Friday-Wednesday, 3-8 October 2008

The remainder of break was ok. Kendal and I needed to go food shopping, so we got a cab to City Centre Ajman (shopping mall) where there is a Carrefour with food products. When we got there, we saw the move theater and decided to see a movie in addition to food shopping. This movie theater was weird because it had a bunch of different posters for movies but none of the movies advertise were playing or would eventually be playing in this theater. For lack of better options, we saw Babylon A.D. which, starring Vin Diesel, we figured couldn't be too awful. We had two hours to kill before the movie started, so we went shopping.

Finally, it was time for the movie. We bought a huge tub of popcorn which was only $0.70 more than the small (popcorn is relatively cheap here) and watched the movie. Despite being a Hollywood film, the movie was pretty terrible. The plot line made no sense, several things were not explained, and it was just strange. The special effects were really good, but that is about all that was good about this movie. Kendal and I couldn't stop laughing even though it wasn't meant to be funny. Afterwards, we got some food and went back.

School so far has been ok this week. Mid-terms are coming up and teachers are trying to prepare for that. I had an Arabic re-take test on Monday on which I got a 96% (considerably better than my previous 63%). This Saturday I have a midterm for Political Economy of the Arab World, and then Kendal and I are going to a horse show. The following week I have midterms for Classical Arab/Islamic Culture and Public International Law.

Yesterday, a couple of us got together to play Arabic Monopoly, which is the British version of Monopoly only with Arabic writing. It was strange game because the money used the numerals English speakers use but the houses and property were for sale in Arabic-type numerals. Also, all the prices were missing the last two zeros (i.e. a property for sale for $180 is really for sale for $18,000). It had a few different rules than the US version, but we all had fun playing it.

We started to make more travel plans around the Emirates but with midterms the next two weeks, were not traveling anywhere. Hopefully we'll get to see more places soon.