephants around. I never saw a single person use one while we were there, but the elephants had the scars of former use. I have a big soft heart for all critters, and I couldn't abide knowing that these elephants were being abused for the amusement of some tourists. So I sat this one out (and Jon and I were not the only ones). Secondly, my knee was pretty painfully swollen by this point. I doubt I could've gotten on an elephant even if I had really wanted to.

At least I had some pretty, sweet smelling jasmine to keep me company.

Our next spot was a herb/floral garden, which I assumed would be a nice, open, airy place where we could browse around at our own pace and enjoy pretty flowery things. Alas, this was not the case, and where we wound up was clearly another tourist trap attraction put on by the ayurvedics, where they walked us around this hilly garden and explained the properties of the herbs they grew there and then how each one could solve some sort of problem. Then there was a hawking of wares process to endure. By this point I was pretty well over the whole forced experience and didn't really feel that climbing all of those stairs was the best move for me, so I sat on a bench in the lower garden - much to the dismay of the people who worked there who tried about five times to get me to go up with the rest of the group - I was missing the presentation, it really wasn't so far, the mosquitoes would get me here in the thick canopy of trees - which I all rebutted very politely until about the fifth time, and then I rolled up my pants leg and showed the person my swollen, red knee and they left me alone.

Our lunch view.

Our next stop after the herb garden was lunch, which was a very gorgeous restaurant nestled into the side of the mountaintop on the road to Kandy, and was a locally run Sri Lankan joint that offered curry. It was delicious, but spicy, and Jon and I very much enjoyed having lunch outside. I had to laugh at the experience of one of our fellow travelers, however, who made it abundantly clear he really wasn't into spicy foods, and asked the lady restocking the buffet if the food he was scooping hearty portions of onto his plate was spicy. She, of course, smiled very nicely and reassured him it wasn't, it was very mild. I managed to get back to my table and take a few bites before he did, and turned around just in time to see him sitting down. I warned him it was a bit warm, but still delicious, knowing that he definitely would think it was WAAAAAAY spicy. Sure enough, I turned around later to see him sweating buckets and with a plate of what looked like sliced white bread he'd clearly asked the waiter for. Poor dude.

Fog rolled in right as we were getting ready to head out. Gorgeous.

Our next stop after lunch was a tea factory. As jazzed as I was about getting to see this, because I LOOOOVE tea, and Ceylon black tea is some of the best in the world, I didn't actually make it past the front door into the lobby. Instead of driving up the hill to the actual place (it was rather steep), our bus driver parked at the bottom and we had to climb up several flights of slick stairs carved into the side of the hill, and by the time I made it up those, my knee was NOT having the next portion of the tour on the inside that required more stair climbing to the other processing rooms. So I sat in the lobby shop and looked at all of the delicious tea offerings as I sent Jon off to see the tour (he was going to stay with me, but I insisted because I knew he wanted to see this too - plus I sent him to take pictures since I couldn't go). Fortunately this place also lived up to the short 20-minute-tour-and-then-come-buy-our-stuff system, and he was back down quickly, pretty excited about how neat it was and how he was gonna grab us some tea to take back home. I'm drawing on his picture taking expertise below. He could give you a better accounting of the actual tea tour and what all goes into making this delicious beverage, but I only heard snippets and cannot accurately relay it here.

Thanks to all our little side stops, time was growing short, so we hurried into Kandy where we could visit the Sri Dalada Maligawa temple, which is also known as the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, one of the world's most popular and well-known Buddhist temples at the heart of Kandy city. It houses the relic of the tooth of the Buddha, and has important historical significance because it is believed that whoever held the relic held governance of the country (Thus its current home in the heart of the royal palace complex in Kandy). The tooth itself is supposedly one of Buddha's that was recovered after his cremation. No, I did not actually get to see the tooth, so I couldn't tell you if I thought it really was his or not. Trust me, they keep that pretty locked up tight.

The temple complex was sprawling, gorgeous, and I could've spent hours wandering through it, but we only had an hour because the day was growing short. To make matters worse, it was slow going with my limp, and as is customary in a Buddhist temple, you are required to go barefoot. It was a really humbling experience, walking amongst all of the pilgrims to this shrine, barefoot. Instead of trying to explain the whole story, I'm just going to post a few pictures below to give you an overview.

The shrine containing the tooth relic

The temple from the outside, complete with monks' robes out to dry.

I took a panorama of the actual shrine to Buddha in the main room. All of those Buddha statues come from all over the world, and are either brought to or donated to the temple.

 

Some pretty lotus flowers to leave for Buddha.

We semi-reluctantly cut this visit short to head back to the shuttle, so we could head back to the hotel and make it in time for dinner. Once again, we arrived really late and barely made it in time for dinner service, as the trip was probably a good three and a half hours on the ride back. Jon and I were really grateful, however, that I had managed to add an extra day onto our stay and we didn't have to get up at 2 a.m. to make the trek back to the airport with the rest of the group, because we knew we'd have the next day to rest and recover from the whirlwind of the past two days. And I really knee-ded to stay off of my feet (haha, get it?!)


So that's precisely what we did the third day. I leave you with some pictures of us enjoying the hotel on our final day, and will avoid telling you the whole story about how this was a five star rated hotel that wasn't even finished with half of its promised facilities and how the Rotana Jet flight back to Abu Dhabi was only slightly less miserable and pointless than the flight to Sri Lanka.

Because you have to have a Coke in every country.

Ahh, rainy pool days.

Yea, I'm just gonna leave you with peace and sunsets.

