2 months in, golf, 1/2 marathon

It's been just over two months since I arrived in Abu Dhabi.  Things have been still very busy with settling in but as of Nov 21st i officially moved into our new home.  If you care to see any pictures, I've posted them all on Facebook. If you don't have Facebook and still want to see them, get on Facebook…or i can simply email them to you…:).  I think the last time i emailed I was heading to Dubai to do a major shopping spree.  Since then i've been to more malls/shops and spent more money than I want to remember but in the end I'm quite happy with the end product.  That said I can't really take much of the credit as Carmen has really been the ring leader in this process.  With the camera phone I was able to send her pictures of every item I was looking at and assuming she was not sleeping I would get feedback in 5 minutes or less.  I'd be scared to think what the house would look like if she wasn't involved.  For the items that I really wanted (i.e. LED flatscreen TV) i would just wait until it was late in Canada and then send the picture.  By the time i got a response back I would be like…"darn i already purchased it and they don't have a return policy"

Its amazing how time has flown by.  Its already near the end of December, less than three weeks and I'll be home.  Part of the reason I think that time flew by was that I was able to make it back to Edmonton for a week in early November.  Due to a muslim religious holiday (Eid al-Adha or Festival of Sacrifice), three days were given as public holidays.  I decided to take an additional 2 days off and flew home for the week.   Since everyone and their dog seems to leave UAE during this holiday, the flights were limited and the airport was ridiculously busy.  I ended up finding a reasonable priced flight but it was an ugly milk run.   I first flew 14 hours to Washington DC (Btw - i had to fly from Dubai as the flights from Abu Dhabi were either sold out or extremely expensive) and then I flew to Chicago and then to Edmonton.  All in all it was just over 24 hour of a trip.  Needless to say I was happy to see the Edmonton airport.  For those that are wondering, the typical flights to Abu Dhabi or Dubai are approximately 18 hours (8 hours to london, 2 hour layover and 8 hours to UAE).  If you can avoid a 14 hour flight, I would recommend it….its simply way too long to be sitting!  When I arrived in the edmonton airport Carmen and the kids were waiting for me, but i didn't get the welcome I was expecting.  Carmen can tell the story better than i but i'll give you the brief summary.  Carmen didn't tell the kids I was coming home.  She instead told them that they were going to get a treasure (I know, very debatable) on the friday (the day i arrived).  The whole week I think Carmen used the friday treasure to bride the kids when they misbehaved.  On the friday Carmen and the kids drove to the airport and when they arrived, Rafi remembered that this was the spot that they dropped Daddy off when he flew away, but didn't clue into the fact that treasure might be related to someone arriving.  After waiting for a little while at the airport, the so called treasure walked through the customs doors.  Carmen noticed me first and told the kids that the treasure had arrived.  The kids of course weren't thinking a person at all so they literally looked through me trying to see what the treasure was.  Finally as I approached closer, both of them realized who was here.  My precious girl immediately smiled and came to give me a hug.  Unfortunately my little guy was not so impressed.  He arched his back and gave out a loud shriek something like this "THATS NOT A TREASURE!!!".  I guess Daddy didn't quite meet his expectations.  After he got over the initial disappointment, he also warmed up to the fact that I was home.  It was a busy week of playing with the kids and helping with closing off all the loose ends that need to be done before New Years.  I was very sad to leave again but at least this time I knew it would only be for an addition 5-6 weeks.  

Since I've been back I've done a couple of things of interest:

I decided to run in a 1/2 marathon in Abu Dhabi last weekend.  There seems to be a good community of runners in UAE so there is always a race of some sort going on either in Abu Dhabi or Dubai.  The race started at 6:30am so to avoid some of the heat.  It was a last minute decision to run in the event and with my trip to Edmonton, I didn't get as much training in as I would have liked.   No records were broken that day, but I had a great time and got to see another part of the island.  

