Dubai

I took the bus to Dubai today! It feels surreal just writing that. Just a few months ago going to Dubai at all was just a pipe dream. Some strange, far away place that Piers Morgan once went too and where they have an underwater restaurant.

I didn’t see much of Dubai as it was too hot and the guides told us to stay in the mall, we were there 6 hours and I still didnt see all of it: This was the worlds biggest mall!

The World’s largest aquarium is in Dubai mall

There is also an indoor theme park, a full size ice rink, a ski slope, an underwater zoo, a 20+ screen cinema, hundreds of restaurants and it is right next door to the worlds tallest building. (I forget the name but it sounds a bit like ‘Wiz Khalifa’)

Hotel living

I am in the hotel at the moment and have not been here two weeks yet but I can certainly get used to it. ADEC have been treating us like kings with the luxury of the hotel.
I am in a routine now, of waking up at 8.30 and going to get a steak breakfast, I then train with my friends in the hotel gym. I then go and sit by the pool and perve at all the pretty beach bodies and maybe have a beer (£6) at the pool bar and talk with my friends.
After that I will go out to dinner with a rag-tag gang of independent travellers and interesting personalitities and depending on the mood we will go to a bar.

Of course, it will not be like this for much longer. I will soon move into my apartment and will have to open my own doors (seriously) and make my own tea (yup) and even fold my own clothes up (they even do that).

I am kind of looking forward to getting stuck into the work of actually teaching kids about commas and full stops. (Americans call full stops periods, which made me think of a joke. (What is a 6.9?




A perfectly good 69 ruined by a period!)



Sorry! But yeah, when I get into my school and get on with it maybe I can stop bragging about how good it is.

North Americanisms

A lot of the new friends I have made here are from the US and Canada so I have started to become a bit bilingual and saying words that I would never normally use. As always – here is a list:

Work out – or Canadians ‘work ouwt!’

Elevator

That’s hilarious (sometimes instead of laughing)

Trash / garbage can

The washroom (This is a euphemism for going to the toilet)

Hey, what’s up?

Hydrated (This one gets me, I have never in my life heard an English person use the word hydrated. ‘Man, I need some hydration.’ ‘I feel so hydrated right now’.)

Grocery store

Drug store

It is amazing how often North Americans shorten their words and sayings into acronyms and half words. This is sometimes difficult and I have to ask for clarity sometimes.

DL – Means ‘down low’ or ‘keep it quiet’

FYI – for your information.

It is great to so many nice people and I wont gush about them because it will be boring for you guys but for those who are interested I am happy here and it is because I have a good group (some of whom talk funny!)

Safari

The safari was amazing. We were driven over some sand dunes in a land-rover jeep and it is crazy because they drive over them so fast and we cant see what is on the other side until we are over it. We hired some quad bikes and got told off. We saw some camels and got to sand board (although this didn’t work very well)

After this we were served food and drinks and it was coke and kebabs. But not the kebabs you buy in Britain after a night out. Shish would be the closest thing to what we had but also hummus.

While I’m on the subject of hummus, it is amazing here, I don’t like it in England but I gave it a go and it is so flavourful and they eat it with lots of pitta bread. It is incredible.

What do you call a man that rubs chick-peas all over his genitals?
A hummus-sexual.

The whole experience was amazing but at the back of my mind, all I could think about was camel spiders. Every little thing that touched me was, for a split second, a camel spider. I think I will die if I ever came face to face with one. I kept seeing things in the sand out of the corner of my eye and just really getting shit up.

Camel spiders are the size of dinner plates, they can run 10km per hour, they can jump up to 2 meters high due to their huge, grasshopper like back legs and the worst thing about them is that they are shade seekers, so they follow you around in your shadow. Its like something out of a horror film.

This is a small one!

They nearly even ruined my planking as I was scared one would get me!

Great, so now I’m obese

Just had the Medical and it was pretty painless. It is conducted like a conveyor belt.

You go in, get your picture taken, fill out a form, get weighed and measured, give blood and urine, give fingerprints and get a chest x-ray.

I was in and out within an hour. Impressive.

Couple of worries though – they said according to my BMI: I am obese. I tell you it’s a good thing they took my blood pressure first because I was boiling after I found this out. I would probably have failed due to high blood pressure.

