Where we live…for now.

While in Dubai, we are living at the Gloria Hotel. (and yes, if Wade’s in the taxi with me, one of us will sing, “Glo-oo-ooo-ooo-oooooo-ooooooria, in excelsius da-o” after we tell the driver where we’re going). It is a full service hotel with several floors of long term apartments. There are upsides to living in a hotel, like people come and clean it once a week. Change your towels and sheets twice a week. Bring you dinner if you don’t have it in you to create your own. A maintenance man is just a phone call and elevator ride away. There is a built in pool, park and gym.

There are downsides too. It’s a hotel. It’s impersonal. Multiple people have access to your room and can enter it if you don’t get to the door fast enough. But we are choosing to focus on the good. We’ll be here for awhile and I’m grateful to have somewhere that feels safe, is comfortable and roomy.

From the train station across the street…

Wade was STOKED about the bidet. Sad for him, I had to put a quick kibosh on it’s normal use and function as Tessa thinks it is a ‘mini-sink’, just for her and uses it as such every time she uses the bathroom.

Our view from the deck.

There’s a great little kiddy pool that is fully shaded. I am continually amazed at the mom’s fully covered sitting in that heat by the pool. They rarely get in, but instead watch the children poolside. It must be more appealing to do that that don the full burqini to go swimming.

The kids and I spend a lot of time at the hotel’s little park and play place. It’s usually early morning, or evening as it’s unbearable mid-day. It’s small, but I’m glad to have it and there’s usually always a few other kids to run around with for an hour or so. And sometimes other mom’s for me to talk to. In the evenings they blow up a bounce house on the deck and Tessa of course loves that.

The train station is right next door and there’s always a line of taxi’s out front so it’s easy to get a ride somewhere. I’m finding it’s fairly centrally located and it’s right off Sheik Zayed Road, the main thoroughfare through town, so it’s visible and most taxi drivers know where it is when you want to get back. While it often times takes more that one phone call to get something fixed or attended too (there’s a running joke among the Americans here in the Middle East that Plan A NEVER works, so always have a Plan B and just be prepared to execute that), it’s been pretty good. The people are friendly and love my blond children. A trend we will not escape while here I think.

So for now, Gloria Hotel is home