Hard to believe we’ve only been here two weeks…feels like it’s been a month at least! But we’re adapting to the weather and the crazy cab drivers. We sort of know our way around. It’s hard to learn your way around here because there are no addresses. Directions are so vague with buildings along the way it’s hard to visualize where it is. Our address in Al Ain goes something like this: Near Tawam Hospital, to the right of Twam (spelled different than the hospital…not sure why) R/A (round-about) off of Road 7 – The Village – Unit #. So you get roughly close and keep driving until you find it, I guess!
We’ve purchased all our furniture and appliances. Now if we can just time the deliveries right – we’ll be in great shape. We are still living in Abu Dhabi. Not sure when we’ll be moved but once we have appliances and furniture then we can move when we want. So inshallah we’ll get there by this Sunday – September 4th – which is also our first day at work. Supposedly our first day at work consists of picking up a letter at the regional office and that’s it. No clear answer yet if we are expected to actually go to our schools. It appears that our school are not as close as we’d like but Jennifer’s is on the way to mine so that might work out if we car pool. There seem to be quite a few people at Jennifer’s school so she might even find her own ride home so if our hours are different we won’t be stuck waiting. Jennier’s school is a “model” school. It’s our understanding that model schools are the place to be! The parents pay for their child to attend there and they are like a more “advanced” group. Jennifer’s used to being at a “model” school –right Rees folks? All I know about my school is that it’s a high school and it’s location. Inshallah I’ll know more sometime…
We’ve just been hanging out . We went to see Mr. Popper’s Penguins today. Cute movie. The kids really liked it. Tomorrow we’re bringing lots of stuff to our villa. We bought all the bedding and bathroom stuff when we purchased our furniture. So we’re meeting up with two other families in the morning and renting a Toyota Hiace, which is a 15 passenger van! Should be interesting! Then on Thursday we are actually picking up our rental car. We’re renting a Honda Civic for a month to start with and then we’ll go from there. There has been so many issues finding out if we can or can’t rent. So today we’re told yes you can but as soon as we get our residency visa we have 7 days to get our UAE license.
Hopefully in the next few days we’ll get our OSN satellite installed and we’ll be able to watch lots of American television shows and they have lots of US tv stations like MTV, VHI, BET, E, and several others. It’ll be like home away from home!
We have expanded our Arabic schema too! Not sure on spelling but we’re going to spell it phonetically here!
U-Turn: ur-jay
Straight: cita
Right: ya-mean
You can see we get this practice via our cab driver!!!!
Hopefully the next time I update our blog – it’ll be from the living room at our Villa!!! Inshallah…
Here are some pics…
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| Close up of the dates in the mesh bag that hangs from the date palms |
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| Some Emirati folks with ADEC (the school district) |
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| Can you translate? It just says "next stop - Abu Dhabi". This is the sign on the bus. |
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| Haven't tasted....but thought it was interesting! |
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| Henna tattoo on a friend's hand |
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| We do have our own "school sessions" with the kids. Cole doesn't like it! |
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| Caralyn and our new friends/neighbors - Tamiyah and Tamia! |
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| Sand dunes on the way to Al Ain |
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So a Mercedes Benz for a police car. And the phrase "lost in translation" is true but we are pretty sure we understood this cab driver to say that if you are a police office you can choose your vehicle. If you want a BMW, or whatever car - you get it. |
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| Yeild / Give Way Which really just means go slow and hope you don't get hit from those who have the right-of-way! |
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| Caralyn loves to collect dirham (the UAE money). She earned these from folding clothes |
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| Interesting folding Caralyn did - but we didn't even ask her to do it! |
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| I know I should have rotated the photo - get over it This is Jamila - the new barbie Caralyn got. She's wearing an abaya and a sheyla! |
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| Check out Jamila's henna! |
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| Lebanese beer....it's awesome! |
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| I was hoping this would be legible - but it was a fascinatin article in Abu Dhabi Weekly It was just an article where an Emirati male talks about what they do for Eid Eid began tonight. The exact time Eid started depended on the moon - and so I guess at the last minute (I guess the Imam)tells officially when it starts. ***I think if you click on the picture it'll enlarge it - and you can read it*** |
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| Our movie tickets...of course no popcorn or drinks since it was Ramadan. We did the American thing - sneak in your own food! |
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