New Normal

I am glad to hear my sister-in-law Janet Brendel is getting back to normal after unexpected emergency surgery. It still feels weird for me to wake up in Dubai so I may be missing normal for a while myself. Neal is going home to Pittsburgh on Oct. 9 but I'm not going back until the 13th and probably won't stay long. We are "moving" from the hotel to our new apartment in a few days and I'm looking for furniture etc. Not a lot of fun--the apartment hunt was bad enough! We are looking forward to being out on the Palm. There's a fantastic gym, pool and beach right in front of the building, with a restaurant going in as well.

My sister and her husband will be here on on the 11th and I'll fly back with them. Good thing they aren't planning to stay with us! I hope by the time we have other visitors we'll have some furniture.

Ross and Kurt seem fine at college, Ross liking his apartment, in full swing with rugby and in a seminar with Howard Dean. Kurt's working hard with wrestling and is happy to have much less reading this term. He's taking music theory now which is pretty hard but he says he likes it. One of his friends got swine flu already but he says it wasn't bad.

I'm telling my friends at home that Dubai is definitely a fun and interesting place to visit either by itself or on the way to or from someplace else, although best not in the heat of the summer. (It's still in the 90's!) Great for kids, very family oriented with water parks, aquariums, all the cool stores kids like.

They do a lot of neat things with water. The video shows the fountain in the Dubai Mall.