DUSTING
While there are definite perks to living on the top floor with a balcony, there are also definite drawbacks. First, we are always opening and closing the sliding glass door to go inside and outside. Well it’s starting to get hot so every time that door opens some of my precious air-conditioning escapes outside. It doesn’t help that our air-conditioning sucks. Cleaning when your house is hot and muggy doesn’t help to motivate you! Second, the same sliding glass door and air-conditioning unit blow in dust and sand. The air-conditioning units have no filters so it just fills my house with dust.
I seriously have to dust every day and I’m not talking about “light dusting” I’m talking about moving books off shelves dusting. But by the next day the dust comes back in and it looks like I haven’t dusted in weeks.
VACUUMING
(yep, that’s how it’s spelled-that word never looks right) Kieley used to be scared of the vacuum which was great because she would stay out of my way. Not anymore! Kieley chases the vacuum, barks at the vacuum and bites the vacuum-it doesn’t make my day easier! Since poor Kieley is an inside dog she never gets the chance to dig and hide her bones. As a result, she “hides” her bones and toys all over my house. This is what I found when I went to vacuum the couch today!
She got a new bone last week that has gone missing-I still can’t find it! She waits until she has about three new bones (I gave her another one today) and then all of a sudden she finds them all…tricky dog.
MOPPING
There are no apartments or villas in Abu Dhabi that have wall to wall carpeting. Every inch of the houses here are marble or tile. Even the walls in our kitchen and bathrooms are tile! So wouldn’t you think this would be the perfect place for Swifters? Nope, there are none. I finally broke down and bought one online and had it shipped to my mom who is going to send it to me.
LAUNDRY
I’ve already posted about how frustrating the little washer-and-dryers-in-one they give us are. Well we have a two full size washer and dryers downstairs for the whole building to use.
The dryer on the right doesn’t work so that leaves one dryer for the building. Fine. But what’s really frustrating is that the water heater on the wall leaks so the whole floor is always flooded! So my socks get totally wet. Tony and I are planning on buying our own full size washer and dryer soon!
GARBAGE
Every floor in the building has a room in the hallway that’s the garbage room…except our floor. We have to take it downstairs. No it’s not that big of a pain but it does mean you have to get dressed to take out the garbage. You don’t want to run into a neighbor you haven’t met or one of the Muslim men who work here in your pj’s with no bra on.
GROCERY SHOPPING
Grocery shopping without a car sucks! It’s getting hot outside and sometimes I have to wait 15 minutes for a taxi. And then the majority of the population here has no clue how to wait in a line so people cut in front of you all the time. I’ll admit I’ve gotten pretty ruthless about snagging taxis. The way back is even worse though. In order to get to the front door of our apartment building the taxi has to make a couple U-turns and they look back at you like “you ridiculous, lost American!” Then if you’ve done a big shopping you have to unload all of your groceries on the street, and run them in shifts to the front door praying that no one runs over the rest of your food, punch in the code and carry them in shifts to the elevator, then in shifts out of the elevator and finally inside. Bleh!
THE KITCHEN
As you all know my fridge is down the hall. I think the reason that doesn’t bug me is because there is so much else in my kitchen that does. For some reason every room in the apartments here have doors-even the kitchen. Here’s what the doors in my kitchen look like open.
They block drawers I need to get into in order to cook, and they completely block my stove. If I close them I can’t get to my pantry which is on the other side of that door. Also, if they’re closed the kitchen get SO hot. There’s no air-conditioning just this fan. 
In addition, all that comes out of my sink in HOT water-on the “coldest” setting there is steam coming off of it. Ok so I wear gloves when I wash dishes-no biggie.. But there are other hazards. The other day I was making soup in the microwave and I spilled some on my hand and burnt it. I rush to the sink to put it under cold water…ooops there is no cold water! I put my burnt hand under boiling water!
THE TOILET
Ok this one is apartment specific to me. There are a couple things that the management company hasn’t fixed in the apartment-one is the toilet seat in the master bathroom. It is cracked in two places to when you sit on it, it bites you! And it hurts!
I know I’m ranting but there are some really great things too. We had everyone over to BBQ again last Thursday and it was a really great group.
We had a blast! The next night we hosted the weekly poker game and it was so nice we played outside. Thanks for listening to all my frustrations…sometimes everyone needs to vent!
This is a view of the living room when you're standing in the hallway. 
The green on the TV wall isn't done yet but we should finish soon! Isn't it pretty? We got a steal on rugs and they are so worth it! It's amazing how much better carpet looks then our gross stained tiles! 
This is looking down my hallway...I have no idea what color to paint that-any suggestions? 