Sri Lanka Series 2 - Day 1: Waskaduwa to Galle

We landed in Sri Lanka about an hour late, which was worrisome because I knew we had to, according to the itinerary, make it to the hotel in time for breakfast and "freshening up." We wandered out through immigration, passing duty free shops selling electronics such as TVs and refrigerators (puzzling - how did one get one of these home?! and were the deals in duty free really that great?), on out into the main arrivals lobby where a man with a sign for our tour group was waiting. We happened to be the first ones to greet him, so he sent us over by the door to wait for the other sixteen, while the main tour guide, Chris, came over to greet us. He asked us if we knew the other people in the group and when they'd be along, but we shook our heads and said we had no idea because as I said, this was an organized tour group of a bunch of strangers who'd never met. It created an odd bunch, who met for the first time in the Colombo airport even though we'd all clearly been on the same flight (it was relatively easy to guess who was coming along for the tour, but no one ever introduced themselves). Once everyone finally arrived, we were ushered out into the Sri Lankan morning to wait for our tour bus to come around and pick us all up.

The group, as I have said before, was a bit of a mixed bag - there was a larger group of friends who were all traveling together, and then several pairs, and one brave younger gentleman who'd decided to undertake the trip on his own. I'm not sure if it was a product of the horrid flight and the exhaustion, but to make things even stranger, not one person ever introduced themselves when we were standing there together waiting, and then even stranger, never really did over the entire course of the trip. I can't recall one place on the tour where anyone knew anyone else's name that wasn't a part of their pair or group until well into the second day of the tour, and then only briefly, for a few hours it seemed. The group dynamic was odd, and definitely part of the tour's less than wonderful moments. It didn't help that the first day, and really the first few hours (a discussion of which is forthcoming), seemed to immediately bring out the worst in just about everyone, and they showed their true colors fairly quickly. There were no lasting friendships made here...more of a tolerance of each others existence.

Once everyone had finally grouped up, we waited outside for our shuttle to come along, or rather, for our guide to take us to it. Once on the shuttle (a Toyota minibus that looked a whole lot like a old VW van) we were told that it would be a two hour ride to our hotel. Uh, what? Jon checked the location of the hotel before we left, and he swore the website said it was only 35km or so from the airport...which does absolutely not translate to two hours. Not to mention, having landed late, two hours would put us at a major breakfast setback. No one was really pleased about this discovery, but we put up with it, and headed on to Waskaduwa and the Citrus resort. We made it in time for breakfast, just barely, and managed to catch the buffet sheer minutes before it closed, which meant we pretty much got the cold scraps of the breakfast. Also, having arrived at 10:30ish meant that we were there well before check-out/check-in time, so we knew we wouldn't be able to get into our rooms, but were ASSURED this had been planned for and a room/a few rooms had been set aside for "freshening up" which was a nice thought after a miserable 5 hour plane ride. Really, all I wanted was my luggage, so that I could get to a fresh set of clothes and my medicine. It's not like I've never sink washed in bathrooms before (flashbacks to January, anyone?). Yet this is where the major problems began, because apparently the hotel and the tour guide were absolutely not on the same page with this plan.

Traveling Sri Lanka in style.

You see...there were no rooms ready/set aside for us. This was pretty crappy, sure, but as I stated before, I could've just as easily taken my luggage into the bathroom and made do with what I had, only the luggage hadn't come in the same shuttle, and was on a separate truck that was a bit behind. So we had to wait. Firstly, while we waited, we were promised that a room would eventually be made available for us all to use. THEN we were told that if we waited long enough, they would have rooms for us all to check into. Now, this caused most of the group to be grumpy, but in an interesting turn of events, for different reasons. A handful of us (and I could be wrong here, it could have just been Jon and I) were put off about having to sit at the hotel and wait, knowing we were simply losing more hours on our tour itinerary and that we'd have less time to actually explore places. Surprisingly, at least to me, more people were upset about the fact that they couldn't take a shower in a room and freshen up. I mean come on people. You're in Sri Lanka on vacation for a tour. Don't you want to just jump into the tour as quickly as possible and see what you came to see instead of whining about being tired/"dirty"? Clearly my opinion was unpopular and so, we waited. I want to say it took about two hours before the tour guide just gave up and realized we would never get rooms this early and encouraged people to go use the restrooms to change (what a concept!). Only...

This was me, in the lobby, having changed but still not happy about waiting.

Someone got a room. While we were sitting patiently in the lobby for this fiasco to resolve itself and then planning out how we would change after the luggage arrived, the tour guide flagged Jon and I over and proudly announced he'd gotten a room for us to check into and we could go now. Since this was after the hotel promised they'd have all our rooms ready, this wasn't a temporary room we'd have to share for "just cleaning up." It was our room. Ready. Jon and I snuck away with the key and enjoyed having a place to change and relax that was our own, until the tour guide came knocking and said that we were leaving within the next 15 or so minutes because none of the other rooms were ready and we needed to leave and to please not tell anyone we'd gotten a room (trust us, we never did). I like to think this was karma paying us back for being the only people who weren't yelling unreasonably and without success at the tour guide, hotel, or anyone else who came within earshot. Anyway, we left the room and met back up with the group, having changed and been refreshed, and eventually we did get away from the hotel, albeit with a black cloud of discontent lingering over (most of) our tour.

The turtle hatchery.

Our first stop along the tour was a turtle hatchery, and it wasn't *quite* what we'd expected, but I learned very quickly nothing in Sri Lanka ever really is. This was literally just a bunch of pools sheltered under a shed, with a sand pit for egg development and a path to the beach where the turtles were set free. Our "guide" took us around and showed us the turtles in the different pools, which were both different species and different ages. He explained that the rescue was in place to buy eggs picked up by local fishermen, so it offered not only a haven for the turtles but also local economic support. The turtles were then kept for a few weeks after hatching and released back into the sea, except for the few lucky (or unlucky, depending on your point of view) who were allowed to stay longer and age in the pools, kept for educational purposes. Our little group went through the quick tour, which was mostly only good for turtle selfies, and then wandered down the beach for a few shots of an upcoming thunderstorm until we were finally wrangled back into the bus for travel to our next stop.