This weekend I golfed at a beautiful golf course in Dubai with a colleague of mine.  The golf course was designed by Ernie Els (or his company at least).  They've designed it to have the feel that you are golfing in the desert.  Basically there is fairway and then sand waste bunkers everywhere else.  The course was in splendid shape.  It opened in 2008 (just before the financial crisis hit Dubai) and so there are tons of buildings surrounding the course that are only partially completed and look like they are not being worked on.  This is a bigger problem in Dubai as so many companies ran out of money when the real estate bubble burst.  Its not uncommon to see a building that is 80 - 90% complete just sitting there for 2-3 years with no action on it.  Kind of a shame.

Another highlight since I've been back is that I paid and took possession of our two vehicles.   This was a bigger process that I originally anticipated, so I'm glad its done.  I think in my previous email I mentioned a Lexus SUV and a Audi car.  The audi car purchase fell through and instead I found a lexus IS 300 car.  Both vehicles are 2007's and each have approximately 75000 kms so are in decent shape.  

I think that is it for now.  See you in December.  

Transition to Abu Dhabi - growing pains

Hi all,

On Saturday, it will be one month since I left home to start our new family adventure. Its been so busy the time has really flown by.

A number of things have been accomplished since the last time i sent an email. I may refer to these items in the singular but don't think for a second that Carmen hasn't been key to these decisions. I wouldn't dare make these decisions without her ok 

Place to live: A home for the next year (at least) has been selected. Effective mid November we will be residing in a nice 3 bedroom townhouse. Although we are giving up some space that we had back home, the compromise is that we live in a gated community area that has fantastic facilities, including a big pool, a kiddie pool, 3 tennis courts, a squash court, and a workout gym. Also within the complex, is a grocery store, hair salon, spa and a nice little restaurant….very self sufficient wouldn't you say. All these facilities are less than a block away from the house which will make it convenient for all. The house has a pretty decent back yard (especially for here in abu dhabi…most places don't have much of a yard) so we will be investing in a trampoline or play centre for the kids to play on. Since I've been gone, the kids have been sleeping in the same room in Canada and seem to be loving it. We'll continue this in Abu Dhabi which means the third bedroom will be wide open for all of you guests….who's going to the first?? Most of the schools that we are looking at for the kids are quite close which should make it convenient for them and Carmen. I will have approximately 25 minute commute into work each morning until we move into our new office building (approx Mar 2012) at which point the commute will be less than 15 min.

Vehicle: I finally got through the process to get my drivers license. It was a bigger process than I imagined, but I really shouldn't have been surprised. One of the things I've come to realize quickly is that Canada is not a favourite of the UAE. Due to some airline revenue battle between the local airline and Air Canada, the UAE government has made being a canadian here a little more bureaucratic. An example of this was when I went to get my drivers license, they required me to have the canadian embassy stamp a copy of my arabic translated license to verify its authenticity. This may seem reasonable being its an international license, but Canada is the only G20 country that is required to do this….can you say spiteful  Anyway, after a couple of trips I was successful in getting my license. This opened up a number of doors….I was now able to drive and stop taking taxis everywhere. For the record, taxis are pretty affordable and were a good way to get introduced to the city without the stress of trying to figure out where I was going…..but now I wanted to be able to drive. Since I didn't have a specific car lined up, I decided to rent a car for the first month so that i could make sure I found the right vehicle for me. I did however find a Lexus SUV for Carmen and the kids. Due to the expat turnover in UAE there are lots of used vehicles. Like with any used car market, you can find a good deal is you're patient enough. I take possession of the SUV in the beginning of November.

Work: well….work is work….enough said

Furniture: Now that i have the house lined up, I needed to start looking for furniture for the house. When I started this process two weeks ago, I was actually pretty excited to do it (god only knows why..) but now, I just want it to be done. Similar logic to the vehicles, since there are lots of expat coming and going, there is a ton of used furniture available. This can make it more affordable but has introduced some other challenges. One, Ryan's ability to visualize a piece of furniture in the house is quite bad. I'm a numbers guy…not a creative bone in my body. Of course another challenge is to weed through the junk (that seemed nice on the internet but isn't) and find things that will go nicely together. Also you then need to coordinate a mover from each location that you purchase the used (buying new guaranteed delivery and installation). Add the complexity of taking pictures of each item, emailing them to Carmen, discussing them that evening and then in most cases starting over again the next day….hummm sound fun?? Joking aside, we've made pretty good progress so far. Something different here is that no places come equipped with appliances. Since this is consistent for all places, its pretty easy to find used appliances. So far I've landed a number of used items, all appliances (except dishwasher), bed and mattress for Carmen and I, couches and TV for living room. For the remaining items I've searched most of the stores in Abu Dhabi with limited success and have decided to go to Dubai this weekend to check out more stores. Hopefully it will be more successful!

