"Are you busy?"
Was what my friend asked me. Are you serious?! We, a couple of "early retirees" who've been talking to each other on the phone for over half an hour, busy?! Well, I have a homeschool to manage but given that we don't always speak with each other, let alone see each other, then no, I am not busy at all.
We set to meet, along with another friend (all of us now out of workforce)and prepared for hours and hours of chit-chat and coffee. Friend 1 would still have to come from Dubai and drive 1.5 hours to Abu Dhabi. She picked me up at my place then we headed to Friend 2's place and had an early dinner.
Then we chased the sunset.
Quite literally. We headed to the Mina Port after dinner. The sunset view there is majestic but because I am talkative as I ever was, we had a small talk with the owner of the restaurant we ate in, and we ran out of time.
The sun, so big and round, was literally rolling down and quickly disappearing from view as we never got a chance to at least take any photo.
We got ourselves a nice outdoor table at Marmellata, an Italian restaurant which apparently is very famous among the locals. The cheery attendant approached us and informed us that we have to give our order at the window. We saw delicious focaccia bread and pizzas but we were still full, we just ordered coffee.
Friend 1 and I each had a cup of Americano while Friend 2 opted for a latte. Hers is more photogenic, so it's her coffee here:
Lovely, isn't it?
As if we have not chatted for an hour over dinner, we spent 3 more hours here just sitting and catching up about life, future plans, and yeah, with a sprinkle of gossip every now and then. LOL.
In between we ordered this oh-so-yummy focaccia bread which was so good we didn't realize we finished it in a flash.
There was also a guy from the next restaurant who approached us and let us try their fermented tea. It was refreshing, kinda like sparkling wine.
It was around 10pm and we asked the lady up what time they were open. There were still quite a few customers like us who don't seem to have plans of leaving. LOL. She said they were supposed to close at 9:30 pm but obviously, they can extend should there still be customers around.
We thought it was a wrap for us already and Friend 1 would already start to head back to Dubai but she then still asked where's a good place for another coffee! Friend 2 suggested a place not too far away, still at the Mina. And off we went to our 2nd coffee destination for the night, which I may share sometime later.