The turtle beach.

Cleaning the cinnamon.

Our next stop was the Madu River Boat trip, which turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. The scenery was breathtaking, and though we had to opt for the shorter version of the river trip because of time constraints, the boat ride was wonderful. We packed all 20 of our little group onto boats and headed up the river, meeting locals along the way, either fishing or river cruising or trying to sell something. There was one guy who came over with an adorable pet monkey that got passed around, but of course, for the luxury of a monkey photo op, it was expected that you tip the monkey owner. Poor monkey. Once we'd gone up river a ways, we made it to a small island in the middle, where we were given a tour of a local cinnamon producing operation. It was really neat to see the process from tree to dried spices, and also to learn how they extracted the oil.

A panorama taken on the river. Google's not bad at this.

Is it working? My skin clear yet?

We also got to finally try the famous King Coconut, which had been talked about a lot earlier in the day by our tour guide Chris in one of his various random information chats along the highway. King Coconut is sweeter than regular coconut, and the water is considered to have all sorts of different ayurvedic healing properties. it's considered to be the "king" of coconuts and is mainly used simply for its drinking water. Our tour guide offered up the legend that the coconut got its name from when a king of Sri Lanka had a terrible eczema rash that nothing could cure, but was told to drink king coconut water for its cooling properties and was miraculously healed. Not quite sure if that's entirely the case, but it made for an interesting tale. Another odd local cure offered up around the river was a fish pedicure, but I passed that one up. It's essentially exactly what it sounds like - you stick your feet in a pool where a bunch of little fish come up and nibble on them, supposedly taking away the dead skin. Gross, I'll pass.

After the sad end of the river boat trip, we headed to our next stop, the Moonstone Mine. This was pretty much the disappointing part of day one. The mine itself was little more than a 5 minute talk at the entrance to the mine about how moonstones were mined and what other stones, both semi-precious and precious were prevalent on the island, a two minute demonstration of the cleaning of stones, then a cursory walk through a polish and setting area right into an air conditioned, well maintained jewelry store where there was an abundance of clerks ready to follow you around like a hawk while you browsed, taking any opportunity they could to sell you something. To give you an idea, there was a clerk for every group/person that was on our tour - everyone had someone hawking. This was a mild disappointment because I'd expected to learn more about moonstones and the moonstone mining operation, and less about Sri Lankan sales tactics. It was clear the place was designed as a tourist trap, and it's not on my recommended visits.

This is about the time the group started grumbling again, sadly. Having left late from the hotel, it was probably about 4 in the afternoon and we hadn't stopped anywhere for lunch, which left some people with a less than cheerful disposition. It was generally agreed upon that after the moonstone mine we'd head to lunch, and we sat out again in our little van towards Galle and our promised lunch stop. About halfway there, we suddenly came to a dead stop in the middle of the road, and no one could figure out why. Traffic was at a total standstill in most places, and in some, it was little more than a very slow crawl. This didn't improve moods, until we suddenly realized why - the traffic was being rerouted around a street parade. Our tour guide wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but there was some sort of ritual procession/celebration combining both Hindu and Buddhist traditions. We were incredibly lucky to catch this, and all clamored for a stop, but our tour guide mysteriously kept on going (concerned about time, perhaps, or just ready to get rid of grumpy passengers) until we'd eventually passed the presentation and were on the road at a normal pace again, thus the only pictures I have of this beautiful and captivating ceremony come out of a bus window. I stopped trying about halfway down the line - the bus was picking up speed again so it was hard to capture things, and there was something horribly wrong about a bunch of people gawking from a bus and taking photos of a culture that has a rich history of condemning photography. The gorgeous spectacle isn't something I'll easily forget, however.

We finally made it to the place our tour guide had picked out for our very late lunch in the city of Galle, only to find that this place had stopped serving food hours ago and the chef had gone home. Oops. Bad move on the part of the tour guide, and it definitely had an effect on some of the already grumpy passengers. Half of the people demanded that we immediately found a place to eat, while half of the group was arguing that it had already become too late, and we wanted to see the fort, and we could eat when we got back to the hotel. The compromise was that the bus dropped us off at a restaurant at the fort where people were told they could either go and eat or go and visit the fort, but that they had an hour and they had to be back because the bus was leaving for the hotel. Jon and I set off to explore what little bit of the fort we had time to, enjoying the break from the group and the opportunity to branch out on our own.

Galle Fort

Galle's fort is a remnant from the Dutch occupation of Sri Lanka, and is filled with gorgeously breathtaking architecture, museums, monuments, and spectacular views. Jon and I sadly only got to experience the last when we walked along the fort's seaward wall for the sunset, to take in what we could before we had to head back to the bus for the 3 hour trip back to the hotel. We grabbed some Sri Lankan street food from a side of the road vendor as snacks for the trip back, anticipating the long drive crammed into the tiny bus seats. It's worth saying here that like every stop we made with this tour group, we left late because people arrived at the set meeting points way later than agreed upon, which of course made the itinerary and the stops suffer by cutting off time. We felt this keenly in Galle, it being the end of the day and us only given an hour to explore. Thanks to the late folks, we made it back to the hotel just in the nick of time for dinner before service closed (which of course caused people to complain - I'd never heard so much complaining as I did on this trip, and half of the time it was their fault!), and then after our meal headed promptly to bed where we crashed, knowing we had an early wake up call for our trip to Kandy the next day.

A Quick Update!

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about this blog. I've just been rather lazy when it came to posting, and then the past 10 days I actually had an internship (!!!) that kept me at work from 10-6 and sometimes longer hours without a break. However, I absolutely loved working for the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and there is surely a post coming about it soon, but first, I need to finish the much anticipated Sri Lankan blogs before I get too caught up in planning for our next adventure - Christmas in Thailand!

