Arriving and Eid

I never thought we'd actually make it!
I have so much I want to write, but I guess there's plenty of time for that. Here are some (long-winded) highlights: Colin did as well as can be expected on our 13.5 hour plane flight. He moved from his car seat to our laps to perching in front of the emergency exit door. This was a popular place for figety toddlers. I happened to meet a nice lady from NJ whose son is 6 days younger than Colin, but we failed to meet up again to exchange contact information. She was so nice and offered to help me get oriented. Maybe I'll run into her again! We also met a couple at baggage claim from Atlanta. They seem to be about our ages, and moved to Dubai in January this year. They were impressed with how well Colin did on the plane! He only slept for about 4 hours the whole flight, so we had our hands full! We used the in-flight games to entertain Colin a lot, and they had map and flight information available which was neat. One of the screens was the Mecca screen. At one point I thought a man was praying to Mecca at the emergency exit, but it turns out he was just stretching his back - haha. The flight was huge, full, and dark for most of the trip. We got three meals and they left snacks and water out for us the whole time. The flight attendants slept in this tiny little box. It was like watching clowns come out of a clown car. I couldn't believe how they fit that many in one place. Anyway, I digress. Once we (FINALLY) landed, customs went over without a hitch and we loaded our 8 million bags into a minivan taxi, finally made it to the apartment, ordered a pizza, gave Colin a bath, and went to bed. We watched Employee of the Month with Arabic subtitles which is weird.
Colin slept from midnight until I woke him up at 10:30am, and only woke up crying once. This morning he ate his breakfast in our bed and watched one of his movies. Then, we went shopping at Baby Center at the Oasis Centre. Joe calls this location the "Mecca" of baby products in Dubai. It's basically Babies R Us but doesn't carry the same brands and specialty items. The good thing is the playroom! Colin really enjoyed it.
We got lots of important baby things, most noteably, a high chair. The brand Juniors is popular here, but I can't seem to find it on the Internet. We also got Colin a rocking horse which he loves :)
Here's our car, a Nissan Sunny. It's pretty much a Sentra. We have a designated spot in the parking garage of the apartment. To get there, you type in -2 (negative 2) at the elevator (lift) and then the correct elevator letter (A, B, or C) shows up so you'll know which one to go to. Kind of nice! To get to our floor, you just press our floor number and it does the same thing to take you there. This sign in the parking garage makes me laugh: If you're going to run...run HERE. (My iPhone takes crappy pics in dark places)

After nap we went shopping at Geant, the local hypermarket. Basically, that means the Wal-Mart of the UAE. Except the stuff isn't as nice. Yep, I said Wal-Mart is nice compared to this place.

We bought grapes from the U.S.A. (DH = dirham = AED = approximately 27 US cents)

Want spices? This is how you get them.
Geant is in the nearby mall Ibn Battuta ("ee-ben ba-toota"). That's the fountain at one of the entrances. The mall is incredibly ornamental and was INCREDIBLY busy because of Eid. You can click on the link for more details, but it's the end of Ramadan, so these people are hungry and in the mood to shop. Joe said he's never seen so much traffic here.
We had McDonald's for dinner (I'm amused with the Arabic writing on everything) and now we're at home watching the UGA game on slingbox.

I'm very happy here, and very happy to be with Joe again. I'll post about his vacation eventually! We appreciate everyone's support and prayers, and hope to see everyone soon. Many more updates to come!