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!