Sri Lanka Series 1 - The Departure

So I've been quieter than usual on the blog as of late, and while it's partially my own fault, I was also out of the office for all of last week for a very lovely, much needed getaway.

After writing most of this post and realizing it was a wall of text, I have decided to break it up into smaller sections, so that you're not completely overwhelmed. Also be warned this section of the story has no pretty pictures. Just lots of frustration.


The beginning of last week saw Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice. We'd known the holiday break was coming for quite some time, but had been lax on our plans, mostly because I didn't have my passport back or my emirates ID, and we were unsure if I would be able to leave the country so soon after obtaining my residence visa. Yet the stars aligned and I got my passport back with a week and a half to go before the holiday, so Jon and I started throwing around vacation ideas, looking for deals online, including Groupon packages. I was campaigning for a short trip somewhere in the region - Jordan, Oman, one of the local countries, and Jon was unsure where he wanted to go, when we stumbled across a Groupon for a 3 night stay in Sri Lanka. Of course, on further exploration of the site, we discovered that the Groupon only included 2 nights at the hotel, and that the third night was actually the overnight flight on the first day. Gross. I decided that was simply not enough time for a real holiday, and we glossed over the offer, while continuing to look with other travel agencies.

After not having much luck (and receiving SLOW responses - what a surprise!) I decided to email the tourist agency putting on the Groupon trip, as their website stated that they had longer tours of Sri Lanka available. Surprisingly, not three minutes after I sent the email, the phone rang (an unusually quick response time for anything around here) and the travel agent and I began chatting about what was available. We could take the same trip as the Groupon, he said, only stay an extra day, and it would actually wind up being a cheaper per day rate than what the Groupon turned out to be. The extra day was attractive, as the itinerary looked pretty brutal, and after a short discussion we decided to book.

It's pretty crazy that we decided to go to Sri Lanka the week it actually happened - a discussion that could have never happened when we were just poor lowly grad students, and also one that could only happen because it's just the two of us. :)

Saturday rolled around and we spent most of the day relaxing, knowing that we had a 4 1/2 hour overnight flight to Colombo that wasn't scheduled to leave until 11:45p. I was not jazzed about this part of the trip, but figured it be okay, that we'd be able to nap on the plane before we arrived. Sure, we were flying economy and both of us have been uncharacteristically spoiled by business and first class lately, but we'd done this sort of thing before, talked about it, and were okay with the idea. We headed to the airport around 8:30p to give ourselves plenty of time.

Arriving at the airport is where things started to take an interesting turn. We were flying out of Terminal 2, which we figured was just near Terminal 1, the main hub of AUH. Turns out, not so much. Our taxi driver seemed genuinely confused when we told him Terminal 2, which puzzled us, but we soon learned why as we drove past the main hub of the airport onto a side street. Surrounding us were cargo airplanes and terminals, and the signs, while occasionally pointing to T2, also pointed to the police station and service areas. We were beginning to worry our cab driver was very lost when the building finally came into sight - a real afterthought of a "terminal" - and it was PACKED. Packed to the gills with people standing in line waiting to get through security. The lines were LITERALLY out of the doors. I'm not making this up. Jon and I also sort of stood out like sore thumbs, considering the majority of the crowd was Eastern, and we were pretty much the only Westerners in sight.

As far as we can now figure, T2 is the go-to terminal for these shorter, cheaper flights to the Asian continent - including ones that ferry many of the workers back and forth between here and home, as well as providing a major point of immigration. This was a strange place for a few American tourists to wind up. Yet it would only get even stranger as we walked in. Jon and I, being very polite and very confused people, went to move towards the back of one of the shorter lines out the door, when someone in a orange vest who was clearly with the airport approached us and said "Colombo?" When we nodded our acquiescence, he instructed us to follow him, and took us through and around the lines to the front, where two representatives from our tourist agency were waiting to greet us and usher us through the line, straight to security, straight in front of the literal hundreds of people who were waiting to do the same thing.

We were also ferried past people waiting in the baggage drop line, again to the front of the counter, and were allowed to be the first people in line for passport control when it opened (bypassing, again, nearly 50 people who were waiting for passport control to open when we walked up). It was a dizzying experience to be having at 9p. We discovered at baggage claim that there was a flight leaving for Dhaka (Bangladesh) at the same time, which explained the influx of people at the terminal, but it still didn't explain why we were singled out (which we have running theories about). Security gave us a cursory glance-over, and then we were in the terminal itself - a total of 6 gates, a large duty free shop, and a Cinnamon Cafe with a huge central waiting area. We decided to grab a snack from the Cafe which touted what LOOKED like Cinnabon knock-offs, coffee, and freshly squeezed juices (one of my new addictions thanks to the region, where they are readily available and always reasonable). The juice was delicious, and Jon thought his coffee was passable, but the cinnamon roll was anything but.

Other people filtered in who were also clearly tourists heading to Colombo, and we all sort of silently bonded together in one area of the waiting room, some of us chatty, some of us aloof. Finally the time came to board, and we headed to the gate, only to be put on a bus. I've done bus loading/unloading before, but this particular bus took us quite literally all the way back to T1 (which was a considerable ways since we had to pass the cargo area) to board our flight using stairs. No big deal. We were flying Rotana Jet, a fairly new airline whose only current international route was to Colombo/Mattala in Sri Lanka, but who had a great following for local hopper flights between Abu Dhabi/Dubai/Sir Bani Yas Island. It's worth mentioning that Rotana also has a fairly nice hotel brand around here. The plane was new and clean, and we boarded and took our seats - the first frustration, as we quickly learned upon receiving our boarding passes that we were not actually sitting together, but instead across from each other on the aisle. Not a big deal, as I usually take the aisle seat anyway.

