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.

I wasn’t going to put pictures on my blog as I think other people take better pictures and you can look up anything you need to see for yourself on Google. I couldn’t resist showing you the view though.

Tipping

I never know how much to tip in the UK, never mind the UAE.

I have already had an embarrassing moment when the room clearer was still in my room when I came in. He pottered around with some towels for a bit and then came back in, stood there, and said – I have finished your room now Sir. I said thank you and he stood there for a bit longer than was comfortable. He then left, I then realised he wanted tipping but I only had a few Euros with me from the airport. I went out and gave him them and he didn’t really know what to do with them. He smiled and said thanks though.

Taxi Drivers – I asked the opinion of a Taxi driver after I had tipped him 2 AED on an 8 AED fare, he said that people aren’t expected to tip, but usually it is rounded up to the nearest 5 or 10. He may be biased though.

Shopping helpers – This is something I have never seen before, at the checkout in supermarkets, there is a guy that puts your stuff into carrier bags for you. I was advised not to tip as you are not meant to, but after doing a bit of research, these guys are on an extremely low salary and will be struggling. Hell, it’s the worse job I can think of too. I will be tipping these guys in future.

Porters – they are extremely helpful here, they will bring any bags up to your room, they say ‘hello Sir’ and always refill my coffee at the amazing breakfast service. I am lost in these situations. If I should tip at all, how much?

Ill get there in the end

Arrival and advice for group 2 teachers

Arrival

Ok, Now that I have my new pawer chord I can update you all on how it is going and my experiences so far in the Middle East.

Beach Rotana Hotel
This is the hotel that I am staying at and it is the most amazing place I have ever stayed, no superlative does justice to the sheer class or the place.
I have a double bed, shower, bath and anything else you want from a hotel. It has a private beach (seriously), a tennis court, two pools and a gym.

Breakfast is the only meal of the day we get gratis so I stock up. They have anything and everything – except pork. You can go to the pancake and waffle bar and get fresh made crepes and waffles, get an omelette chef to rustle you up a create-your-own, there is a ridiculous assortment of cold meats, cheeses, breads and the best part? Unlimited hot steak - for breakfast.

Heat
It is hot. And Humid.
Everywhere is air conditioned though.

Vertigo
Everything is very high up here because most of the buildings are in small sky-scrapers. I have never had vertigo before (I’m used to jumping of huge rocks into rivers) but in the mall yesterday I started to shake and feel really anxious on the top floor looking down to the shops below. I had to leave.

Ramadan
Everywhere is closed and there is no alcohol served at the moment because of Ramadan. The Emiratis fast until 7.15 each day with not even water – in this heat, that is impressive. You have to admire their dedication to their religion.

Disclaimer – the following will be of no interest to most of you as it is about orientation at the hotel. It is mainly for group 2 teachers waiting to come out, or for people next year.

Orientation
Orientation was started on Sunday, we were all put in a huge room and were given a talk by the high-ups from ADEC. There were a lot (possibly too many) of questions from the crowd and they were well answered.
Here are some of the points of the talk.

1. We will get 20,000 AED for our furniture allowance and it will be paid as soon as we get our banks set up.
(the bank set up is brilliant, ADEC have already done it for us before we arrived, all we had to do is sign the end of a long form, and wait for our cards – we also get a credit card. Win!

2. Some teachers will be sent to the Western region and there were a lot of questions about that. The speakers made it sound really great, although this is easy for me to say as I will be in Abu Dhabi City. (Perks of the western region were : A higher salary due to the remote nature, A bigger (albeit shared) villa, free amenities and a better taste of Arabic culture. They are also told they will all get the 20,000 AED each (rightly so) so they will have a lot of that left over as they will be sharing the villa.

3. Internet in the hotel is free.

4. There will be a medical test – blood and piss and medical fitness tests!

5. We have to hand in our passports so they can sort out the visas – this will take a maximum of 60 days when our passports will be returned. However, this is worst case scenario and it will probably be a lot quicker than that.

6. We get 20% discount at Homecentre. They will deliver, assemble and clean up the boxes and this is all included in the price.

7. We then get in line for the visa and it takes forever, I was waiting for 4 hours because I dawdled. Do the visa first, and sit near the back of the hall so you can be first out. (You will thank me for this)

That is all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section.

I don't believe this

I will write properly later but just quickly : I brought my iMac to Abu Dhabi with me- lugged it all the way and sacrificed clothing space for it. I only went and left the fucking power chord at home.

No iMac now- will have to search Abu Dhabi for an apple store.

It's great by the way here- I will tell you all about it when I get the power supply.

Airport

Can't write a long one now but I am sat at Manchester airport, slightly hungover.
The airport is great, I think it's Matt Damon in Dogma that talks about how superficial all the greetings are at the airport when leaving loved ones or returning back to them. Where nothing before matters and it's all about the goodbye.
As I left my family to go through the gate I experienced an unfamiliar emotion. Deep loneliness, I was alone and off to start a new chapter in a place where I knew no one and had no idea what to expect. It only lasted a minute but it wasn't nice.
It's passed now and the excitement is back.
I was always told when travel writing to leave out the airport bit as its boring. I think you will now all agree.
They are calling my gate now, so must dash.
Write when I'm there and settled.

