Abu Dhabi - Oh that's right, We live in the Desert

Sand Haze

         I do not think it dawned on us initially when we arrived that we did in fact just land in the desert.  But yes we did in fact just fly a plane into the desert.  When we arrived it was around 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 20 degrees Celsius (as I am now trying to learn) for a while.  However as we get closer to summer time I am already coming into work at 8 am to 30 degree (90F) weather.  This has become rather interesting being the warm blooded Michigander that I am.  A short stroll outside for a Lebanese, Thai, or Indian food lunch now has some major strategy involved.  I have now discovered that when you have spent the entire morning in the air conditioning you develop a defense against the heat for a determined amount of time.  Basically the moment you go outside you have an AC charged shelf life where you can walk a certain distance before you begin to sweat profusely.  I have now deduced that if I spend all morning inside I can walk about 500 feet in any direction before start losing my chill barrier and have to run inside a nearby building to seek refuge from the heat or succumb to the consequences of the desert climate (i.e. looking like a sweaty pig at work).         

          The other detail I noticed when we arrived was this slight haze in the sky which I initially had mistaken for fog.  Sometimes it is fog, but many other times its actually this sandy cloud haze (above).  You start to see it collecting on windows, curb sides and sometimes when you are walking on "bad sand" days you can start to feel it in your eyes.  It is a peculiar phenomenon when you first experience it, but with everything, just take it in stride (I recommend taking wife Sarah's lead by our condo building's pool area).   
          Since I mentioned food in my first paragraph I will offer one crouton of wisdom of what I have learned about the restaurants in town.  There are many hotel restaurants that are rather expensive, the food is pricey and the drinks are also high priced.  Hotels are pretty much the only place you can drink alcoholic beverages unless you want to acquire an alcohol license and buy it for home consumption.  (Side note: did you know that the word alcohol comes from Arabic origins as do many of the "Al" (alchemy, alkali, algebra, etc) scientific terminologies?  Arabic al-kuḥl ‘the kohl’. In early use the term referred to powders, specifically kohl, and especially those obtained by sublimation; later ‘a distilled or rectified spirit.)  Back to the point on food, the real quality food is not found in the pricey hotel hot spots, but rather the small mom and pop locations where you can get a great meal for 20-35 Dirhams ($5-10).  I have paid through the nose for too many sub par hotel meals already when I pay a fraction of the cost at a small Thai or Indian restaurant that knocks the pricey hotel food out of the park.  The good thing about this chicken nugget of truth is there are many many small mom and pop type restaurants in Abu Dhabi...so for the avid "foodie" the desert is your oyster. 

 

Abu Dhabi - What everyone is talking about

          I have only been here a month and two weeks and it was interesting to be integrated into my team at the hospital.  My first week was all orientation at the human resources headquarters which is what I meant in my previous post about the first week being a wash.  You don't really get the skinny on what life will be like when you are hanging out with HR and all the other newbies.  So when I

Abu Dhabi at night
(Corniche Area)

arrived at my actual work location in a building in the heart of Abu Dhabi, I started to hear the funny adjustment stories everyone had to share about everyone's first month.  It was strange to hear because it took a long time for me to have a custom-made Abu Dhabi story of my own.  But rest assured, when it happened I thought to myself  "ok so this is what everyone is talking about".

View From Our Condo

          It began shortly after Sarah and I had finalized the paperwork on our new home when I realized the next step was to setup the utilities.  I learned that I had to physically go to the local electrical company headquarters to turn the electric on (yes most tasks here are best taken care of at the headquarters if you want it done and done right).  One big difference for errands like setting up phone, utilities or getting an emirates ID (you need this for everything) is that to get all of these tasks accomplished you have to wait in line.  You have to wait in a line, called a queue here where you take a numbered paper ticket and wait in a seating area until you are called up.  Now when your number comes up you better pray you have every paper they want to see and one extra random paper you never knew about or you may find yourself going home with no electricity and another future bonus waiting in line day.   And just for reference, it may not matter that the American right before you did not need the paper form you now need to present.  Tough nuggets, lol.
          My experience was no different; I arrived thinking I would be in and out in an hour.  Four hours later...when I first arrived I walked in to collect my ticket and the desk attendant checked my papers.  He informed me I did not have all my papers and told me what I needed to collect before I could wait in line again.  I was not pleased, having taken a long taxi ride to get to get there.  I called the powers that be (my real estate agent) who were supposed to have given me everything I needed and they advised me they were busy and I should come back another day.  Rest assured I responded to that comment in a way that made them feel less busy and more motivated to help me.  I found a photo studio in a nearby mall with a printer and email, where I printed my other documents.

Condo

          Round two: I pass the guard inspection and receive my queue ticket to proceed to the seating area.  I notice no one is happy, the people waiting or the local Emiratis working the desks at the electric company.  Forty five minutes later I get called only to find out I am still missing documents.  I'm less than moderately happy at this point, I walk out and do the real estate phone call again and the mall printer shop.  Luckily I return and the staff who helped me before recognizes me and lets me skip the queue this time.  I am rather spent at this point and I still notice how no one is smiling.  I am worried I still do not have the right paperwork.  So I remembered how I had just started taking weekly Arabic lessons from my friend Saeed (he grew up in Dubai) who I met in my orientation.  He generously offered to teach someone in our orientation so I took him up on it (he's really cool by the way and a great teacher).  So while my attendant is glaring at his computer screen I ask him how to say six in Arabic as I only knew one through five and I begin to recite them "Wahid, Ithnaan, Thelaatha, Arba'a, and Khamsa".  Suddenly my attendant stops typing and slowly turns from his computer screen with this huge smile on his face.  He kindly tells me that the number six is "Sitta" and begins asking me all these questions about the U.S. as he is visiting Ohio soon.  We chatted back and fourth for a while and after that it took about two minutes to get my paperwork done and my electric was turned on.  It was like I was transported into a completely different room.
              I am so happy I decided to try and change the vibe in the room.  I could have stayed angry and even starting chewing people out.  But instead I made a friend by trying to adapt and show that I am generally interested in learning about the local culture.  The moral of the story for me is that if you go somewhere else with expectations and demands for it to be like home, you should just stay