Then things took another interesting turn. For starters, between passengers boarding late and waiting inexplicably on the tarmac for several minutes, our flight was an hour late taking off, which I knew would be a bit of a crunch because it messed with our time table upon landing in Sri Lanka. There was also the puzzling aspect of the six completely empty rows of business class seats (which I promise you has an answer, but I'll leave you hanging until later). We finally hit the air about 1am, and the cabin lights were dimmed, and we tried to relax a little... and BAM, 15 minutes after reaching altitude the cabin lights were abruptly turned back on at full blast. Not raised, mind you, but turned back on. I tried to ignore this through my sleep mask until I heard shuffling in the aisle and felt a presence over me, only to look out and see the flight attendant smiling politely and saying, "Meal?"

My husband was quick witted enough to capture on film, minus sandwich.

I'd joked with Jon about whether or not we'd get a meal on the flight, and we both agreed probably not, so neither of us was expecting one, and especially not expecting the joke of a box lunch we were served at 1:30AM (that several passengers had to be woken up for). I had to laugh to myself when one of the other passengers decided to ask if there were options (I'm guessing vegetarian, since there were a lot of Sri Lankans on the flight), and was told by the flight attendant "No no, there is only chicken" in a very matter-of-fact tone. The chicken sandwich, or lots of bread accompanied by a little bit of pulled chicken, was decent enough edibles, and the meal came with a juice box, a fruit cup, and a knock off Kit-Kat, and of course your choice of soda/juice from the cart, as well as a coffee/tea option in addition (Suck it Delta, I can have juice AND coffee). Once dinner service was over, which took around an hour or so, they did shut off the cabin lights again, but I was pretty much awake, and failed in my quest to nap. So by the time we landed in Sri Lanka, Jon and I had been up for around 24 hours (though I managed to get about an hour nap in during the day Saturday), and were exhausted, annoyed, and not quite ready to freshly tackle what would be our landing/day 1 Sri Lanka experience.

But that's a story for another post.

Consistency is key!

That's what I keep telling myself about writing this blog, anyway, and then I never really get around to doing it. To be fair, the last week has been surprisingly busy for me (us), but if I had written sooner I might not have needed to write a marathon post in which I can barely remember all the things I probably would've talked about anyway.

Within the past two weeks (what I'm figuring for time lapsed here, even though it's probably been longer, I've attended two coffees, four Arabic lessons, made a trip to Dubai, had a girl's night party, crashed a Literature department reception, and been actively looking for jobs. It's been exhausting, compared to the pace I had been running, which was pretty much nothing at all.

One of the coffees I went to was a newcomer coffee for women in the AWN, or American Women's Network. I had a pretty nice time, and as it was at the home of one of the senior board members who lives in Sama tower, I had an excellent view of Abu Dhabi from the 43rd floor. I didn't manage to snap pics. AWN seems like a great network resource for expat women living in the city, despite the fact that I was by a large margin the youngest person there and some women even made the offhand comment that they were definitely old enough to have been my mother. AWN has several events, committees, and something called an Explorer's club that takes local trips, so there's always something to get into.

Cappuccino.

The other coffee was just our weekly jaunt sponsored by NYUAD's community life department, which is pretty much always a welcome socialization hour overwhelmingly dominated by "trailing wives" - those of us who are here with our husbands who have jobs. There are a couple of reasons why you never really see anyone else in the mix, despite the fact that it's open to everyone, chief among them that it's at 10am on a Tuesday morning when most of campus is working or teaching. This week's event was at a Afghani-American fusion cafe on Al Raha Beach, and breakfast was pretty delicious. We even got to sit outside (!!!!!) because the weather was beautiful and the place was on the water and there was a lovely breeze (at least until noon rolled around).

My new obsession: Lemon Mint. It's pretty much lemonade muddled with fresh mint, and it's delicious.

 This past weekend Jon and I also got to take a trip to Dubai to see the Mall of the Emirates, what was once the largest mall that was outdone by Dubai Mall that will soon be outdone by Yas Mall which will be on the next island over from where we're living (and should open soon), and there are rumors that Saadiyat is getting its own mall that will outsize Yas...but that's probably an undertaking 10 years in the future. Seriously, keeping up with all the malls around here is exhausting.

I'll take to another post to write about our Dubai trip, in order to keep this one from becoming the longest post known to man, and I'll try to write a separate post on job searching so things don't get muddled. I'm also actively trying to campaign for Eid holiday destinations, which requires more research.

Sunday = Monday

Here in the desert, Sunday is the start of the work week. That means Friday and Saturday are our weekends, and Sunday = Monday. Sunday also comes with a case of the Mondays, as it were.

I decided to run to the mini grocery for a few things we'd missed at Carrefour this weekend, and it was supposed to just be a quick trip out to pick up a few things and come home. Well, a quick trip turned into classic "expat problems," and was a little longer than I'd expected.

We usually pick out a few recipes at the start of the week to make for meals, and this week Jon decided chili sounded good (despite being in the middle of a 100+ degree desert...), so we picked out a recipe and got, with a few exceptions, most of the things during our big Friday hypermarket run. Last night, I made Bacon Bbq Apple Chicken in the slow cooker, which was delicious. But we still needed a few things for the chili recipe that we couldn't find at Carrefour, and we were pretty sure we'd seen them at Spinneys. Quick, easy trip. Maybe hop by the liquor store to pick up some cider to enjoy.

This blog brought to you by my spirit animal, Grumpy Cat.

I got to the mini grocery using the shuttle, and dropped by the ATM to grab some cash, only to discover that once again, it was out of order. Oops. Well, no big deal. I walked into the grocery, grabbed a basket, lamented that I hadn't written a list, stood around for a few seconds recalling what I needed, and then went hunting. All I wanted was some baking soda so I could make some cookies and muffins (here, it's the British "bicarbonate of soda"), black beans, and pumpkin. Now, I knew the last thing was a long shot, but both Jon and I had seen it in stores before (he very enthusiastically pointed it out to me one time). We are being seriously affected by the influx of pumpkin in all of your Facebook feeds from back home, since it is approaching fall and Starbucks brought back pumpkin spice early and Pinterest is awash with pumpkin recipes. So, if you could kindly STOP TAUNTING US, maybe I wouldn't have to run all over the city looking for the elusive pumpkin.