This is my dining room. I know I'm brave with paint, but people seriously thought I was crazy when I said I was going to paint green, yellow, orange, and brown stripes in my dining room...but it looks awesome! At least I think so! 
No, I don't set the table like that everyday...but maybe I should!
It's not really as big of a pain as you would think! But Tony and I are planning on buying a mini-fridge for the kitchen anyway.
It's so funny-when people leave my bathroom they are cracking up! Thanks Kelly!
I still put it on everything and lecture everyone else when they wont let me put it on them!
They smell gorgeous! People coming over tell me they can smell them all the way down the hall! 
No more "big flame, little flame!" Real life temperature settings! They are in celcius...but oh well! Here's the ironic thing, I finally have an oven with temperature settings and I haven't cooked with it yet even though we've lived here two weeks! The reason for that...Tony has been grilling on our balcony literally every night! And the food has been delicious! He found mesquite chips here and grilled an actual roast last weekend-with vegies and all! It was so yummy! It's been so much fun to grill every night and we've had people over almost every day! It would just be cruel to send the grill sent wafting through the building and not offer to share! 
Usually you can see pretty far beyond that mosque. 
The round building in this picture is the soccer stadium. Nights when they have a soccer game they shoot off fireworks and everything! 
Actually, we are talking about getting a small kiddie pool and tell me this isn't the perfect place for a slip and slide! 
I haven't ordered it yet...but it will happen! (We better buy a first aid kit at the same time!)
Poor Kyle...Matt and Tony were trying to act out dentist...
Tony and Matt started boxing standing up...then they got too tierd. The bad thing was our air conditioning was broke that week so we had three adults running around in tanktops and shorts, sweating our butts off by the end of the night. Let's just say we were all so sore we couldn't move for three days!
This walk was how lovers from different towns could meet before the trains were constructed. 
We arrived in Manarola feeling fine after our twenty minute, paved walk and explored the town a little. It was absolutely beautiful. 
Manarola is a very small villiage known for one thing. One of the vineyard owners had a son that was very sick and he appealed to God to cure his son by erecting a very large cross on the hillside of his winery. Well, the son did get better. However, the cross fell at sometime and the father ended up getting very sick and he died. On his death bed he made his son promise to repair the cross and add to it to regain God's mercy. Well the son is full grown now and he is ill so he continually adds to the...um...nativity scene. The result it pretty bizarre. 
No word yet on how the son's illness is doing. It was so beautiful out that we decided to keep going. After going up a serious of steps, the trail took us through the vineyards above Manarola and on to the next town to the north, Corniglia. 
The hike (and yes, this one was a hike) to Coriglia was more difficult and Tony and I were starving and out of water. We had planned on having lunch in Corniglia so I was overjoyed when the town came into view...that is until I saw the zillion steps up the side of the mountain that were standing in between me and my lunch! 
Over lunch we debated whether to catch the train home or say "What the heck!" and hike the rest of the way to Vernazza. We hiked. On one hand the two hour hike was painful in that the first hour and a half was all uphill...on the other hand, it was the most beautiful part of the hike. 
Instead of being on a rocky coast like the previous hikes, this one was through trees and plants with amazing views of the ocean. 
Needless to say we didn't do much else that night-besides recover! 
Then we went and grabed the camera, a couple beers, and sat on the rocks watching the waves...all day. We ended up with about 800 pictures of waves-but here's the jist of it:
...waves on this rock...
...waves on these rocks...
The views of the town and ocean were amazing. 
So before getting too comfotable we walked down the zillion stairs and bought some fruit, salami, cheese, crackers, beer and a couple bottles of wine. Then, or course, we had to go back up the zillion stairs. But it was still so worth it! After a little bit of snacking, we decided to relax and spend the whole day on the balcony. 
I pulled out a book (surprize, surprize) and Tony pulled out all of the lenses for his camera and began to play. The only time we left the balcony was to grab some to-go dinner. Ok, ok "we" didn't go get dinner...Tony went a got dinner and brought back some delicious pesto pizza! 
Tony took some beautiful pictures of the sunset from the balcony. 
I know nothing about cameras, but Tony's has this feature with an extended shutter speed where it collects all the light for thirty seconds...or something like that. The result is amazing pictures like these. When Tony's took these it was pitch black outside!
Well, after the sun went down we went inside to look at the pics we had taken the past couple days and as we were sitting there who do you think sauntered into our room? 
Yep! The black cat from the cemetary! Scarey huh? Well he walked around a bit and eventually came and sat with me on the couch and let me pet him while we finished looking at pictures! All in all, it was a great day of doing nothing. Don't worry-we made up for all that relaxing the next day!