Cooking lessons

No, not the kind where you pay someone to teach you how to bake a cake, but the little ad hoc culinary tips one gets from rather unlikely sources while waiting at the butcher counter in Lulus. This week was no exception.

There I was, patiently waiting my turn so I could have some lamb ground up for kebabs (the general practice is that you pick your cut of beef/lamb/veal and ask the butcher to grind it for you), and I smiled nicely at the elderly gent in skullcap and dishdasha next to me. He seemed a little worried that I wasn't yet being attended to by the butchery folks, and decided to speed things up a bit by asking me what I needed. I told him -- ground lamb.

And then I said the magic words: For kebab.

When I say 'magic' I mean MAGIC. This brought forth a very detailed set of instructions and ingredients from the gent, starting with the advice that I should use a mixture of beef and lamb and ending with lots of finger-lip smacking gestures. In between, he decided that I needed help picking out a hunk of beast to be ground up and so examined all the per-kilo prices for me until he found a suitable one (the 40-Dhs-per-kilo-cut was quickly ruled out). Then came more ingredients that he had forgotten to list earlier -- onion and bqdwns. Yes, bqdwns (can someone buy these people a vowel please?). You know, greens. I think he must have sensed 1) that I didn't speak Arabic and 2) that there were, in fact, about 56 different types of greens available at the Lulus, so he decided it was time to take our carts together over to the herb section of the produce department and look for bqdwns together. I assumed it was coriander, but I was wrong, as he pointed to the coriander (cilantro, for you Yanks) and said "Not that one. Other one." Ok, got it. Parsley. I found the little parsley sign, complete with pictograph for the illiterati, and there was the Arabic translation:

بقدونس

You know -- bqdwns.

He seemed pretty impressed with my Arabic-reading ability, so decided it was time for another forgotten ingredient to be mentioned - 'small like onion, but not onion.' Oh great. Here we go again. It was like playing Password in the produce section. The first thing that came to mind was shallot, but I quickly remembered where I was. Yes, shallots are available at the French-owned Carrefour, at something like a million dirhams a kilo, but only the French actually buy them. So what else is 'small like onion but not onion'? It helped that he held up a finger to indicate how small 'small' was. It did not help that he kept saying 'thum', since I associated that with the finger and figured he just got confused about which one of the five was his thumb.

Then I got it.

Thum = garlic.

I spelled it out for him (tha - waw - mim, pronounced "thoom"), he confirmed my spelling, I thanked him for the help, and we returned to our solo grocery shopping tasks. The fat expats who were staring at us the entire time did the same.

I didn't really have the heart to tell him that I already knew how to make pretty damned good kebab, but I learned two words in Arabic that I'll probably never forget.

A close shave?

Here I am, back in the ether after a slightly longer hiatus than I expected over Christmas. No, it wasn't due to the fact that I was hanging tinsel on my gardenia shrub and wrapping the base of the Christmas palm tree in cheap garland --

I just couldn't log on to my blogger.com account.

Naturally, the first thing that ran through my mind was that Etisalat had found me. And not just Etisalat, but whatever secret organisation (Ministry of Truth, perhaps?) controls the ether. Just think -- that was before I posted the lollipop story.

Yes, I'll confess, after a week or so of hanging browsers, I was getting a little worried. But instead of packing my bags, I re-downloaded the latest version of Tor, configured Mozilla to use the proxy, and shazam! I was back online.

While I was offline, I drafted a little letter to the nice folks at Etisalat:

Dear Etisalat geniuses,

While I commend you on your efforts to limit internet access for the purposes of protecting the innocent citizens of the UAE (not to mention your own bank balance), I think you could try just a little harder. You see, even though you have succeeded in blocking Skype, anything including the Story of O, pictures of Socrates with young Meno, and a number of educational geographic sites (such as the ones that might inform my students that in the southern hemisphere January and December are summer months), you have more work to do. None of these blocks really amounts to anything until and unless you block access to all anonymising proxy servers. So why haven't you done that?

One possibility is that you aren't quite sure what an anonymising proxy server is. Easily understood, when one considers the probability of your average employee knowing what the words 'anonymising' and 'proxy' mean. Let's say it's something like 1/100 for each word, making the probability of knowing BOTH words far less (no, NOT 2/100). My recommendation is that you furnish each of your employees with a dictionary. While they're climbing that steep learning curve, rest happy knowing that every expat in Abu Dhabi is successfully Skyping their loved ones back home.

Except me. You still haven't hooked up my internet.

Kind regards,

Another Expat

Linguistic P*rn*gr*phy

Yes, I did in fact replace most of the vowels in the P-word with asterisks, which is why you are able to continue reading these little snippets. But there's nothing dirty about this post -- it's just another report on how much fun I'm having with a three-vowel language that tries to adopt words from a, well, more-vowel language.

Unfortunately, my story starts with me going to Starbucks. I know, I know, I said I would never go there. And I still wouldn't, except for the fact that I am now living in the land of highly caffeinated beverages and the only decaf joe I can get my hands on is Starbuck's 'Decaf House Blend.' So every couple of weeks I hold my nose, enter the nearest Starbucks (well, except for the filthy one on Hamdan Street), and purchase a bag or two of over-roasted beans that have had the caffeine sucked out of them. Oops, there I went and said "sucked." That'll probably be more than enough to get this site blocked, so read quickly.

Starbucks (for some mysterious reason) has lollipops for sale. They don't appear to be special lollies, just normal I-went-to-the-doctor-and-got-a-lollipop sorts of things. And for those who are unfamiliar with the concept of a sucker (there I go again!), there's a handy sign that identifies them as lollipops. It's also translated into Arabic, or at least transliterated. As

لولي بوب

Yes, that's right, my Arabic-literate friends, "looly boob."

Ok, ok, I can understand that the language doesn't have a /p/. But why the long 'oo' sound for the vowels in 'lolly' and 'pop'? I mean, they're NOT /o/ sounds -- they're /a/ sounds. Go ahead, say it out loud. I'm right, aren't I?