The medical staff were very friendly, although, everyone is friendly here. (oh, except the immigration officials at the airport – they were rude and barked orders at me ‘SIT! LOOK AT THE CAMERA’ and ‘NO, CLOSER. CLOSER CLOSER!’. To be fair to them though it was 3am in the morning and it will have been a long day – who needs a night shift ay?) They told me to go and get an Emirati shave, cheeky bastards, at this barbershop place. I appreciated it though as I forgot my razor and I am getting a bit scruffy.

In other news

Lebanese restaurant

We went for a Lebanese Restaurant last night and let me tell you, its how restaurants should be. We (there were two of us, there was meant to be six but as we took two taxis, and there is three branches of the same chain of Lebanese Flower restaurants, we got separated and ended up in two different restaurants. What made it more of a comedy of errors was that none of us have phones yet so we had no way of knowing where the other guys were. After an acceptable amount of time to wait and assume they had got lost – 20 minutes, we ordered without them) ordered two dishes.

About 13 came out – there would have been enough food for the other four to join us and not order anything else. Hummus, salad, bread, olives and all sorts. We also ordered a drink each that was the most expensive drink (A Lebanese cocktail – alcohol free mind ) on the menu and it had ice cream, banana, pinapple, crushed fruits and almonds – it was brilliant.

The best part – the price. It was 50AED each for everything. (A tenner. In England just the drink was enough to justify £10 – I will be going back. Although, now I am obese, maybe ill get the veggie option next time)

EID
Eid marks the end of Ramadan (Time for drink and food in the daytime) and apparently it is huge here – Think Christmas but it lasts for four days. Im sure it will be an orgy of cheap shopping, cheap drinks, and lots of cultural festivals and music.
I am told that all the shops drop their prices to 30% of the original price and I will be getting some clothes – I will have to go with someone, as those that no me, know how agitated I get when shopping.

I am going to the grand Mosque later – I may take a picture for you, but will be better to type ‘Abu Dhabi Grand Mosque’ into google and have a look.

I now have a 5 day weekend EID break, all orientation is done.

We're going on a beer hunt, I'm not scared, I'm not scared

So, as it's Ramadan it is hard to get a beer around here.

Not impossible though.

On the second night I went to PJ O'Reilys Irish pub for super happy hour and it was brilliant. 16Aed (about 3 quid- 5 dollars for my American readers) for a pint of beer, a glass of wine or a shot. This then doubled after the happy hour, but by then we were too drunk to care.

I met some very interesting people and had a great night and it felt like home. Except ... Wait for it...

You can smoke in the bar!

This is great, it's like going back in time. Like the England of old. Sure, my clothes smelled when I got home, but you gotta take the slightly rough with the very smooth- besides, it masks the smell of perspiration. (my deodorant has certainly had a good workout here)

Today myself and one of my new friends went to Spinney's- it is an expat supermarket that sells beer and we got some bounty. The beer was 50 aed for 8 cans (ten pounds/15 dollars) and the rum was 85aed (18 quid/28 dollars) and I didn't need a licence!

I am happy with this development and will be going for an Iftar (breaking of fast- literally breakfast at 7.15pm) after consuming the rum with some new friends.

Will write about it when I get back.

The Apartments - and more advice

This is the view from my new apartment.

We traveled there today to see our new digs. Once again, ADEC have not disappointed.

The Abu Dhabi teachers are all in this complex that includes a gym, a pool, Jacuzzi and a tennis court.

This will be great as we will all have a ready made support network of people in the same boat as us. I met some really great people over the last couple of days and I hope that we will all become friends.

Friends will definately be needed out here as it can get a bit much if you have no one to confide in. We will be away from our families and friends back home so I was very happy that we will be in close proximity to each other.

Here are some pictures of the apartment inside.

Open plan kitchen

Closet corridor (no need to buy wardrobes)

Living room / dining room

And this will be where the magic happens (I will be making a spoof 'MTV Cribs' video when i get the place kitted out)

So. That's where I will be living.

More Advice for teachers not yet here.

- Bring lots of copies of passport - it is expensive to get them done in the hotel.

- You can literally get anything here that you can back home. (Including teacher resources.

- At the airport when arriving, you are entitled to get 4 bottles of spirits or 5 bottles of wine or 24 cans of beer. Do this as alcohol is expensive but it is cheap at the airport.

My medical is on Wednesday or Thursday next week and I really hope I don't have AIDS. That would suck - there is not much chance but I hate waiting for medical results.

I have a to do list as long as my arm so I better stop arsing around on here and get on with it.