Bye England

Possible Destinations

I don’t yet know where abouts in Abu Dhabi I am going to be living. It is between three locations: Abu Dhabi City, Al Ain and Al Gharbia. This blog post is an attempt to work out some pros and cons of each place. (Not factual, just opinion)

Abu Dhabi City
For me this would be my first choice. If I lived here it would be much easier to get around seeing as I don’t drive. I would also be in the hustle and bustle which is what I am used to in London.
If I end up in Abu Dhabi City I will be close to all amenities including the gym and the nightclubs and the sports clubs.

Abu Dhabi goals (If I am there)
1. I would like to get a band together so we can play in front of audiences in bars and clubs. I think it would be a covers band playing really well known pop music that people can get up and dance to, or sing along.

2. There is a programme in Abu Dhabi called Corporate Contender at a gym named Haddins. It is a 9 week boxing training camp (3 lessons a week and unlimited gym time) with a glitzy real fight at the end with someone else who has been training for 9 weeks also. This would be brilliant for me as it combines two of my favourite things – training and showing off. I would have to win though, I don’t think I could live with losing in front of a thousand people. (This starts in September – I really hope im in the city for this)

3. Stand up comedy. My career in stand up is still in its infancy, I have only done 2 gigs. I have been looking online and there are a few comedy clubs in Abu Dhabi, so I will be contacting them when I get there to see if I can get a slot. Maybe that will lead to a regular gig.

4. Get some tennis coaching (so I can finally beat my 58 year old father)

All these are possible in Abu Dhabi City. Fingers crossed I am placed here.

Possible cons include – expensive place to live, tempation of going out every week, not saving much money up.

Al Ain
Al Ain is a much smaller town than AD city but I have heard that it is a nice place to live. It is between AD city and Dubai so it will make trips to Dubai easier. This would be my second choice.

Al Ain Goals (If I am there)

1. Rugby is a big part of the ex-pat community in Al Ain. This would mean that I will join and learn to play. It is a sport I think I could get into playing (although as a spectator sport I find it boring). It will be a good way to make new friends

2. Learn to play the guitar (chicks dig musicians!)

3. Hopefully try to pass my driving test so I can visit Abu Dhabi and Dubai

4. Join a gym and get into shape.

The cons of living in Al Ain would be: I am not in a big city, it might be a long trip (on public transport) to my workplace, there will be less stuff to do on an evening after work.

Al Gharbia
This would be a rural part of Abu Dhabi. It would be my least favourite choice but Im sure I would find something to love about it.

Al Gharbia goals if I am placed there.

1. Write a novel, a play or a screenplay. It is something I have always wanted to pursue and if I have the time, and no distractions, it would be a perfect place to do it.

2. I would learn coding and learn to manipulate google and try and make some money from my blogs.

3. Get into the desert sports such as dune bashing or camel racing.

4. Definitely learn to drive,

The cons would be that it would be hard to get around as public transport is not as convenient here as in the city and due to the spaced out nature, the school could be miles away.

Anyway – Fingers crossed that I am in the city.

What will I miss about the UK?

My ticket has arrived. I fly from Manchester airport on Friday the 10th August which is in one week and one day. It has certainly sunk in that I am leaving and I have been doing nothing but watching videos about Abu Dhabi on youtube and I even watched Sex in the City two (set in Abu Dhabi) which I found actually quite offensive. Not only to the culture of Abu Dhabi but also to gay people. The world doesn’t need more stereotypes.

I digress. I have been so caught up in the future that I realised that there will be a lot of things that I will miss about England. In no particular order, these are the things I will miss most.

1. Pubs
I know, I know, there are bars and nightclubs in Abu Dhabi but I am not sure if there will be any British pubs. When I say this, I mean the pubs that have an open fire, giant Yorkshire puddings and a mat to wipe your wellies on when you enter. A place where you know everyone in there and in the summer, you sit on wooden benches outside. I will miss the community spirit and cohesion of English Pubs.

2. British Summer
Of course it will be summer in the UAE all year round. But it is not just the heat that makes the British summer great. It is the beer gardens, (man, im really going to miss pubs) the London parks, the girls wearing next to nothing and looking really, really good. It is the slightly rubbish, but no one minds, ice cream cones from an ice cream van and fighting to get on the tennis courts when Wimbledon is on.

3. Yoga Pants
The person that invented yoga pants should be knighted. I have never seen a girl look bad in them. It almost like they look naked. (Sorry)

4. Cycling
Mainly around London, I used to love flying around the roads on my single speed bike. There is no better feeling than being slightly drunk, cycling as fast as you can over Tower Bridge. Or the noise the millennium bridge makes as you dodge pedestrians going over the slightly loose planks that make up the pathway. It is apparently too hot to cycle in Abu Dhabi anyway, but also I hear that the roads are not as safe.

5. Sunday Dinners
Beef, Yorkshire puddings, Roast potatoes, mash, carrot and swede mix and homemade gravy. I have never had a Sunday Roast (the capitals are there because they deserve to be) I did not like.

6. The domination of football
As I have said in a previous post, I will be able to get the games. But I will miss the back pages of the paper being about just football, I will have to share the screens in the sports bars with American Football and Basketball. Not everyone will like football there.

There many more things that I cannot think of right now. I have left my friends and family of the list as it is obvious I will miss them. Anyway, the countdown is on. 8 days to go.