Schools: As I mentioned earlier, we haven't decided on which school the kids will attend. There seems to be really good private schools here, mainly based out of Britian however we are also looking at a Canadian school (ironically with Alberta circulumn) and a French bi-lingual school. Part of the reason that we haven't confirmed yet is that most of them are already full with students and therefore we are on a wait list. The positive to the expat turnover is that school positions come available more often so we will know better as to which schools have availability by December.

Entertainment: Although its been quite busy, I have tried to spend some time seeing the city and some of the highlights. Abu Dhabi has an annual international film festival (similar to the Toronto film festival) for 10 days in October. There are no big actors to mention other than I saw Topher Grace in the opening of the movie "the Double" (also in the 70s show)..yeah I know…WHO?. Next month Abu Dhabi hosts one of a Formula One races. Although I'm not a race buff I think it will be interesting to take in. Similar to our experience in Cayman, there seems to be a lot of nice restaurants. The entertainment in the evenings often revolves around going for a nice supper. Of course, there are many ethic food options available, and I must say the Indian food is very delicious. The hotel I'm staying at has a great beach and gym facilities so I often spend my extra time (when I'm not anxiously looking for furniture) playing squash, hitting the pool or gym. I also tried golf for the first time this week. Due to being so close to the equator it gets dark by 6pm. Normally this would limit golf to the weekends, however, a couple of the courses in Abu Dhabi have 9 holes of night golf. Basically the entire 9 holes are surrounded by flood lights. Also with being so hot, golfing in the evening makes for a more enjoyable round. I must say that the weather has noticeably improved from when I first arrived. The highs are still in the 30s but the humidity is less and the evenings are more in the high 20s.

Well, I'm sure I've bored you enough with my goings on. I will continue to provide updates however I promise to keep them a little more brief next time 

Ryan

The start of new beginnings

I arrived safe and sound in the beautiful and hot Abu Dhabi, UAE on Thursday evening.  Flights were uneventful and fortunately not overly busy which made for a comfortable trip. My new employer picked me up at the airport and made sure the process through immigration was smooth.  They have put me up in a nice hotel that has a modest kitchenette.  It has a nice gym, pool, squash courts so I'll have no excuse not to get back into shape.

Friday is of course their day of rest so there wasn't as much open in the morning.  No different than Canada, even on the day of rest you can rely on the malls being open.... First thing I did was purchase a cheap cell phone and a sim card.  Basically a pay as you go phone. I could see that having a local number was going to be crucial for following up on home rental ads and other tasks.  I was able to get a hold of a couple of rental ads and ended up spending the afternoon looking at 5 different apartments.  There is an amazing range of good and bad apartments and I doubt any of the ones i looked at was the right one, but it was a good start.

On Saturday i spent most of the day hanging out at the hotel and then in the afternoon i looked at some villas further out of town.  They were very nice villas (4 and 5 bedroom) and they had good facilities (i.e. tennis, swim and gym) but the problem is that they are quite far from the town centre.

Today was my first day in the office.  A typical first day dealing with onboarding and HR administration.  I'll be working in a small group of 8 and they all seem like nice people.  Easy day overall.

The hunt for apartments/villas continued this afternoon after work.  It was a good afternoon as I saw two very nice units that Carmen and the kids would also like.

Tomorrow I have to get a bunch of medical and police process completed tomorrow for the work permit.  It looks like most of this week will be full of the administrative stuff!!!

This is my new email address for your future reference.

Hope all is well in Edmonton.