My Birthday In Abu Dhabi

I have grown not to be the biggest fan of birthdays in recent years.  You always feel let down by friends who text you at the last minute to say they can’t make your get together anymore, or someone important to you that forgets to wish you.  So whilst this may sound extremely bratty, I really don’t like being in South Africa, or, at least not in Cape Town for my birthday.  So when Christine mentioned that I should come visit her in Abu Dhabi, I figured my birthday would be the perfect timing, as the backpackers would also be quieter during that time and Abu Dhabi wouldn’t be too hot yet. 

Christine flew to Lagos, Nigeria, 2 days before my birthday and was due to arrive back the morning of, so I went to bed really late the night before my birthday so that I would want to sleep when she came in.  I woke up at 8am to let her in, where I was surprised by a birthday cheese cake…a very welcome surprise!!  After enjoying a slice as well as one of my many cans of Coke (AED 1.50 each!!), we went back to sleep and I managed to get about another 4 hours sleep in.  There was something about Abu Dhabi that made me want to sleep in very late each day, no matter what time I had gone to bed the night before.  When we got up around 2am, we lit all my candles and then I had some more cake J 

We had decided that we were going to go for half price sushi for my birthday, so when we hailed the cab, I figured that’s where we were going.  But, Christine had another surprise up her sleeve, this time a pedicure as my other birthday present.  I have hardly ever had pedicures so this was a real treat for me!!  The Philipino ladies who worked in the shop were so sweet, I don’t think I will actually ever forget Margie and Rhonda.  I got a wonderful foot massage before getting painted with a lovely pink nail polish (which has lasted to over a month later).

From Bellacure, we headed off to Aloft for sushi, which Christine wasn’t joking about when she said that I needed to dress up.  Going out places in Abu Dhabi are a LOT more ‘dressy’ than Cape Town!!  We ordered some cocktails as well as sushi (no salmon roses in Abu Dhabi!!) and wow I was not disappointed.  Their tuna sashimi was the best that I have ever tasted, wow.  I ended up ordering another portion, before we debated where we wanted to for drinks afterwards.  We ended up deciding on a club at a hotel in Yas, which had become my favourite area.  The music that was being played there was super cheesy, and Christine and I realised that we no longer really knew how to dance to anything but trance, so we just tranced to the commercial music J  I was happy though, as they had Strongbow draught, which I have missed terribly from the UK. 

All in all it was an amazing birthday spent with my friend and definitely a really great decision to spend it in Abu Dhabi!