Friday, September 4, 2009

We're not in Kansas anymore...




After 24 hours travelling (including layovers), four different airports, and three countries later, we finally touched down in Abu Dhabi around 7 PM local time on August 13. Walking through the airport made us feel like we were looking at the Arab world for the first time through a massive glass vase. The airport walls are curved and covered with different shades of blue mosaic tiles. It's a little hard to describe in words, but it really is a cool looking airport. We would have snapped a few pictures, but we knew that taking photos of government structures is against the law.

We passed through immigrations with no hitches, except that our letters of employment were not waiting for us when we entered. So, we entered on 30 day visitors' visas. This isn't uncommon for newcomers to the UAE, but it is a slight inconvenience as we will explain in a later post. All our bags appeared at the baggage claim except for the most important one of all, my golf clubs. After watching the same bags turn round the conveyor for about 20 minutes, Chandra spotted an opened and semi-broken golf bag off to the side of the claim area. It was my golf carrier, but it was not in the same condition as when we sent it through baggage in Denver. All the straps were broken and none of the latches were secured. Obviously, someone had taken an interest in the contents. Thankfully all the clubs were in place, but we did find some extra materials from my Bible, which I had crammed into it, were taken. I hope someone enjoyed the reading!

After loading 5 bags and the clubs onto two carts, we wheeled them down the terminal hoping that someone would be at the end waiting for us. Mr. Morley, my assistant principal, immediately recognized us (evidently he had been given our passport photos in advance) and welcomed us to Abu Dhabi. I was most disappointed to notice that he was wearing shorts and sandals; I had been under the impression that I should always wear pants and shoes! This is just one example of the many misconceptions we had about the UAE prior to moving. Don't always trust what is written in the travel books. It's always best to get first-hand knowledge!

As we walked towards the exit doors with Mr. Morley, our Indian bus driver, and another new teacher from the US, Marianne, I clearly remember Mr. Morley asking, "Are you ready for this?" The doors opened and immediately we left the comforts of 15 degree C air conditioning and entered the outside world of extremely uncomfortable heat and humidity. Even though the sun had been down for over 2 hours, there was little cooling off from the 40 C (104 F) heat and almost 50% humidity. Experiencing a heat index of over 120 F at 8:30 at night is a depressing feeling when you've just entered a new country.

Riding in the van towards our apartments verified what we had previously read about driving in Abu Dhabi. There were no seatbelts in the van, and our driver seemed willing to tailgate practically every vehicle we approached. After a few minutes on the freeway, we quickly agreed that we would not be purchasing a car here anytime soon. Even if we wanted to, our choice of purchase would definitely not fit with the typical vehicle in Abu Dhabi. Because of the massive wealth, most drivers here ride in style in their BMW, Mercedes, or Toyota SUVs. We've also seen a number of Porsche's, Ferraris, and Lambourghinis, even in our dumpy little neighborhood!

Because of the crowded location of our apartments, Mr. Morley had the van driver drop us off in the "backside" of our buildings. This was necessary because parking in front of our apartment is next to impossible to find. We've been amused many times watching from our apartment windows as drivers race each other for the one open spot in the entire block. We helped Marianne to her apartment first, a building about a block away from ours called "Pioneer". This name is not the actual name of the building, but is so named because almost all of our school's original teachers, the "Pioneers", lived there. Our building is called "Dominos" because of the Dominos pizza shop located right across the street. This pattern is the norm all across Abu Dhabi. There are no addresses here. You tell someone how to get to your place by using other buildings or landmarks as reference points. Even telling someone street names is risky because most streets have 2 or 3 different names.

To get to Dominos, we had to drag our bags through some interesting alleyways and along narrow sidewalks passing by Indians, Pakistanis, and the occasional Emirati. Because of the oppressive afternoon heat, most shops close during the afternoon hours and reopen around 8 or so in the evening. Our neighborhood really bustles at night because of the dozens of shops situated at the bases of the apartments above. When we got to our apartment on the 4th floor of Dominos, Mr. Morley handed each of us an envelope containing a key, some dirhams, and some general information, and said in his thick Kiwi accent, "Well, have a nice weekend. The mall is just right over that way (I'm pretty sure he pointed in the wrong direction), and this guy over there (an Indian man named Obaid) is your building watchman. He'll help if anything is wrong with your place. See you in four days!"

After trying to communicate with Obaid through our van driver, we gathered that he was most interested in having us pay him to clean our apartment. Evidently he knew just how dirty it was! Our apartment wasn't what we had hoped we would be living in, but it also was not as bad as we expected a free apartment to be. For the next hour or so, we looked through our place finding just how "furnished" it really was. All of the major furniture was in place and in good condition, but we realized we would need to be purchasing quite a few items (sheets, towels, broom, glasses, etc.) to make it liveable. So we set out to find the mall that Mr. Morley had told us about earlier. Of course we got completely lost. After walking around in circles for awhile, we finally found a security guard who spoke enough English to point us in the right direction. Once we got our bearings, we realized the mall is really just a 5 minute walk away. How convenient!


The Khalidiyah Mall is one of the newest in Abu Dhabi and really is a fantastic thing to have right in your backyard, so to speak. We went to the big hypermarket, Lulu, to purchase some basic household items and had our first experience with "shawerma" at a Lebanonese restaurant in the food court. Shawerma is sliced beef or chicken mixed with a yogurt sauce and wrapped with flat bread called khubus. We paid 18 dirhams ($4.90) for 5 pieces of schwarma, fries, and some dill pickles and carrots. The neighborhood cafe down the street offers one schwarma for 4 dirhams ($1.09). What great competition for the dollar menu at Mickey D's! We returned to our apartment around 11 or 12 that night, ready to enjoy a good night's sleep since we barely slept at all on the flights. I think both of us did sleep well until about 4:30 in the morning. That's when it really sunk in that we were foreigners in a strange country. If we had been a little more observant earlier, we would have noticed the mosque minaret right by our bedroom window. But we didn't notice it until the loudspeaker in the tower began to sing the early morning call to prayer. So much for sleeping in!

2 comments:

  1. So great to hear you made it and are in your apartment. They have hypermarts in the Philippines too... I thought that was funny: a step up from the supermarket. I hope school is going great and you're adjusting well!

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  2. Nice post, guys, very descriptive :-) I enjoyed reading the part that I was there for (the ride from the airport), since I can vividly recall everything you were talking about!

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