Sunday, August 21, 2011

Welcome to Abu Dhabi

Well I made it in.  After 3 planes, one being 12 hours long, I have finally made it in to Abu Dhabi.  As I got of the plane ADEC, my new employer, picked us up at the gate.  There were about 7 or 8 of us on that flight.  From there we got eye scanned and our passports stamped.  I got a not so pleasant surprise at the baggage pickup though.  Yep, you guessed it, missing bag.  It kind of disheartening to watch other teachers load up six or seven bags onto their baggage carrier to take out to the shuttle that would take us to the hotel, while I, who only had 2 BAGS I might add, was missing one of them.  I filed the report and eventually got on the shuttle a little disappointed as you might expect.  Not only did the bag contain my suits and dress shirts, it also had inside my desktop computer (just the tower) with a bunch of information on it.  So making it in to AD was bittersweet for me, but I still tried to at least appreciate my first few moments in the country as I observed the airport and the surrounding area on the way to the airport.

I have heard stories about the initial shock to the system as one walks outside the airport into the Abu Dhabi heat.  My first thought as I did this was that it doesn't really count because it just rained. I saw that the ground look wet before I stepped out. I know how it is in Florida after the rain and the air is just muggy, warm, and thick.  So I figure I will have to see how it is when conditions are normal. Well, it turns out it didn't rain at all!  What I saw must have been some reflection of the light off the asphalt or something.  The streets were bone dry.  Then I thought, Holy Crap (may not have said crap) the air was ridiculously humid.  As I was walking I was thinking how would I explain this on this blog and the best way to describe it is to think of someone you know, husband, brother, sister whatever, taking a scalding hot shower for an hour.  Mirrors are fogged, steam floating around the entire room.  Person gets done dries off, wraps in towel and leaves hypothetical bathroom.  You have to go to the bathroom really bad so go in directly after said person.  That's exactly what it felt like.  It was about one in the morning!  My second thought was would I play tennis and/or work out in this humidity.  Answer: maybe, but not for long, I would need to build a tolerance for something like this. We get to hotel, rooms are assigned.  The rooms are fancy upscale (so much so it literally took me about 15 minutes after pushing buttons and feeling lamps around the room to figure out how the heck to turn the lights on).  I finally figure out that none of the lights work unless you insert and leave your card in a circular installment on the wall by the door, of which I was previously trying to push, turn, pull, move, etc.  Once your card is inserted the entire room, all lamps including the bathroom, illuminates.  So from there I get internet from the front desk (not free) skype home to wife, then finally get to sleep around 4am. 

Five hours later I am up as we have a  orientation in the morning.  Turns out that got pushed back to later that evening, but we do have to be back by the afternoon to open account with bank, a rep will come out to the hotel.   Some where in all of that I return to my room and was a little freaked out that I saw that someone had closed up my luggage and set it next to my bed.  That is until I look across the room to see my luggage wide open as I had left it.  Then I realize that no one had closed up my luggage, the other piece of luggage was my missing bag (both bags are red)!!!!  With my wife's help (I mentioned it to her last night) I supposed they were able to track down my luggage.  I started jumping around the room like a ten year old school girl.  Everything was in order when I opened it up, so now I could really relax and enjoy AD. 

So in the meantime, before our orientation later, I go to the local Carrafour (think Arabic K-Mart/Walmart) with some fellow teachers I befriended: Jason, his pregnant wife, and Juan. We take a cab, an experience I was looking forward to because I hear the driving in AD is crazy, and the craziest of them all are the Taxi Drivers.  It wasn't too bad though however both there and back, using two different taxi drivers, neither one of them went less than 80 mph on basic avenues that back home would be about 50/55 mph speed limit.  In fact, I glanced over (I was in the front seat, long legs and all) and one was flirting with 90!  There was this GPS computer screen on their dash which just had their name and picture. Then all of a sudden in red letters it flashed a warning that the taxi driver was going over 80mph and must slow down.  I think they installed those in the taxis because they are infamous for driving too fast. 

I'll briefly mention here that the weather today was not bad at all.  I didn't notice any humidity, certainly not the overwhelming moist film of warm water/air that coated my body earlier that morning.  It felt like typical Florida weather from what I could gather.

Anyway the market was interesting.  The set up is different, there were at least three levels, I went on two.  I got some basics PB and J, sandwich meat, and bottled waters.  It is kind of weird to shop because at first glance everything looks ridiculously expensive: 10.50 for peanut butter,  but you have to remember that this is in dirhams not dollars.  But don't let them fool you with that either because things still are pretty expensive.  My sandwich meat was 27 dirhams, divide by 3.7 (or 4 as I do to round up) and it was still about 6 dollars.  It was probably only 10 slices in the package.  But the TVs looked promising.  I will be looking harder at them in the coming future once I am placed.  50" Panasonic was a little less than $600 USD!  Not bad. 

We got back quickly about 10-15 minutes, though I suspect it is supposed to be at least a 20 minute trip.  Later we finally have orientation.  Total there are 120 teachers at the Group 3 orientation, the other 800 teachers in Groups 1 and 2 have already had their orientation.  We do a little Q and A session, then turned in passport for processing residency visa, and finally we are done for today. 

I'm headed out tomorrow with my new little clique.  We are going to hit the Marina Mall (big mall here in AD).  I will definitely take pictures. Looking forward to the bed right now.  Good night.












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