They had my bicarbonate, and that was it. No black beans, no pumpkin. Well, that's fine, it is a smaller grocery and wasn't apt to have the more selective items. I put the bicarbonate back on the shelf and left. No big deal. I decided that since I was out and about, I'd just suck it up and head to its larger cousin in the city. Surely, they'd have what I needed.

After a 30 dirham cab ride, I was totally expecting to walk in, find everything I needed and walk out, champion of grocery shopping. Not so much. Not only did they not have the pumpkin (not really a surprise, again, it's pretty obscure and maybe we didn't see it there after all), but they didn't have the black beans, and I knew I'd seen those there. Strike two. Well, I figured, all is not lost, because this being the same chain they surely have my bicarbonate. 

My face in the baked goods aisle.

All they had was baking powder. You can find baking powder everywhere here, but good luck finding baking soda. Even the stores I knew had it seemed to be out of it when I went looking. You know, Murphy's Law and what not. So I grabbed some produce since it looked fresher than my previous stop, picked up those frozen pizzas and that bread Jon loves that you can only find at this grocery (a while I'm here situation), and picked myself up a bag of cookies for the trouble, since I figured I wasn't going to be baking any this week, obviously. I hopped a cab back home, with only frustration, a lot bread, and a 60 dirham total cab fare deficit to show for my outing.

Sundays, man. They are just the same as Mondays. So enjoy your extra weekend day today, America.

P.S. - Despite the overall grumpy nature of today's blog, it does have a happy ending, because when I got home I put out an APB on the housewives' network for baking soda, and my good friend Rachel came to my rescue. So I do have muffins this week. And some extra cookies. Thanks, Rachel.

A Little Off the Top

I'd been meaning to write this post yesterday, and then I spent most of the day feeling horrible and doing some translation work so it got pushed to the side. Thankfully whatever was bugging me yesterday seems to have gone away, so here I am again.

Wednesday morning Jon and I went to "mini" Spinneys, and while we were in the St. Regis complex I decided enough was enough, the desert was killing my hair and if I waited any longer to redo my color they wouldn't just call it a root job. I walked over to the Amro ladies' salon, and made an appointment for Thursday morning at 10:30a, which, retrospectively, probably wasn't a good idea as that's when they opened. One thing I've learned about times around here - smaller stores, for the most part, seem to see the posted store opening times as more of guidelines, and rarely do they ever get going on time, or sometimes during their opening hours they're closed, etc. Anyway.

Thursday morning I woke up with more than a little apprehension about what I was about to do, as I am not a person that does change well (though you probably wouldn't know it from the fact that I got married and moved halfway around the world in the span of a month). I had a time trying to find a hair stylist who didn't continually butcher my cut in Tallahassee - after a few failed attempts, I wound up just waiting for trips home to LC to see the stylist I'd been using there for several years. Later in my Tally time I found Dennis, who is an absolutely fabulous stylist that I got to know from working with him at FSU, and I eventually made the transition to getting haircuts in Tallahassee - you know, scarcely two years before I left. The short version of this story is I am VERY picky about my hair.

I made my way over to the salon on the campus shuttle to Spinneys, so I wound up arriving probably a good 25 minutes before my scheduled appointment, and after consulting with a few of my lady friends I met at the last coffee hour, I was told there was a pretty awesome cafe around the corner so I decided to check it out. Shakespeare and Co. is apparently a chain, as my husband informed me today, but not knowing this I walked inside and immediately fell so in love with the place. It embodied everything I love about cafe culture that we just don't see too often back home - it was warm, inviting, and so, so kitschy. Seriously, if you look up kitschy in the dictionary, there should be a picture of Shakespeare and Co.

I mean, seriously, look at this place. It's adorable.

So very, very in love.

Comes with delicious cookies.

I had this super tasty cappuccino while I was waiting for my allotted time, which I actually wound up slurping a little faster than one should a super hot cappuccino, because I didn't want to be late. I made my way over to the salon a little after 10:30a (and when I say a little I mean like maybe 50 or so seconds). I walked in, they asked for my appointment, and I was taken to a chair. Then I was given a choice of beverage and a stack of magazines, and I waited for the stylist to show up so we could begin the process. The wait wasn't too bad - he showed up about 20 minutes later, and got immediately to work with getting a feel for my hair as we discussed what I wanted done. There was a bit of a communication barrier, as my stylist was Lebanese with limited English, but he was immediately welcoming and charming so we had no real issues. He set about to mixing my color and then applied it, and I waited another 30 or so minutes for it to develop. For someone who had never touched my hair before or seen me before and had no idea what color levels and products had previously been used, he matched it perfectly. I was so happy with the way it turned out - and so was he. He'd originally told me while applying the root color that my hair needed highlights to cancel out the darker roots, but once he'd finished and blown out a section so that I could see it dry, we both decided not to mess with perfection.

Then came the really challenging/nerve-wracking part for me - the cut. Fortunately I had pulled about 10 or so pictures of what I wanted off of the internet and brought them with me on my phone, and he had some great examples to look at. I was still a little nervous - after all, I was changing my cut completely from the standard I'd worn the past 7 or so years, and I was in a new place with a person whose skill was unknown to me, AND short hair isn't really a thing you see here. As soon as he pulled out a razor, though, I knew he knew what he was doing. Boy, did he. My cut was almost entirely done by razor, which is a super important part of a short, choppy cut. Not only that, but he treated my hair like he and it were old friends, and thinned it out considerably without me even asking. Truly, I think I may have found my new favorite stylist. By the end of my two and a half hour visit, I was totally at ease, and very happy with the result. It was worth the slightly higher than I'm used to price tag - cut, color, and blow dry were all separate charges, which racked up in the end, and the salon IS on a hotel resort property, so I'd expected to pay premium prices.