The thing is, Arabic has a perfectly good /a/ sound in its inventory. It's the first effing letter of the Arabic alphabet, alif. So why on earth hasn't someone figured out that they could write


لالي باب

You'd think that a country with such a morbid fear of the boob would work a little harder trying to avoid using that word to describe a suckable piece of candy.

Rich language, poor language

I'm not saying Arabic isn't a rich language. It's probably just as rich as Sindhi, or Igbo, or English, or Korean. But not to the people who speak it natively. To them it's linguistic wealth is endlessly referred to in conversation. Since this wealth appears to be such a given, I have a suggestion:

Use some of that wealth to purchase a few more letters of the alphabet.

(I'm not going to get into technical details about the difference between letters and sounds, mostly because I'm probably one of three people living in the UAE who would be able to do that and I don't really relish increasing the likelihood ratio of you being able to figure out who I am and what I do for a living. So I'll just talk about letters.)

One of my new pastimes, now that I can sort of read Arabic script, is walking around town with my husband reading signs. He doesn't read the signs -- he just laughs out loud while I'm doing so. It's kind of like a scene out of Rain Man, except in Arabic.

This morning's adventure took us from one end of the island to the other, so there was plenty of raw material for me to practise on. For example, a well-known fast-food chain.

(Burger) كنج

That's k-n-j, unfortunately, so we have something like "Burger Kinge" (would you eat there?). And although the speed of my husband's turkebak prevented me from seeing the first word, I'm pretty sure it was something like:

برجر

In other words, "burdger." And a quick check on the chain's UAE website confirms my suspicion:

We've already been over the problem's that arise from the lack of a /p/ sound (Peter --> Beater, for example), so I won't elaborate further on that here, except for the fact that I personally know three Peters in Abu Dhabi and they all have business cards that say "Beater."

Some of you, particularly if you happen to be an expert in some useless field like linguistics, are thinking that I'm insane. Of course Arabic doesn't need to have a soft /g/ sound and a /p/ -- it's not bloody English, it's ARABIC. And you would be right.

But as long as they're going to import words from other languages, I suggest they buy a few more consonants.

Liquor license sur-prizes

After going through all that trouble to get my liquor license -- from the salary certificate from my employer to driving in circles around the desert trying to find the bloody Khalifa City A Police Station -- I had the idea that it would at least be taken seriously by the liquor store people. And it is, at least its existence is. But all that nonsense about the monthly limit (some percentage of my salary, which seems to be arbitrarily calculated) is another story. Let me give you a little example:

There we are, at some liquor outlet (name deleted at suggestion of my husband the lawyer) in Khalidiyah (hey - I can write that in Arabic!) stocking up on a bit of wine and hard stuff. Ok, so we bought about four cases of wine. Or so. We went over to the checkout, I proudly handed over my liquor license, and...

I was over the monthly limit.

I don't know how much over I was -- probably about eight million dirhams or so, judging by the number of bottles we had in the cart -- I was too busy working out my apologetic idiot explanation to the clerk's expected "Sorry madame, you cannot buy this much hooch in one month. Now the liquor police are going to take you out to the desert late at night and beat you to a pulp for making such a stupid mistake."

But that's not what happened.

What the clerk actually said was this:

"Oh, madame! You have spent over X dirhams this month! To honour you and thank you for your patronage we are now going to give you a special prize! Would you like a free bottle of whisky or would you prefer a free case of beer?"

The whisky was shite, so we took the beer.

Education in the desert, part two

Over the past few months I've learned a lot -- unfortunately much of what I've learned is a sort of 'negative knowledge'. By that I mean that I've gained knowledge about what people don't know. I'm going to share (don't you love that word?) some of this with you now, but be warned -- it's a sad story. So if you're already feeling a little blue about the future of the world, save this one for a brighter day.

Even though I don't teach literature, geography, history, or really much of anything else that folks consider useful, references to these fundamentals crop up every so often in my classes. Partly because I'm a generalist to the point of suffering from a serious attention-span problem, partly because there's just no getting away from stuff about the world we live in. Here's some of the negative knowledge I've acquired from my students since teaching in the UAE:

1. None has ever heard of George Orwell. Although a few of them remember reading Animal Farm, they didn't seem to make the connection between Snowball/Napoleon and Lenin/Stalin. Some of them aren't quite sure who Lenin and Stalin actually are.

2. One of them does not have any English language books in his home.

3. The majority of them do not know where the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation is. In fact some are a little iffy on the whole geography of Abu Dhabi island.

4. All of them think that Hawai'i is either in the Indian Ocean or in South America.

5. No one has heard of the Holocaust. I mean the event, not the vocabulary word.

6. About 3% are familiar with Charles Dickens. One third of those can actually name a book by him.

7. Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov are unfamiliar names, despite the fact that all of the students are studying science.

8. My cleverest student has not heard of St. Petersburg/Leningrad. Or any city in Russia other than Moscow.

9. A few of them haven't quite wrapped their heads around the fact that I can find their submitted work on at least ten different internet sites.

10. A majority really does believe that dogs eat feces on a regular basis. Now I ask you, have you EVER seen a dog eating poo? If so, and if this is a regular occurrence where you live, please do drop me a line.

The Arabic Alphabet in Two Days

Yes, it can be done.

Not that I know what anything actually means, but for someone who didn't really want to learn Arabic at all, I've come a long way, baby. Here's how it started:

Basically, my job is killing me. For all sorts of reasons, from the fact that I was hired to teach something I have 1) no interest in and 2) no qualifications for, to the fact that the majority of my students are, well, in some respects, alingual. But they're paying me, and continuing to pay me, so for now I shall stick it out and confess that I am, in fact, a mercenary. Don't worry, there will be another post with the gory details. But the job misery prompted me into thinking about what sort of activities I'd like to take up if I did actually walk out the door, and the short list included learning, or at least figuring out, some other language. I don't really care what it is or whether it's useful (hey - for all you p.c. Americans out there who are sending your kids to Spanish lessons, do you REALLY think they're going to compete on the español scene with the gazillions of native Spanish speakers growing up in the U.S. who happen to be fluent in English as well? Maybe you are just content with the fact that they'll be able to say hola to the gardener). I don't care whether it can get me a job in the NSA, CIA, MI6, USDA, or anywhere else. And I don't really care whether I can "communicate" with people in the Arab world. I can already communicate with them, or at least with the ones who speak English, which are probably not my students.

