Snap caption: Graffiti is illegal in the UAE, but sometimes people do it anyway

Spotted in the Between Two Bridges Area of Abu Dhabi

Overhead in the newsroom: Wicked Wednesday edition

"Miss England is never pretty. Is she pretty this year?"

"I don't have to defend my inbox!"

"You know what would be awesome? If one of us had a coloring book."

On Hamdan Street in Abu Dhabi: World's smallest watch repair shop?

I like to write: An Observing Life column about the terrible scourge of gyms that insist on measuring your performance

“Ann Marie, you’re losing!”

That’s what the RPM instructor bellowed out at me during the apex of a recent class in Abu Dhabi, right at the point where I am usually so angry and tired that I hate the world.

Read more here.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in Abu Dhabi: Shisha, selfies, Ferrari World & just a little bit of camel rap

I am pretty amped about the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis concert at Du Forum on Yas Island tonight. I anticipate my friend and I will be the oldest women in attendance, but you know what? We're still gonna pop some tags (not that I am really sure what that means, but I know it will be awesome).

Macklemore landed in the UAE this week for his show and has made some pretty fun posts to his 4.5 million Instagram followers, including this fun mini Abu Dhabi rap. Will we hear it at the concert, I wonder? My favourite photo is this one, captioned "the language of selfie is universal".

Judging from the pics shot by some of the people in his group, the trip has also involved the typical: desert safaris, a mosque the Burjs (Khalifa and Al Arab) and old Dubai, too.

A couple of other things:

• Here's a cool interview with Ryan Lewis, conducted by The National's Saeed Saeed.

Star Wars in Abu Dhabi: It really does look like Episode VII is shooting in the desert

When you hear that one of the world's most popular yet top-secret film franchises has moved its fictional planet to the desert in your backyard, you want to find it. You search, but the desert is big. You ask, but no one wants to say anything. And then one day, a brilliant photographer from The National is out dune bashing and sees what she sees: looks like part of an escape hatch from Tatooine, doesn't it?

Today in tiny sandwiches: White and Brown bread edition

Overheard in the newsroom: The waning days of March edition

Is it barbecue day?

Do treadmills here go a lot slower?

Shazam. S-H-A-Z-A-M.

Check out the gorgeous vertical garden at the DNA Center for Integrative Medicine & Wellness

This place, in The Collection at the St Regis Saadiyat Island Resort, is totally amazing. More on it to come, but anyone who watched that cheesy but addictive Shonda Rhimes Grey's Anatomy spinoff Private Practice will have a feel for what's going on here: wellness, wellness, wellness...

Not to mention this incredible, jaw-dropping vertical garden in the lobby. You just do not see many of these, because they are quite difficult to maintain. My recent bougainvillea success has me thinking…

My bougainvillea lives!

There is lush bougainvillea growing all over Abu Dhabi and those little bursts of colour are one of my favourite small pleasures of living here. But last summer I bought a lush bougainvillea of my own for my balcony, and it promptly went on strike. Refusing to flower or really do anything. It grew some new leaves, but they never went anywhere (dried up and fell off) and it was so dormant I thought it was half-dead. I even considered throwing it out. Then this week I noticed little buds, then today, this!

I have never had anything close to a garden, meaning I have never known the inner joy that a moment like this brings. On another note, I did learn the hard way not to playfully swat a lush bougainvillea plant (check out the cool pic on that post! I never realised, if I do say so myself). I just wanted to pass on my story again to save anyone else from learning the lesson the hard way. 

Cosmopolitan Middle East Pink cover is a sign of the times (in 3 different ways)

I snapped this yesterday at Carrefour on Airport Road. I was lured by the coverline "Will He Text"? I mean, Cosmo terrified me for years with such probing questions - but they always had to do with the telephone. This just seems so 2014, you know?

January in the Gulf: Our own sort of Polar Vortex

Cold guy #1.

In every year that I have lived here, January has provided some of the most amusement. The talk of the weather is particularly fun for someone who spent eight chilly years living in Canada's capital of Ottawa.

Snap caption: Even camel supermodels have to be camera-ready

The Mazayna Al Dafra camel festival starts today, running until December 28, in Madinat Zayed Al Gharbia, or the Western Region of Abu Dhabi. Do go, it's a ton of fun to see all the attention paid to these trusty "ship of the desert" creatures. And it's also home to the world's only camel beauty contest, which attracts camel owners from far and wide. The judging committee takes the selection process for a winner very seriously.