The picture I took before leaving the apartment.

The absolutely gorgeous end result.

Sorry, JLaw, I wear it better.

Again, look at this. TOTALLY worth it. The color is gorgeous, flawlessly integrated, and the cut looks pretty fantastic too. I can't praise my experience at Amro enough, or my stylist, who stuck with me through the whole ordeal.

I was pretty nervous about hacking off that much of my hair, but it is DEFINITELY a lot cooler and a lot more low maintenance, and if the desert decides it doesn't like my daily look, it doesn't really matter because this cut looks great when it's a little messy. I didn't post a blog or pics immediately when I got home, because Jon was still in the office, but once he came home and gave it the "It looks awesome" stamp of approval, I decided maybe it was okay to share.

The Hibernation

The blog's been a little dead lately, and I apologize. I don't really have a great excuse for you besides hibernation, which is relatively what I've been up to these days. I've still not got pictures for this post because for some reason my new phone isn't syncing to Google like it should, an issue I just discovered and will probably spend most of the day trying to figure out. Also, my ergonomic keyboard died a horrible death (actually one of the keys was mysteriously stuck without actually being stuck, and having the number 1 flash across your screen in long lines because you can't get it to stop is super annoying) and the stock Lenovo keyboard isn't as comfortable for me to use. You know, you get used to luxury and then downgrade and things just sort of seem sad...

Wait, is this thing on?

Okay, so, there you have it! Proof that I am still alive and well and my roots look absolutely awful. I think one of my goals for the next week is to find a salon and catch up on my monthly maintenance routine.

Seriously, when they all look this gorgeous, how do you choose?

I've been spending my time trying to sort through the 800+ photos from the wedding and pick out the ones I want in our album, which is a greater challenge than it should be because they are all spectacular.  I had the lovely Esta Eberhardt do our photos since I'd known her forever, and man, did she not disappoint. If you're looking for a photographer, North Florida, I can't recommend Captured Memories by Esta enough. Not only are the photos gorgeous, but you're getting to spend time with a pretty special lady, too.

In addition to the countless hours spent making decisions, I've also had the opportunity to get out a bit more and make some new friends. Sure, I didn't make the coffee hour because I sort of overslept and got distracted prepping that night's dinner (there's irony in there, somewhere), but our last two nights have been social events extraordinaire. Wednesday was New Faculty Orientation for Jon, and while he sat in boring meetings all day I got to experience the best part of it, being the dinner that night. We took a bus to one of the local beach hotels for the dinner, despite there being plenty of room on campus here to serve. The ballroom was gorgeously decorated, there was a pretty kicking band (I didn't ever think I'd hear jazz standards at dinner here), and the food was delicious and varied. There were spring rolls, sticky buns, curries, duck, lamb...but also some pretty predictable foods like pastas. For dessert there was coffee and a really delicious espresso panna cotta. The main reason I'm sure they chose to have this event off campus, however, was the fact that they served wine and beer, which is easier to do in the hotels since they automatically have licenses for that sort of thing. Living in a Muslim country, alcohol is obviously not served at most restaurants and events because of the laws, but tourist areas naturally become the exception.

Last night we were invited to a lovely get together by one of Jon's coworkers, who made a delicious traditional Indian dinner. Believe me, it doesn't compare to the things they call "Indian" food back in Tallahassee. It was another nice night of socialization and company. After two nights of staying out late, however, I think we're probably cool with laying low most of the weekend.

This week, I'm bound and determined to get to an actual coffee shop. We'll see.

Marhaba, Marhaba

The Arabic word for "welcome." You're starting to see it all over the campus as it's finally been opened to the public and students are being ushered in. Even the cab drivers suddenly know where it's at and where to take you, instead of having to give directions on every trip home.

With the advent of the major move onto campus nearly being complete, we've been able to start mingling with the other faculty who have finally arrived, which has been nice, but does mean the quiet sereneness of an empty campus is almost at an end. However with the students arriving soon, there'll also be more events happening, which could be fun.

Things around my neck of the woods have been predictably quiet, minus a small kitchen flood and a IKEA trip today (this one only took three hours). I also don't have any swanky pictures for this post because my phone decided it wanted to go home with a cab driver a few days ago, meaning it slipped out of my purse on a ride home. Since I'm convinced I'll never see it again (it has been four days and counting, after all), I've ordered its replacement from Souq, which is an Amazon like retailer here in the UAE, and was told today it'd be here by Saturday. The major issue has been getting a replacement SIM from T-Mobile, who doesn't ship internationally, but I've also ordered one that will just take a tad longer off of Ebay. So no worries, I'll be back up and running soon enough.

I'm also still combing the internet for work possibilities, so job hunting and house keeping takes up most of my days. Rather boring, admittedly, but I know in the end it'll pay off. If you happen to know someone who needs something translated from German to English, send them my way - freelance work has been my sole source of work lately. I don't mind, because it's nice to be home and I always get fun and interesting projects, but it is hard to maintain a steady stream. I also do editing for English manuscripts, papers, etc.

Later next week I'm going out for a trip to a local coffee house, so I'm sure my barista self will have lots to share.

Playing Catch-up

So it's been a crazy couple of days around here and I keep meaning to get a blog posted but keep getting sidetracked. I've also had about a million ideas for different posts so this might be a bit scatter-brained, but hey, you should be used to that sort of behavior from me by now.

What has kept me so busy? Shopping. Dinner dates. Getting the pictures back from our wedding. Cooking. Movie dates. Skyrim (I'm just being honest here - video games). I'll try to go in that order.

