To Dubai.....

An open letter to the city of Dubai,

My goodness you are a badass. You are the new kid on the block and man you are fine. Honestly, I'd rather lick the floor of your subway than sit on a port a potty in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. The people of your city are absolute magic. I love waiting for someone to speak and literally not knowing what language will come out, much less the accent it will be. The mixture of cultures, faces, and fashion takes my breath away. Your people are proud, whether they are cleaning bathrooms or saving the world, and that, my friend, is a very rare quality. If you can't tell, I am absolutely taken. You're a mixture of all of the amazing food (see Shwarma next door to shake shack next door to Indian food) in the world, and to be honest, that's all I really care about. You are such a welcoming city, one that will eat and drink you to death, similar to the city I call home (and a night at Beth and Steve's...). Your souks took us for a ride, but one where we were willing participants. I now have a beautiful ring, some pearl earrings, and even a few scarves to commemorate our short few days together. I respect you, I honor you, and I absolutely can't wait to see you again.

Much love,
The Caseys

The Maldives take Anne and Rob

What an unbelievable start to this trip. I am writing this sitting in the airport lounge looking at our pictures in disbelief that we were actually in such an amazing place. The Maldives is without a doubt, the most beautiful place I have ever seen. 

We spent the majority of the week eating (weird.....), swimming, and drinking. It really doesn't get better than that kids. We snorkeled right off of our back porch on the reg, and oh my goodness...... The reefs out there are insane. Although I was a bit hesitant post shark siting, my lovely husband encouraged me (slash said he was going to throw me in if I didn't get in the water on my own) and I could not have been more thrilled. The pictures do not do it justice. Every time I turned underwater I was yelling with child like excitement (not nerdiness) through my snorkel to make sure Rob was seeing what I was seeing. (Which he obviously was because he was literally right next to me......)

After our snorkel adventures (and usually 1-7 more beers), we would get ready and venture to dinner where Rob would research that wine list (as you can imagine) while I stuck with my one glass of wine a night followed by incessant whining about how tired I was. Turns out, day drinking, combined with trying to keep up with a collegiate swimmer, mixed in with some jet lag is not a great concoction for nightly raging. I realized real, true love is hearing the man I married say, at 9:15 at night, "why don't we drink wine in bed and watch a movie." (The answer to that is always yes). So this one goes out to my amazing husband for giving me the honeymoon I always imagined and allowing me to sleep whenever I want. (Which I'm pretty sure lately is like 50% of the day)

Anne and Rob take the Maldives

So. Newsflash, we have continued eating and drinking our way through the Maldives.... After we landed in Male we stayed the night in a small hotel (where we stayed for 10 hours yet managed to have 2 meals) and hopped a sea plane to our resort on Moofushi. The flight was terrifying and exhilarating with a side of breathtaking. A bit of an emotional roller coaster if you will. The view from the sky was absolutely unbelievable and it was without a doubt one of the coolest modes of transportation to a hotel I've ever seen. (Vegas - lets get it together - an escalade? What are we peasants?) Once we landed at the resort, we took off our shoes, grabbed a cocktail, and have been repeating that over the last few days. Our bungalow is so amazing (snaps for Rob) although being able to see the baby black tip sharks directly under our deck on the reg isn't great for my snorkel confidence.      

We have dinner on the beach every night, with at least one to two bottles of wine (because why not). The wine list here is at least 20 pages and the resort has about 10 sommeliers on staff. (Can you say Anne's dream job?) The good news is that crossfit coach Rob convinced me to gym so that we can continue our eating habits and don't return to the states as the blimps formerly known as the Caseys. We have had some amazing meals with the exception of last night where we day drank ourselves into a slumber that lasted 12 hours. (Damn you dark and stormies) So this post is coming to you from a very hungry Anne at about 5 am Maldivian time. But don't you fret, we have only two more hours until breakfast.....

40 hours and 40 Meals later.....

After 28 hours on airplanes, 20 hours in New York, and 4 hours in some pretty clutch airport lounges, we finally made it to the Maldives. My flight to Australia doesn't hold a candle to this sucker. We left New Orleans on Tuesday and landed in New York around 2 pm. Where we immediately went into the city and proceeded to eat and drink everything in sight. (We had to fit a weekend's worth of eating into about 10 hours). We proceeded to Eataly (our new obsession. I could seriously live inside of that place) and sat on the rooftop restaurant, had some rose (obviously) and a cheese plate before wandering around. We walked by shake shack and against our better judgement, passed. (I will be back for you delicious cheeseburger followed by a concrete) We then went to Pete's to grab a few beers before wandering to my favorite Momofoku noodle bar. I feel like people judge me for constantly going to a ramen place every time I'm in New York instead of the plethora of other amazing restaurants in the city, but I'm pretty sure they put crack or something in that broth. After eating an amazing beef tartar and what I can only imagine was half my body weight in ramen. We wandered to milk bar. We then realized we, along with about 500 other people, had the same idea. The line, mixed with pain I had from binge eating the aforementioned meal, caused us to abandon milk bar, something I never thought I'd do.

The next morning we woke up and headed to the airport to begin our 20,000 mile trek to the Maldives. (This is actually not an exaggeration, it was redic). Thanks to Steve, we were able to upgrade which I now realize was a terrible idea because I never want to go back to coach. Which is unfortunate since we have about 20 more flights on this trip, ALL IN COACH. Ugh. They fed us a 6 course meal to start off with and Rob got the lobster (not a joke) and I went with the lamb. Once they put the white tablecloth down I knew they weren't playing around. About 5 hours later they served us our 'light meal' which was a mere 4 courses........ Uh. What. Anyone who feeds me every few hours and let's me sleep and watch movies all day is my favorite, I'm a big fan. We landed in China for our 1 hour layover before boarding our second flight to male. So we're jet lagged, 5 lbs heavier, and have muscle cramps from all the champagne, but already having the time of our lives.