Snap caption: Abu Dhabi Meetup.org group for people in the insurance industry not so popular

Dear BBC: Thanks for the A Canadian in Abu Dhabi shout-out!

A colleague pointed out that this piece from Sunshine Flint about life in Abu Dhabi lists this space as a way to find out more about life in the city.

The article was likely being prepared just as Abu Dhabi lifted the five per cent cap on rents, which has everyone (myself included) a little worried about what will happen when we re-up. 

Windshield selfies: Is this a thing now?

So I spotted this in my neighbourhood the other day. It seems to be a sticker bearing the image of the owner of the car. (Unless it's someone else I don't recognise?)

Still in Canada, because this much snow

The scene from my brother's front door Sunday morning.

I was due to arrive back in Abu Dhabi from a visit back home tonight. However as you can see, there was a giant dumping of snow on my hometown of London, Ontario this weekend. Several times over the weekend officials closed Highway 401, which is how we make the two-hour drive between London and Toronto's Pearson International Airport, and I didn't risk the drive. (More love to Etihad Airways, my favourite carrier in the world. I can say that, because I've flown a little, though never Aeroflot or Ryan Air, thankfully. Anyway, a call, zip, doodle, one small Mastercard charge and I'm flying out Tuesday night)

I have to tell you that while I am here, I'm loving the winter: the crisp, invigorating air, the cool coats and hats, warm cups of hot chocolate, furry slippers, flannel pyjamas, lots of comfort food and just the general cosiness of it all. (I'm not loving having to wear boots everywhere, the instant and unsolvable dry skin issue and of course, the bane of every Canadian woman, "static hair".)

Yet I know my delight at the season is due to my imminent departure from it for sunny, warmer climes. Next week there will be flip flops, and beach yoga, and warm evening breezes across my balcony.

If everyone around me is a little less excited than I am about the white stuff, of course that is because they are going to be in the thick of it for the next six months. And even though I've been gone from Canada for 5.5 years now, I still remember that winter loses its lustre very, very quickly.

Snap caption: Arabic coffee pot is a little bit rock 'n roll

Spotted at Eastern Mangroves Hotel & Spa

Jay Z in Abu Dhabi: The 3 best moments of his post-Abu Dhabi Formula One show

The power outage

This took me way too long to notice - after a few minutes I actually said to my friends 'he's taking a really long break' only to be told they blew a generator - but who doesn't like being part of something so large and unusual? And then Timbaland shouted out to the crowd

Thousands of blue wristbands flying through the air during Empire State of mind

I imagine the novelty of these du-sponsored wristbands, which light up simultaneously at key concert moments, ie "In Neeeeeeew York", will wear thin by the end of this weekend. But they really created a moment (and in a different way for my friend Julie, who was in the toilet when hers started flashing).

Jay Z turning the cameras on the crowd

I can't believe no other singers have tried this: it's a great time killer and an absolute delight for those in the crowd to be recognised on the big screen. He called out lots of fans, including one with a sign that read "Blue Ivy is the cutest" and another, asking "you hurt your foot?" And it was fun to hear him gently directing the camera man: "Y'all cut away too fast; you need to hold it a bit longer!"

These pics of David Hasselhoff in his Baywatch outfit on the beach on Saadiyat Island are awesome because ________

I can't believe I missed the Hoff this weekend in Abu Dhabi, because he was literally everywhere: on the Abu Dhabi Film Festival closing night red carpet, in the Flash VIP Lounge at Ferrari World and at the F1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Priz (as a guest of Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority). But it was a visit to the beach on Saadiyat Island, where Hasselhoff encountered some fans from Germany, that yielded the best photos. Not to mention the entertaining press release:

Among the autograph hunters was 21-year-old Ronja Hannsen a hotelier from Dusseldorf.

 

“This made my day,” said Ronja. “When I first saw David in the lifeguard’s chair I thought I’d had too much sun – but he turned out to be the real thing. I got my photo taken with him and it’s already on its way back to Dusseldorf. BayWatch may have been a long time ago but it was an iconic series and David’s still looking good. This is really something to talk about when I’m back home."