See, I've got a particularly weird relationship with language -- I just think it's cool as grits. That's language with a capital L. And I like puzzles, so the Living Language Ultimate (last?) Arabic book that I picked up at United Bookstores a couple of weeks ago is, in my mind, the world's biggest puzzle book. I took it on holiday with me last week to while away the time while my better half was reading about whatever suicide bomber just toasted himself in some neighbouring country.

Okay, okay, I'll confess. Prior to having a look at the book, Arabic orthography was a bunch of squiggles and dots. It still is, I suppose, a bunch of squiggles and dots, but so is pretty much every other language's orthographic system, except maybe for Korean, which seems to be mostly squares. The difference between then and now is that I can decipher those squiggles. I can write them in initial, medial, final, and separate positions, complete with vowel and other diacritical marks. I can even pronounce most of them, although the pharyngealised consonants are giving me a run for my money (for those of you who know what I really do for a living, feel free to chuckle out loud). And the funnest thing is that I can read signs. This is particularly interesting when the Arabic is just a transliteration of the other word. For instance:

There's a shop in Khalidiya called "L'uomo." It means "The Man" in Italian. I don't really know what this shop sells -- you might think it's men's clothing, but it could just as easily be cakes and pastries. One never really knows. Next to it, in big squiggles, is the Arabic transliteration:

لوم و

Right. So I haven't figured out which keyboard to use to get the characters connected in the right way, but trust me, this is (reading from right to left):

ل lam /l/

و waw /u/

م mim /m/

و waw /u/

Yes, you've got it -- the word is pronounced "loomoo," which is, um, nothing like "l'uomo." Unfortunately for those poor Italians, Arabic doesn't seem to have an /o/-type sound. In fact, it doesn't have a lot of sounds, like /p/ for instance, so anyone whose name happens to be Peter will have it look something like this:

بيتر

which, as you are probably aware, sounds like "beater." Great.

The nice thing about Arabic is that it compensates for the lack of that /p/ sound by having lots and lots of consonants pronounced farther back in the mouth than even your dentist has ventured (which makes sense, since there aren't any teeth that far back). So we have the following:

ق

ع

غ

ح

خ

and those lovely four pharyngealised versions of /s/, /d/, /t/, and /th/:

ص

ض

ط

ظ

If you ask me, this is just cruel. Go ahead, stick your finger down your throat and see if you can find your pharynx. I'll wait.

There's another devilish little trick that Arabic plays on the unsuspecting learner -- only the long vowels actually show up in the orthography, at least in informal orthography. So that means that you'll only see the "long" versions of alif (/a/), waw (/u/), and ya' (/i/). All those other little short versions of vowels are mysteriously absent. I have a working hypothesis that at some point long ago an Arab went on holiday to Wales and was jealous of the fact that Welsh had managed to pare down its vowel inventory even further than Arabic had.

Right. So what do I mean that vowels don't show up in orthography? Well, here's another example, from a sign I saw this morning:

شمس

Individually, those are:

ش /sh/

م /m/

س /s/

Anyone wanna play "Find the Vowel?" I hope not, because I guarantee you will come in LAST place. The word is shams, meaning "sun." Thank you for playing.

This gets even worse yet. Words in Arabic are often triconsonantal roots, and different vowels between the consonants can make a difference in meaning. Let's take the textbook example of "ktb" or كتب, having a meaning of something to do with the concept of writing. My Living Language book has the following in its (paltry) glossary:

كاتب katab "to write"

كاتب katib "writer"

The long /a/ in the first syllable of both of these words is marked in the orthography, as you can see by closely examining the difference between the triconsonantal root form and the two words (or you can just take my word for it). But the short vowel in the SECOND syllable isn't marked! In other words, just from looking at these in isolation, there is no way to tell what the word actually means.

Like I said, cruel.

Third-world epiphany

This incident occurred over a month ago, but the draft waited patiently...

Something happened to me yesterday while I was leaving Marina Mall (see the main photo on this blog) with my groceries that made me realise I just may never be able to return to my home city in the states. Or my home city in England, for that matter.

There I was, Friday morning, wheeling my Carrefour cart full of groceries out to my car in the warm sun -- a cart that I paid a ONE DIRHAM deposit for, by the way -- and a skinny little fellow appears out of nowhere and starts taking my groceries from the cart. Ok, so the car boot was open at the time, and the little man's intention was clearly to put the groceries in the car boot, not hie off with them to set up his own veggie stand.

And my first reaction was to say whatdoyouthinkyou'redoing???!

That reaction achieved its goal: the little bugger did in fact hie off, sans groceries, and lurked about looking beaten and forlorn. I loaded the rest of the bags into my car, returned the cart to the rank, collected my one dirham coin (a whopping 28 cents), and drove off.

Then it hit me.

The only thing this fella wanted to do was help me with my groceries in return for me letting him return the cart and pocket the 28 cents trolley-deposit. He wasn't a thug or a panhandler, he was an entrepreneur. And I sent him away.

You see, the thing about Abu Dhabi is that everyone here works. They work for practically nothing, they work in the hot sun, they work without much in the way of thanks or recognition, but they work. Contrast this with the big-city thug who approaches you on the street with an angry "Can you spare some change?" or with the shiftless ne'er do well sitting on the pavement with cap in hand who glares at you if you dare to walk by without buying him a coffee from Starbucks. They don't offer to carry my groceries or return my trolley, but they still want something. The difference is they want something for nothing -- and their only rationale (if you can call it that) is that I clearly have more than they do.