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi

home.  These experiences like any other are all what you make of it and largely dependent upon your attitude and assumptions coming into it.  If you are entering into a culture you know nothing about, you have a choice to go in with an exploratory or inquisitive nature, but you can also enter the situation with a bad attitude based on previous experiences or what other people told you.  Either situation brings a pretty straight forward result, either positive or negative, the choice is yours.  That being said it still is a real challenge to not get angry at simple tasks you could normally do with a phone call or the internet at home and instead it takes this whole day of papers, printing and queue waiting.  But great stories come out of it and to be honest the positive moment at the end of my situation made it all worth it for me (I would like to note I have tried the same "teach me Arabic" approach many times after this and every time it produces very positive results.)  People really love when you try and show general interest in what and who and what they are about, even if the accent is all wrong and you sound like a total dork.  It has made many experiences different than what they could have been and I am sure this approach will do the same for many more situations to come.     

          

We Moved to Abu Dhabi

         For almost a year and a half now my wife Sarah and I have been trying to find international opportunities.  And for the past year and a half I had been in contact with an American hospital with a satellite hospital based in Abu Dhabi U.A.E.  During that time of courtship to now, I had gone through two separate positions in finance and organizational risk management in a hospital based in Grand Rapids, Mi.  I had begun to think it would never happen, but then last December after six months of interviewing I finally got an offer.  Suddenly life began to change rapidly and we found ourselves planning to move to Abu Dhabi by February 28th.  My final day of work was late January; Sarah and I decided to visit some places in closer to our neighborhood before we left: Toronto, Peru, and Las Vegas, but that is a story for another blog post.

         Alas following our escapades from Peru to Las Vegas, we found ourselves looking at our new future in

Abu Dhabi.  My company was kind enough to fly us business class, which let me tell you changes your perspective on long bouts of travel.  We decided to follow the recommendation of my future colleague to not sleep on the plane at all. This is excellent advice, the U.A.E. does not follow daylight savings so it ranges from 8 to 9 hours difference from Eastern standard time.  It is a challenge, but when you arrive you just want to crash and it speeds up the adjustment to the new time zone (this is good advice for short trips too).  So after a connection in Germany we arrived in Abu Dhabi around 9 PM, we went through a very simple process through customs to be picked up by our hotel escort holding a sign with my name on it.  Walking through the Abu Dhabi airport gave us our first glimpse of the local culture, where the abundance of business suits were replaced with abayas (women) and kanduras (men) (the customary dress of the local emiratis).  It was refreshing to see, because it was different, and well for Sarah and I, different tends to be refreshing, which is why we travel so much.

         As we drove to our hotel through the city in the night, we looked over the city going by, some stores and restaurants were familiar, some were different, all with Arabic and English labels on them.  We checked into our room which was more of a hotel apartment and almost immediately went to bed.  The next day revealed the dawn of our first day in Abu Dhabi.  Out the window of our hotel I could see the brand new hospital I would soon be supporting.  The hospital was a green rectangular shaped building which stood out from all the others.   
      All the surrounding areas were busy with construction and there were cranes everywhere.  My place of work had assigned me a "buddy" who showed us around the city and gave us our first taste of what life would soon be like for Sarah and I in Abu Dhabi.

      Settling in is actually quite a challenge, I was granted a month to settle in to get things like housing, utilities, emirates ID, drivers license taken care of.  The first week is basically a wash, a lot of wide eyes and curiosity but you do not really accomplish much and you are limited in what you think you can do.  The second week was better after a long orientation at work. The second week was nice to get to know my new co-workers and learn from them how they adjusted to the new culture and climate.  Since expats like Sarah and I make up 90% of Abu Dhabi, naturally we can all relate to being outsiders.

  After being here about a month I would say that the UAE is nothing like I could have thought it would be.  I did not have any major expectations because I knew very little about this part of the world, but its truly a wonderful place.  The locals here are very accepting and hold hospitality in high regard.  I actually feel safer here in the UAE than I did in the US.  There are some challenges such as setting up everything initially, there is a lot of paper work, stamps and approvals.  The rule of thumb is to ask around four people the same question to get the complete and right answer.  And there are a lot of amenities that would cost a large amount of money in the US that are normal for everyone to have here because it costs next to nothing in the UAE.  Most services you go out on the town for are picked up and delivered to your door: drycleaning, maid services, and almost every restaurant delivers.

 
  Sarah and I are still exploring.  We went to Dubai one weekend which again is room for another story.  We are also trying to explore everything Abu Dhabi has to offer.  Its a great city and the first month has been stressful at times, but we are through the worst of the adjusting and formalizing ourselves with the government.  Now that we have our home and the lights are turned on (I have a good electric company story too) we are ready to get a car next and really start exploring.

This week we have been walking down what is called the Corniche which is this really long beach walkway that trails along the gulf.  We've been walking about 4 to 5 miles a night, its a great place to people watch!  Tonight we saw our first great sunset, its rarely cloudy here so a good sunset can be hard to come by.  More side stories to come on our new adventures of living abroad!