Enjoying Baby Steps In AD, Basketball And Burgers From Home

If Jason Bourne were to think back about his existence between the beginning of The Bourne Identity and the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, I bet he'd reflect most fondly on the very beginning (except maybe for times where he achieved pure vengeance on hardhearted power mongers). Beginning with total bewilderment and slowly understanding your situation and your surroundings - it's a fun time.

72 hours AD, I'm enjoying many Bourne-like moments, learning and familiarizing myself with the new home during simple activities like a walk around our high-rise laiden part of the city or purchasing milk and hangers at Lulu grocery store.

I won't bog this down with too many predictable fish-out-of-water details - shops sell plenty of items I've never seen before and I don't know the metric system yet, etc., but our Abu Dhabi life has enough in common with back home where I don't want to oversell the foreignness of it (I'm certainly not above doing a "Top 10 Products You Find In Abu Dhabi That You'd Never Find In America" post, but I'll give that list time to materialize). The process of getting acquianted just feels interesting, so far.

And I'm doing my best not be like J.W. Pepper from The Man With The Golden Gun.

Aside: The most surprising and amusing thing I've seen or heard so far has nothing to do with UAE - it was an American telling a story about participating in a Hollywood ideation sessions for future suspense-thriller movie plots, and thus, creating and acting out a faux terrorism plot on Pac Bell stadium. I had no idea Hollywood hosted these types of "drills." Apparently, Carl Weathers was even involved, and a little too enthusiastically.

It was a hilarious story, and one of two times during these early days that I wish my friend Matt was here to witness. The other involved my first trip Friday to the mall food court that is next door to our apartment building, and it includes McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Baskin-Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, Popeyes, Charleys Subs, Cold Stone, Cosi, Star Bucks and Fuddruckers. The second time I thought of Matt was staring at the poster for the Hardees Chili Lava Burger, which I haven't tried yet but most undoubtedly will.

That has been the second story of my first few days - while getting adjusted, I've been pleasantly surprised with how comfortably in contact I am with the idea of home. For those who know me, living 400 paces from all my fast food treasures puts a big grin on my face. So did getting to watch the Final Four games Sunday morning (our time) from 2:30 to 7 am on my laptop through NCAA.org.

I went to bed at about 11 pm Saturday and woke up at 2:30 am, about halfway through the first half of the Butler/VCU game. The sun rose right outside our east-looking apartment during Kentucky's run in the second half to make things tight, and after UConn finally put them away, I slept another 3 hours. Of course, I don't know if I'll realistically be able to keep such hours for the entire NHL playoffs or every Monday night football game, especially if (knock on wood) I get a job. But it's nice to know the option is there.

So that's pretty much where I stand right now - doing my best to push myself to acquire new experiences and interactions in Abu Dhabi each day, while also appreciating the highly modern level of access to my favorite people, products and cultures from back in the States.