I learned my lesson. Now when I go to the Carrefour on a Friday morning -- probably the only day of the week my underfed little friend has to himself -- I happily let him take my cart back for the handsome fee of 28 cents. Hell, I give him a few extra dirhams. After all, he's a working man.

Driving I.Q.

In the past three short weeks, I think I've managed to cover almost every square inch of asphalt (and sand) on Abu Dhabi island.  And then some.

I've made it to work and back without a hitch (even if one of my recent 'shortcuts' turned out to be a diversion to Kuwait).  I've navigated the labyrinth of Mina Zayed, parked in the formidable Tourist Club Area, found my way to the Exhibition Centre at night despite carrying a self-professed expert navigator who managed to direct me towards the wrong exit twice (and I made it back), and I may be the first person to find the Khalifa City Police Station on the first try.  (The KCA Police Station is rather like the Kennedy Center -- there are signs everywhere in the city pointing towards it, until you get to within a block of the bugging place).

Like any city, Abu Dhabi has its share of traffic.  So circumnavigating the block to fill up your tank with gas will probably take a half hour.  Or more.  It's not really the time that bothers me; it's the complete and utter idiocy of the other drivers out there.

So I've invented a new term:  Driving I.Q., or "DIQ" for short (pronounced like dick).

Most of the drivers here have pretty small DIQs, which is ironic considering that the maneuvers they routinely practice likely have as their goal the opposite effect.  For instance:

Here I am, 50 metres from a red light, travelling at my snail-pace of 60 kph (the speed limit on most city roads).  And suddenly, a flash of colour passes me.  Some schmuck has increased his speed to 100 or so kph.  FIFTY metres from a red light.  Classic small DIQ maneuver.

Then there's the indicating problem.   It seems they don't actually teach people here about that little lever on the left of the steering wheel.  Result?  Nobody indicates.  This may in fact be a good thing, since the few people who do manage to push that little lever up or down promptly forget about its existence.  My recommended solution is this:  when you see an indicator light flashing, don't worry -- the driver isn't going to turn.  It's when you DON'T see one that you need to start worrying.

Finally, we have the horns.  I like to think of driving in Abu Dhabi as going to an orchestral concert -- except all the music is in the key of F.  After pondering the over-usage of the car horn for several hours, I think I've come up with a theory.  There don't seem to be many musical instruments here in the desert, so people aren't accustomed to being able to make noise using some sort of mechanical implement.  Until they get a car, that is.  Then - voila! - a musical instrument at the ready!  You don't buy it?  Fine.  Test the theory and disprove it.

I'll be waiting (in traffic).

Plumbing in the desert

Here's a recent phone conversation I had with the property maintenance manager for our villa:

ME:  Good morning, J.  This is (name deleted to protect my anonymity) at the (villa location deleted to protect my physical well-being).  I have a question for you.

J:  Ok Ok no problem

ME:  I bought new mixer tap for kitchen sink.  Do you have person who can take out old mixer tap and put new one? (notice the lack of articles -- this is what my speech has degraded to in the past month and a half)

J:  Mixer tap not working?

ME:  No, mixer tap working fine.  But mixer tap old and dirty and I don't like it.

J:  Bank not pay for new mixer tap if old mixer tap working.

ME:  That is ok.  I don't want bank to pay for new mixer tap.  I HAVE new mixer tap.  I need workman to install new mixer tap because I don't have plumbing tools.  And when I leave villa, I will get workman to take away new mixer tap and put old dirty one back (translation:  Don't f&^* with me.)

J:  Ok Ok no problem.  You want new mixer tap?  We go purchase new mixer tap and you pay.

ME:  NO.  I ALREADY PURCHASE NEW MIXER TAP.  I need workman to take away old mixer tap and put new one in.

J:  You need to purchase new mixer tap.  Bank not paying.

ME:  OK, J, listen carefully.  Yesterday I go store and purchase new mixer tap.  New mixer tap here in villa.  In box.  (I shake box to produce audible proof of presence of new mixer tap.)

J:  Oh you have new mixer tap?

ME:  YES!!!!!!!

J:  Ok Ok no problem

ME:  But I need someone to INSTALL it (by this time I could have replaced every tap in the bloody villa).

J:  Ok Ok I send someone over to fix.

ME:  When?

J:  Ok Ok when you at villa?

ME:  This afternoon.

J:  Workman coming four o'clock.

ME:  Very good.  I will be here at four o'clock.

J:  Workman coming four, maybe five o'clock.

ME:  Ok, thank you.

Welcome to my life.

One tiny word

I just noticed a post on one of the more popular expat forums asking for advice on what to bring to Abu Dhabi - in one word.  It's early yet, but things like satnavs, passport photos, and patience have already been mentioned.  Let me add another one that trumps them all:

CASH.

Cash can buy you any of the material goods you might have forgotten to pack (including satnavs and passport photos -- do people really not understand that there are photo shops EVERYWHERE in this city?  Jeez.)  It enables you to hop in taxis eight times a day for the first week or two and tip generously without blinking.  It will pay for a month (or two or more) of car rental so you no longer have to stand in the sun during rush hour waiting for a taxi.  Cash will cover your prescription medication in the event your doctor jots down the wrong diagnosis code and then leaves on holiday.  That expensive Etisalat USB modem that will allow you to remain connected to the world while you're sitting in a month-long queue waiting to have broadband installed at your villa will no longer seem so expensive with a pocket full of cash.  It can create a beautiful garden where there once once a sandpit and turn an empty villa into a furnished home.  Cash is an expeditor and a doorkey.

Cash is King.

Piercing the veil

Let's face it, these veils are a physical and psychological barrier to social interaction.  I suppose that's the whole point.  But apart from my subconscious (sort of) desire to re-enact Yoko Ono's Cut Piece (I won't even get into why this sort of so-called art is one of the most vile things I've ever seen), I do actually try to break through that wall of black material.  At least when I think the time is right.

