...of more (fast food, malls, and date nights)

These were things that I was not expecting to have more of when we said good bye to America and moved to the Middle East.  But we have had almost more of all of them than we ever had in the States.  I guess, maybe, I knew that we would be on mall overload from now on (which bothers Quinn more than me), but I guess I didn't realize how much American fast food has permeated this part of the world as well.  It's just easier to go to McDonald's or KFC here because they are on almost every street and you can be pretty sure about what you are going to get.  The same can't be said about any old schwerma place or Syrian restaurant. However, I do have to say that I have shied away from KFC's heavily marketed "Shrimpo" sandwich, although I can't really pinpoint why...

So Abram has had his fair share of chicken nuggets, hamburgers, and french fries this last month.  But, of course, he's not complaining.  The other day we drove out to the other coast to renew our visas and we ended up going to a mall for lunch.  There were probably lots of great places to eat in the city, but we knew that the mall would most assuredly give us the most options.  So we ate at Wendy's.  It was good.  I've also had more Pepsi in the last month than maybe in my whole life thus far.  It's pretty popular over here.  I hear Coke is too, but I haven't seen it.

After eating at Wendy's Abram guided us over to the video arcade and he rode his first "grocery store" ride.  You know, where you pay a quarter to rock back and forth on a elephant for one minute.  Only this was a truck full of musicians (there were animals ones, but of course he wanted to drive the truck).

Also, it ended up costing about two dollars to ride it. We agreed to it before we knew that we had to buy a rechargeable arcade card in addition to paying for the almost one dollar "ride".

He was very serious the whole time.  No laughing or smiling.  But as soon as it was over, he was begging to "do AHgin", which we did not.  We did, however, share a 28 cent McDonald's ice cream cone.  Spoiled little bug.

Selah was a trooper, even though she barely slept that day.  She's not a good car sleeper.  Fooey.

We also didn't really plan on having more regular date nights than we've ever had before.  So far, we've only had one and a half, but we will hopefully get one every other week!  Pretty cool!  Since we are living "next door" to our friends, we have set up for one date night a week and the couples alternate weeks, leaving after the kids are down.  For our first real one, we decided it was most appropriate to go do the most touristy thing in the city and get it out of the way.

So we went to dinner at Uno Pizza in Dubai Mall and then watched the fountain show at the base of the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world - if China or someone hasn't built something bigger yet).

(We happened to catch the fountain show that was choreographed to "Thriller"...)

(This country really loves their ice cream shops)

It was so nice to get out and spend time with Quinn alone and get to debrief and laugh and hold hands in the car (since you aren't supposed to do so in the malls).

I am excited for many more date nights with this handsome man where we explore new things and try to avoid fast food altogether.