Justin Ahrens in Abu Dhabi: 2010

Pictures: Scenes from the Beats at the Beach Concerts, a couple of my new rides my students gave me...and the sunset over the mangroves looking away from the city with the worlds most leaning tower in the back right corner.

Well I know that it has been too long. I got in a bit of a routine here and thought there is nothing really interesting going on here for people to read about back home. However, after talking with people back home, I have come to realize, even the little things I do or see here are interesting to you back home. I am in a country that was a third world county 39 years ago and has jumped to a first world country and has seemingly skipped over a lot of the basics. I live in a city that does not believe in multi-story parking garages. I live in a country that has 1.6 million people in it and does not believe in parking garages haha. They decide to build, build and build some more. They decide to break every building record known to man, but they wouldn’t dare want to build a parking garage. It is a known fact amongst everyone that parking downtown is un-believably tough to find. When they run out of parking, they just decide to literally park in the middle of the street. One person starts the trend then everyone joins in, it is quite amusing.
This week is the Yas Island Formula 1 Race and has brought in a whole new group of people for the event. This also stirs up a thing called Beats on the Beach. The city decides to pay a few big artists some big money to come and perform on the beach for free. The list consisted of Kelly Rowland, Sean Paul, Kelis, Fabolous and more from around here and the states. As I went to the concerts each night, I had a chance to step back and look at where I was and was reminded of what an experience I am having and the opportunity I have been given. I was standing on the beach with these big name artists in front of me, the gulf to my left, the city to my right and the Emirates Palace behind me. It was close to midnight and 75 degrees with a cool breeze and gorgeous. On the contrary, you can drive down to Yas Island and pay some money to go listen to even bigger names, Kanye West, Jonas Brothers, Linkin Park and many more. As most of you know me, I have not been to many concerts period and as bad as I wanted to see Kanye, I said I will take the free route haha.
I got to save, got to save! Don’t get me wrong I have treated myself to some things and what not, but have big plans for the big visit from Cassie in about a month. For those of you who don’t know, I planned a trip for us over Christmas. We are going to EGYPT for 3 nights/3.5 days. We are going to leave early Christmas morning out of Abu Dhabi and fly into Alexandria. We then will take the train to Cairo and spend the day around the city. That night we are going to take the sleeper train with bunk beds to Luxor. In Luxor we will be able to visit the Valley of Kings and Queens and many historical temples. That same night, we are going to take the sleeper train back to Cairo. In Cairo we are going to visit the Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, ride a couple camels, and go to the Nile. That night we will explore the city and crash in a local Hotel. The next morning we will be catching the train back to Alexandria to fly back into Abu Dhabi. I am a big saver, but you only live once and you never know if you are going to have the opportunity to do something like this again.
That trip and a whole lot more is planned for us. There is so much I have even yet to see in this city. I figured, why go see it alone when I can go see it with the person I love for the first time. I have been putting off seeing a lot to be able to experience it together. Dubai is waiting for us as well and that’s a whole new story with what there is to see up there. When New Years roles around we are going to have quite the concert to attend as well. In the past years they hold a big New Years party at the Emirates Palace with big name artists (Rhianna, Christina Aguilera, Nickel Back, Maroon Five etc.) and have yet to announce who is coming this year. Cassie is hoping for the love of her life, Michael Bubble and/or Chris Brown. It is amazing the money this place throws at people in order to get them to come and perform for everyone here.
I have found a couple really good restaurants here in town and look forward to finding some more. I am in love with Indian food, specifically Chincken Tikka Massala and it is super cheap. Lebanese food is amazing too. I fell in love with this chicken sandwich they make with this garlic paste they put on it mmmm mmm mmmm! For the most part though, I am making my food at home…a whole lot of eggs, turkey sandwiches, chicken burgers, pasta and peanut butter/crackers and VITAMIX’ yummm.
We are now only 31 days away from finally getting a visitor and one that you all know I cant wait to see. I am not going to lie, this past week I had fallen into a bit of depression. I have never talked so much during the day (with my students) only to then come home to myself and have no one to really talk to. I laugh with Cassie telling her the tortilla’ and apples have become some close friends of mine, they have a lot of good advice. I know to a lot of people back home, it may look like I am becoming a bit soft, or whatever. The truth is, I was unaware of how difficult this would be. No one back home can truly relate unless they have done something like this overseas. I know I need to man up a bit though and turn this thing around.
It would be easy if I had no one to miss, but I have a lot of people to miss back home and am used to being able to hangout with Cassie, Family and Friends on a regular basis. I began to let myself get hit with wave after wave of depression, till today! I woke up a bit down, but as soon as I got out of bed, told myself…its time to take this thing on and beat it. I have had the privilege of Skyping Eastside Faith Center back home for church and that has been very helpful. That is not enough though; the Lord is calling me back into His Word. I have fallen behind and need to jump back in. I only have 31 days left and need to continue to prepare a place for her, a place/experience to share with someone. The days aren’t going to go faster and I need to just suck it up and face it. There is a lot that needs to still be done and I need to continue to turn my classroom into my sanctuary. Those kids deserve my all and they will continue to get it.
We are on holiday break right now for a week and everyone else is traveling to either Jordan, Oman, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Cypress, Lebanon or wherever, but I got a big trip of my own coming very soon!!!! It is time for me to get back into shape and enjoy the time off, go to the beach, go to Dubai and seek the Lord. The weather is amazing now (85 degrees in the day and 70 or so at night) Thank you for all of your prayers and support back home and keep them coming.

Oh I almost forgot...so the way they rank you here by your wealth is very interesting. Everyone wants everyone to know how rich they are. A way they make sure people know is the license plate number on their car. The lower the number you have the more wealthy you are. It also is determined by the color in the middle. If that color is red, you are more wealthy too. Anything with 3 digits or less means your pretty much loaded beyond belief haha. A certain number of these low digit numbers are set aside for the wealthy but they also come with a cost. The owner of the number 1 license plate recently auctioned it off to someone who was willing to pay 20 million U.S. dollars for it. They payed that for the plate alone. hahaha

It's all for the kids, for C-7 (my motivation), Cam, Nick, J-Whit/Chap (the two wildest west beard growers of them all) and of course Cassie because I know you think a nice stache like this is hott! So I went 1 full month without shaving and got a (if I do say so myself) gorgeous beard to grow on this Ahrens face. The main problem was for some reason my face produces red-hair. No where else on my body is there red-hair and no one in my family has it...but for some reason I do! Then....theeeeeeeeen at the gym tonight, a man came up to me and asked me where I was from. I told him America and he said "are you sure you are not from Ukraine?" and I said, "Yeah I am pretty positive!" lol...he proceeded to tell me that he mistakened me for being from Ukraine because of how red my beard was. That was my sign to say SHAVE THE BEARD! I wanted to have some fun with it when shaving and wanted you to join me on the Beard to Mustache EXPERIENCE...ABU DHABI STYLE! I went from beard to chops and goatee to goatee only to mustache and soul patch! I decided to keep the soul patch for a day or two to let the kids at school have some fun seeing it! :) Hope everyone is good and healthy back home! 56 days Cass ! ! ! A&F