And it was right today.

There I was, happily (??) checking out at the Lulu's when a veiled woman and her two sons appeared behind me.  One of the sons picked up the "Next Customer" wedge-shaped thing (yes, they have those here too) and started putting his mum's groceries right behind mine -- without the wedge-shaped thing in between!  Mum was clearly dismayed by this and began (I suppose) explaining to son number one that the whole point of the wedge-shaped thing was to separate one's groceries from those of the next (or previous) person.  The time was ripe...

I looked at the young fella and said "mighty clever of you, trying to get me to pay for your groceries."  Mum laughed heartily, translated for her boys, and all involved enjoyed the joke (except for the sullen Flip at the checkout counter -- oh SORRY -- Filipina).

And thus the veil was pierced.

Getting a car (and driving it)

About the fifth time in as many weeks (admittedly not that often) that I had to stand out in the sun and sweat while watching taxis whoosh by, I decided it was time to re-think the transportation situation.  So I badgered asked my husband to re-think it for me.

This was probably the single easiest thing we've done so far -- renting a vehicle.  We rang Fast Rent a Car on Tuesday evening (www.fastuae.com) and were told we needed to email a copy of my driving licenses (foreign and Abu Dhabi) and passport visa page.  Well, except for the minor annoyance of trying to scan these things via a bum USB port, the admin work was taken care of early Wednesday morning and we immediately received a call from Fast telling us that we'd have the car delivered by that afternoon.  A recitation of my (newly acquired) UAE credit card number sealed the deal and by 1530 we had wheels.

Now for the scary part.  I was going to actually drive the thing to work the following morning.

I suppose I did experience a moment or two of sheer terror the previous night, but that quickly passed (well, sort of).  And at 0745 on Thursday morning I was off, and giddy with delight at the fact that for the third time in three years I was back on the right side of the road.  Seven minutes later I pulled into the gates at work, parked five meters from the door of my building, and said goodbye to waiting for taxis.

For all my fears, driving in Abu Dhabi ended up being a hell of a lot easier than driving three hours at night in the rain in Hungary, navigating labyrinthine London streets, riding a (non-automatic) scooter in Mexico, trying to keep up with the 60 MPH speed limit on English country roads that maybe are wide enough to accommodate a bicycle, or making the 2 AM run from Florence to Rome to catch an early morning flight.

And I still have all my fingers and toes.

Getting a driving license

This was not nearly as challenging as I imagined it would be.

For starters, the Abu Dhabi Government Portal has a page devoted to the exchange of foreign driving licenses (you'll need to have a valid license from one of the listed countries in order to exchange -- everyone else needs to take either a theory test, a practical test, or both).  They've also got (get this) a phone number that actually has a person at the other end.  A good thing, since while the government portal site mentions something about blood type, that data isn't actually required.

Once I had my residence visa in my passport, I asked my company for a non-objection letter (NOL), which was cranked out in a matter of days.  Then off to one of the myriad typing/translation shops to get my driving license translated into Arabic.  Or so I thought.  It turned out that the HR department was happy to collect my license and hand it over to a fellow who has a cozy relationship with one of the typing/translating places in Abu Dhabi, so I didn't have to lift a finger.  And as an added bonus, I paid 45 Dhs instead of the usual 70 Dhs.  Whoohoo!  Now I can go to Starbucks and get myself a frappalappadingdong with the savings.  Or not.

Armed with my passport and a copy, NOL, original license, Arabic translation of my license, three passport photos from my stock of two dozen, and 220 Dhs, I headed down to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing office on Muroor Road at about 0915.  Arrived at 0924 and made my way directly to the Information desk, where the sullen receptionist looked over my paperwork and issued me with a number.  Then I waited for about 30 minutes until my number was called, and went into the eye test room.  That took about 55 seconds (hint:  if you wear glasses, BRING THEM).  Turns out I needed my glasses to read the 2 millimeter-sized letters on the board 10 feet away.

After paying 20 Dhs for the eye test and being issued a receipt and some form saying "Fit - glasses," I returned to reception where I was issued a new number. Of course I planned on another 30-minute wait, but - miracle of miracles - my number was already flashing at one of the counters!  Another sullen gal took a look at my paperwork, snapped a picture of me (sans glasses, I might add), demanded 200 Dhs, and shoved me off to the adjacent counter where I handed in all of my papers to the police officers in charge of issuing the actual license.  They asked me to sit down and wait.  Oh boy - another 30 minutes, I thought.

But no.

Within about two minutes, my name was called and I was handed a shiny new Abu Dhabi driving license (with, by the way, no mention of a restriction regarding eyesight).  So what if it doesn't actually have my surname on it?  I was back home by 1030.

Now I just need something to drive.

Ramadan Kareem

It's difficult to resist the urge to add "Abdul Jabar" after this, but I manage.

We're about two-thirds of the way through the month of Ramadan now and I have some observations.

First of all, as much as I was dreading arriving in the UAE a few days before the onset of Ramadan, I have to say it's really having very little effect on my life.  The only nuisance is trying to hail a taxi in the early afternoon when it seems as if the entire population is on the road.  Places like Starbucks and Costa Coffee are closed until after Iftar (the evening prayer when the day-long fast is broken), but I don't really care because I don't go to places like Starbucks and  Costa Coffee.  Shops are open from about 0900 to 1300 and then again from 1900 to midnight. So I do my errands in the morning.  I can't eat or drink in public during daylight hours, but I'm not really one of those people who walks the streets of a city chewing on a snack (which is why I'm thin).  I drink my water and coffee at home.  People are nice, and generally kind, and respond with enormous smiles when I greet them with "Ramadan Kareem" or "Ramadan Mubarak."  So really, I don't feel affected at all.

But I do.