This week we took a trip to a mall we haven't been to before - the Al Wahda Mall, mostly because we heard there was a really awesome kitchen supply store and I needed certain kitchen supplies I hadn't found yet. Al Wadha wasn't like the other two malls I'd been to here, in that to me, it seemed decidedly more mall-ish. This may also be because it's the biggest mall in the area (at least, we think it is). We explored for a while but we were on a mission, and stopped into Lakeland and Thinkkitchen to outfit our cookingware. I mostly picked up baking supplies, because hey, if I'm gonna be spending time at home I'm gonna bake deliciousness. We also took a visit to Al Wahda's hypermarket, Lulu, which is HUGE in comparison to the one we frequent - Carrefour. If I had to rank them in size, biggest to smallest, I'd say Lulu, then Cooperative Society, then Carrefour. It seems to be a mall standard around here that they all have hypermarkets, which is nice because you can get some grocery shopping done too.

One thing I also managed to get into at the mall this week was fast food, Abu Dhabi style. Which, surprisingly, isn't that different from fast food you'd find in the States. My first experience this week being with Burger King, and my second with Hardee's, I can honestly say that I didn't  notice too much of a difference with either - even in the menu. I hear McD's menu is more varied here, but I haven't seen it yet. One thing you will see that would never happen in the States - KFC and Popeye's in the same food court, two doors down from each other. This sounds downright sacrilegious to us, but people here eat a LOT of chicken. Chicken is pretty much the staple, because pork isn't eaten and beef just doesn't seem to be widely, cheaply available (excepting hamburger, of course).

Also this week I got to have a nice dinner date at a fancy local restaurant called Finz. Finz is located in one of the hotels (which had a good seven or eight additional restaurants) and is a seafood joint, situated nicely on one of the little inlets so you can see the water. I've taken a few shots just for reference.

Now Finz isn't right on the gulf, but as you can see, the views aren't shabby. The food was delicious too - all very fresh. I had a cream of crab and corn soup for a starter, grilled salmon for an entree, and a chocolate and cheese plate (which was really a warm chocolate cake, a chocolate mousse, and cheesecake flavored ice cream) for dessert. Jon had a crab starter, followed by a whole red snapper (which was the catch of the day) cooked in a tandoori oven with a mango sauce for entree, and something they called a Raspberry Progression for dessert. We tied this up in a nice little bow with two bottles of a nice German Riesling (between three of us!).I didn't managed to snap any pictures of the food, frankly, because I was much too busy chowing down and having a pleasant chat to bother with it. Plus, this was the kind of fancy joint where they served you lemon sorbet between starter and entree to cleanse your palate. Food selfies didn't exactly seem right.

In addition to dinner dates, I have been cooking some at home - I finally got to test out the slow cooker yesterday to see if I was going to get the same sort of quality results I'd come to expect from my ancient Crockpot, and I have to say, I'm pretty sure it passed the test. Jon seems to think so, anyway. I slow cooked some pork shoulder (a nice butt, for all you Southerners) for pulled pork, using a recipe but improvising a bit on the dry rub and cooking ingredients, and after about 7 hours, it came out pretty fantastic. I also made a peanut butter pie which was a little bit of a challenge, because I couldn't find instant pudding (which was puzzling at first, until you realized that instant pudding is made with gelatin and that tends to be a pork by-product). So that took some improvising with a cook and serve pudding, but I've been told it came out pretty delicious too. You can find pork here, even though locals don't eat it (against the Muslim religion) - we paid about $8 a lb for it, which seems pricey to those of you back home, but honestly is less than we'd expected it to be. One thing I can't find (please feel free to include in care packages) - Mac n' Cheese.

Today was a long, busy day because we went to the mall this morning and after waiting nearly three weeks after the US premiere, I finally got to see Guardians of the Galaxy. Now I love Marvel movies (I love comics too), and the hype surrounding this one and the reviews from friends back home had heightened my expectations a bit. I also dragged along my husband who is not a Marvel/comic book/superhero fan, and was a little nervous that he'd hate it.

"I am Groot." - Jon's new favorite Vin Diesel role.

It was a smash hit. I don't even know where to begin. I suppose I should describe the cinema experience, because it was MUCH nicer than movie theaters back home. One of the first differences I noticed was that you do actually get assigned seats here, it's not done on a general admission basis. Since we got our tickets online two days before, we managed to pick fantastic seats and didn't have to worry about anyone taking them. It cost about the same for two tickets to a 3D movie as it would in the states, and you had to pay a few dirham for 3D glasses, but again, the perks were much better. Once we got there we decided to pick up some movie snacks, because it as about lunchtime but we weren't hungry enough for a full on meal after having morning coffee. Two medium sodas, a medium popcorn, and a thing of M&Ms was the "Couples Saver" combo so we picked one up, for around $13 for everything. Did I mention there were popcorn choices? Oh yes, not just salted, but also Maple and Caramel popcorn (we went for caramel and it was delicious). The concession sizes were just as much bigger-than-normal as they are in the States, too. Then we headed into the theater, where we were greeted with huge, cushion-y leather seats that had adequate cup holders and a little table in-between where you could set the popcorn so you didn't have to awkwardly balance it on your lap and fight over it during the movie. Seriously, I think the Vox Cinemas Max experience just became my new favorite theater.

I could talk for days about how much I loved Guardians, but I'm sure all of you have probably seen it multiple times by now, so I won't. If you haven't, shame on you, it's fantastic. I was a little worried because once the previews started rolling so did the subtitles, and I thought it would be annoying, but honestly, after about 10 minutes of being instantly sucked into the movie, I never even noticed them, and they were well done because they really weren't invasive enough to take away from the experience. If I had to say I was disappointed in one thing, it'd be that after credits scene - I won't spoil it here, but seriously Marvel? THAT'S what we get to tide us over?

I also won't bore you with the details of my Skyrim time. Instead, I'll just end with a picture of us looking cute.

See, we clean up well.