You see, I'm not a religious person (sorry mum).  I'm just not.  I began questioning religion in the third grade when I asked my first grade teacher (a nun) why the bible told the story of creation while scientists talked about something called a Big Bang Theory.  I stopped being religious in the sixth grade when I asked myself the question "How do we know there is a god?"  In my mind, I was lucky:  I had a choice.  In Islam, however, there really isn't a choice.  Apostasy is punishable by death.  Go ahead, Google "apostasy Islam."  I'll wait.

Since the world we live in is such that children inherit the religions of their parents, we end up with what Richard Dawkins suggests can't really exist:  "Muslim" children, "Christian" children, "Jewish" children.  In all cases, I view this as an injustice, but in the case of the Muslim child, I find it to be one of the greatest evils inflicted on human beings, because of the apostasy penalties.

How does this relate to Ramadan, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you.

Throughout this month, there are articles about Ramadan in every periodical you can find.  Explanations of what Ramadan is about (spiritual reflection, separation of the physical from the spiritual, etc.) abound.  One of the more interesting blurbs I've come across is from Time Out's "Ultimate Guide to Ramadan."  It says:

What is the aim of fasting?

There are many people who are starving in the world, so when you fast you feel what they feel all day long.

This is very difficult to swallow (no pun intended), given that on the facing page there is an advertisement by the Beach Rotana Hotel for "lavish Iftar buffets" at a cost of AED 135 per person (not including 10% service charge and 6% tourism fee).  If you think that's expensive, the Shangri-La hotel has an AED 170 (plus extra fees) Iftar offer.  Given that the average gold and white taxi driver makes about AED 13 for an hour's worth of driving me around town, I don't really think he can afford this type of fast-breaking experience.  And it is utterly outside the reach of the average labourer in, say, the construction field.

Which brings me to another point.  It's these labourers I'm worried about.  They're poor.  Really, really, really poor.  They live in labour camps - god knows how many to a room.  They work in the blistering sun and heat all day long.  Their families are thousands of miles away.

And they HAVE to fast, as all other Muslims do.

What sort of philosophy exists that it makes even the remotest sense to force these poor blokes to starve and dehydrate themselves for 14 hours a day so that they can feel what someone who has even less than they do feels while the wealthy fasters go home and sleep in their air-conditioned villas, enjoy Iftar "feasts," head out to the spas that are open half the night, and take advantage of all the special sales at furniture stores?

Here's another fun example, also from Time Out's "Ultimate Guide."

Dermika salon in Al Muhairy Centre says the following in its one-page advertisement:

Ramadan is a time of religious importance when one can take pleasure in the magnificent experience of sacrifice.  There is no need to sacrifice beauty, however.  We invite you to our Dermika One Stop Beauty Shop.....With our special Ramadan rates and offers you have all the reasons to visit the Dermika One Stop Beauty Shop to look and feel your best every day

I have to stop here because I just don't know what else to say.

Internet on the go

And even if you aren't on the go, it's pretty much the only way to obtain internet access RIGHT now.

You see, we've been sitting in a virtual queue over at the Etisalat headquarters for nearly three weeks now, with nary a word as to when we might expect broadband installation at home.  The nice surprise was that we were able to piggyback off of one of our neighbours (yes, people really do have unprotected wireless networks...still).  That lasted about a week.

Then nothing.

So being the can-do people that we are, we sprinted over to the Etisalat kiosk at Madinat Zayed Shopping Centre a few evenings ago and picked up a USB 2.0 high speed modem, model number MF633.  Don't bother looking for it on the Etisalat site, because it doesn't appear to be there.

The device, which I like to call "the dingleberry," is - wonder of wonders - compatible with both Windows and Mac, and comes with its own little somewhat-intuitive-but-not-really software.  I think it costs about 499 Dhs, but I'm not sure because we can't find the receipt in the sea of confusion that has become our lives over the past few days.

You're probably wondering if there are other costs involved.  Well, of course there are.  Like the SIM card (known as "Wasel" in EtisalatSpeak -- kinda funny when you consider we're in the land of non-drinkers).  Wasel probably means something like maybeit'llworkandmaybeitwon'tbutweguaranteeyou'llhaveanimpossibletimefiguringitout.  But I digress.

The SIM card itself costs about 175 Dhs, and then you have to load it up with money.  Hint:  load it with 460 Dhs and be sure to dial the 125 number from it (you'll have to put it in another mobile phone for this to work) and subscribe to the monthly plan of 10 gig.  If you don't do this, you'll be on the default pay-as-you-go plan, which effectively means your internet access will cost you one million dollars per byte.

The broadband service packages are (sort of) described here.

I have to say that after 72 hours of kvetching and worrying, the dingleberry works pretty well (rather in the same way that a gimp turtle does well in the 500-metre dash).  I've run some speed tests (see www.speedtest.net) and -- are you sitting down? --

I get download speeds of 1.88 Mbps (that's megabits per second).

Holy slow as molasses in January, Batman!  Well, the fact is that 1.88 is a lot better than the .88 I was getting yesterday.

The biggest coup of the day, however, was figuring out how to get internet access to both of our laptops simultaneously.  Here's what I did (ok, I'm going to omit the part about my running an applescript without really knowing what I was doing and thereby screwing up my plist files so that nothing network or internet-related worked):

1.  Trashed my network-related plist files and rebooted (this rebuilt the system files).

2.  Got out the Apple Airport Extreme wireless router that I brought along in my carry-on baggage.

3.  Set up internet sharing on my laptop, using a password-protected local address for other computers using Airport.

4.  Turned on Airport on my husband's laptop and selected my local host.

5.  Entered the password.

I'd like to say this was pure genius, but it's much more accurate to say it was the result of brute force.

And now for a short commercial break...

I'd much rather be posting valuable information on shopping, grocery stores, my new dining room set, a console table that fits where it should and now has a precious antique clock sitting on it, curtains, wireless 3g modems and my genius at setting up a protected network so that the two of us can use it at the same time (all by myself!).  But I've been busy doing other things.

Oh, I just wish I could tell you, but I'd be fired in an instant.  You see, some of the people that I have to deal with on a daily basis seem to have their heads pretty far up their patooties.  Not all, but some.  The past 72 hours have been a constant uphill battle to make things happen the way I want them to.

It's working.  But it's been tough.  Sleepless nights, vast consumption of wine, transition into Pit Bull Mode, 36-page documents (that I created in one morning) of records and reports, meetings, video conferences, threats (made by me), desperate phone calls to publishers, sweat, blood, toil, and probably a few plague-like things (ok, no frogs).

The bottom line is that I have, single-handedly, effected a change in two and a half weeks.  It probably took a couple of years off my lifespan, but hey, I figure if I die tomorrow I can say:

I effing DID IT.

The Twelve Days of Moving: Day Three

Monday, 17 August

We started off by sending a list of villa repairs (complete with pictures) to our real estate agent and the property manager, then yours truly headed across town to check out Tahboub Bros.kitchen shop as it appeared to be the only place in Abu Dhabi where one could purchase a Sub-Zero refrigerator and Wolf cooker.  Fantastic place, with fantastic prices to match:  the Sub-Zero price (before discount, naturally) was 49,000 Dhs and the Wolf range was a mere 39,000 Dhs.  I thought it best to return to Carrefour.  But they did have some lovely things, including Franke sinks, Asko dishwashers, and Grohe taps.  Sigh.

Next stop Jumbo Electronics on Hamdan Street to find out whether ANY televisions for sale in the UAE were wired for SCART cables.  The answer was something along the lines of a blank stare, eventually followed by a "No, Madame."  Ok.

Nearby, just next to the Sinbad Automatic Laundry and underneath the Extreme Team Law Offices (yes, really), was Shadows Decor, one of the highly-recommended places for custom curtains.  I did, in fact, just say "curtains."  That's because villas in Abu Dhabi come pretty bare -- no appliances, no curtains, sometimes not even any lightbulbs (we were more fortunate in this last matter).  I spent over an hour with a lovely Indian lady who hefted about a million fabric books from what appeared to be complete disorganisation (is there a Dewey Decimal System for fabrics?).  I couldn't actually pick out anything specific, mostly because I have the design sense of a gnat, but before I left I was told that I could probably outfit my entire villalavishly for about 10,000 Dhs.  That's $2,722 US.  Just in case you missed it, I said:

I could probably outfit my entire villa lavishly for about $2,722 US.

And my villa happens to be about 4,200 sq. ft.  I just don't know what else to say here.

Exhausted from my fabric-pawing, I found a taxi and made my way to Al Wahda Mall to suss out the appliance situation at Betterlife before meeting up with my husband and some colleagues at The Noodle House for lunch.  This was fantastic, even though I stayed somewhat conservative and ordered the Paad Thai.  I suppose the only negative experience was that ONE of the colleagues decided that he would shorten my name to what he thought was a reasonable familiar form.  I corrected him.

After lunch my appliance researcher and I headed up to Betterlife to pick out the kitchen appliances.  It took a bit of time, but wasn't too taxing.  About ninety minutes later, we had purchased a 90 cm-wide Electrolux dual-fuel range; a Siemens side-by-side refrigerator with ice maker, water dispenser, and one of those little pullie-outie doors on the 'frig side for getting things that one uses regularly; a wine fridge; a Siemens dishwasher that holds 14 place settings and runs at less than 40 dB (that's deciBels, and 40 might as well be complete silence); and a Siemens washing machine and dryer.  They were scheduled for delivery and installation on Wednesday -- two days later.

Now it was time to dash over to the villa and meet up with our fantastic real estate agent, who agreed with us that there was still a substantial amount of work to be done.  Within minutes, the maintenance manager appeared and the agent went to work.

Dinner was delicious take-away from Caravan Restaurant and dessert consisted of another midnight planning session on the roof terrace.

The Twelve Days of Moving: Day Two

Sunday, 16 August

You would be completely reasonable to think something along the lines of "Naturally, you slept late and spent a leisurely Sunday recovering from jetlag."  And you'd be right.

If it weren't me you were referring to.

No, THIS gal had to go to work on Sunday at EIGHT O'CLOCK BLOODY AY-EM.

Yes, you read that right, although it was mostly administrative stuff (contract signing, meeting the Powers That Are, and being processed for my residence visa).  The latter was the best part of all:  the PRO took half-a-dozen of us to get our medical check-ups and had us in and out of the Disease Prevention and Screening Centre, located at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, in thirty minutes flat.  This is truly evidence of modern-day miracles, as pretty much everyone else I've spoken with in Abu Dhabi has spent at least a half-day at the zoo establishment.

That done, my work day was over and it was time to inspect our new home.  This seems so long ago now, that I don't remember my exact response, but I believe it included repetition of the phrase "Oh.  My.  God." over and over again.  It was nothing like the wreck I had seen in those pictures from way back in June.  And it is immense.  Think Anna and the King waltzing proportions (ok, ok, maybe not -- Deborah Kerr's skirt needed a LOT more space).

Next stop was Marina Mall to check out appliances at Carrefour and cheap furniture at Ikea. I decided that latter was a bit too cheap, so was determined to scour the streets of Abu Dhabi looking for something better.

In the evening we made a trip to our friends at The Living Room Furnishing store to pick out a mattress.  We chose the queen-size (a mere 150 x 200 cm) tempurpedic/hard foam hybrid. Delivery was scheduled for Tuesday evening.

Again, a good day, and at the end of it we planned our to-do list for the next one.  At one-o'clock in the morning.

The Twelve Days of Moving: Day One

As you've probably guessed from my conspicuous absence from the ether, this has been one hell of a first two weeks.

Here's a short recap of the events of the past twelve days.  Hang in there, it's gonna be a long one:

Saturday, 15 August

We leave our lovely home (and neighbours) in the UK with two suitcases and one carry-on each. Picked up by Etihad Airlines chauffeur service, Heathrow was a madhouse (August, you know).  Even the flight was packed, so my world-traveller husband didn't get his usual upgrade to first class.  Which means we had seats that looked like this:

Instead of this:

Right, so business class is blue and first class is gold.  Other than that, not much difference. And in the end it really didn't matter because the stewardess (yes, I still use that word) spilled champagne on me before the flight even took off, so I got my very own size small sleeping costume, complete with storage bag.

Arrival in the UAE, some seven hours later was pretty uneventful.  The only difference was that THIS time I had an employment visa waiting for me at the Visa Delivery Desk and had to go in for an eye scan.  Then on to one of the largest villas I've ever seen to spend the first of what we assumed would be several nights while our Apocalypse-Now-Wreck-of-a-Villa was getting made ready.

I don't remember anything else.

Don't shit where you eat

So it wasn't exactly in a restaurant, but last week as we were leaving Al Khalidiya Mall after a rather mediocre meal at Cantina Laredo ("Hi, my name is José and I'll be your server this evening") which we probably won't be visiting again anytime soon (for pete's sake -- they don't even serve margaritas!), we were waiting in the taxi queue and the following happened:

A woman and two of her friends emerged from a taxi.  She was carrying a plastic bag, the kind you get at the grocery store.  It had things in it, presumably not of any (further) value to her.  Some combination of tract variables led to her grip on the bag becoming progressively looser, until the limit of grip was reached.

And the bag fell.

Pretty uninteresting, eh?  Of course you're thinking "big deal -- a woman dropped her bag, had to bend down and pick it up, and went on her merry way."

And you'd be right, of course.  Except for the fact that she didn't pick it up.

As she was walking away with her friends, I stood there alternating my stare between the dropped bag of rubbish and the young woman.  She noticed and started speaking rather nervously to her pals.  But she didn't come back to pick up her garbage.

To protect the innocent (me) I won't say what nationality this litterer was.

But it rhymes with "Maserati."

Ten things I love about Abu Dhabi

After ten days here, I am finally finding the time to write a new post.  Rather than a "how-to" manual, I'll just jot down a few of the things that have made the past week and a half one of the most interesting, suprising, entertaining, and, well, FUN ten days I've ever experienced.

Here we go:

1.  People call me "Mem".  Yes, as in "Memsahib".

2.  I can get my hands henna-painted for $15 US by someone who might as well be called Picasso.

3.  Our villa has seven bathrooms.  Ok, maybe that's not such a good thing...

4.  I'm able to wear my 24-karat gold jewellery and people don't think it's costume.

5.  98% of the people I meet are gracious and kind.

6.  Saying "Ramadan Kareem" elicits some of the widest smiles I've ever seen.

7.  My husband has started uttering sentences like "Very very rain" when describing the monsoon season in India.

8.  We were able to decorate our entire villa with gorgeous draperies for less than $3,000 US.

9.  The food is outstanding -- everywhere (ok, ok, maybe with the exception of Cantina Laredo).  From the ready-made treats at the Lulu Hypermarket to the lamb shishlik at Hatam Al Taei.

10.  The sun shines.  EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The funny thing is, although there have been a couple of annoyances here and there, I can't come up with a list of ten things I hate about Abu Dhabi.  Maybe in time.

Then again, maybe not.

Last day

Here I am, having my usual morning coffee and doing my usual morning things -- reading the news, writing my blog, laundering clothes, making the bed, going to the Friday morning market. And a few unusual morning things, like emptying out the refrigerator, pulling the last few bits of clothing out of the wardrobe, tucking the barbeque away in the shed.

Because it's our last day here in the UK.

In less than twenty-four hours, we'll be on a plane (business class, thank you very much).  In less than forty-eight hours, I'll be finished with my medical check-up and my residency visa will be in the process of getting done.  A day and a half after that, we'll probably be at the British Club answering trivia questions at quiz night.  The spare time in between work and play will be filled with shopping for a mattress, investigating the villa, buying furniture, and planning the garden.  Our work week will change from Monday-Friday to Sunday-Thursday.

This is, without a doubt, the strangest experience of my lifetime.

All dressed up and nowhere to go

Now that the air and sea cargo has been packed up and is on its way, I find I have almost nothing to do.  My clothes are all folded and ready to go into suitcases.  Friends are arriving this evening for a quick farewell drinkie (or two).  I need to make a few phone calls to family and friends.  But that's pretty much it.  I liken my present state of mind/activity to being all decked out for a party and finding out that I'm an hour early.

So what exactly am I filling my time with in these last few days before we head over to our new home?  Well, here's a short list to keep you entertained:

1.  I finally finished sewing the sleeve seam for a baby jacket and can now send it off in the mail.

2.  I had my hair cut.

3.  I'm reading Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle.  Again.

4.  I've done up my syllabus for the coming semester.

5.  I just read a couple of pieces (Asimov and Sagan) from Great Essays in Science.

6.  I'm about to head over to the Waitrose to pick up snacks for tonight's drinks party.

7.  I made a really yummy potato salad for dinner.

8.  I turned myself from a blonde to a brunette.

I hope you're now as bored as I am.

Getting (E)mail in the desert

I don't really care much about snail mail capabilities.  No one ever sends me mail anyway, except for my grandparents, and we'll work something out just for them.

But take away my email for a day and the pit bull will emerge.

See, I, probably more than most people, have a very close relationship with my computer.  I use it for everything:  reading the news, checking the time, converting currency, researching whatever, running stats, shopping, sending cards, keeping my diary, looking up recipes (particularly handy when your cookbooks are in the middle of the ocean), and of course, email.  I need my computer, and it needs me.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that high up on the list of priorities is establishing an internet connection at our new villa (note I did not say "wreck" because, as of this past weekend, the villa is ready).

There are a few choices of ISPs in Abu Dhabi, and they all rhyme with "Etisalat."  Hurrah for state monopolies.  So off I go to dig around the Etisalat site.

Like most commercial sites, and certainly like most commercial sites in the UAE, the Etisalat webpage is about as navigable as the Bermuda Triangle (no doubt my clever master mariner friend will point out to me that the Bermuda Triangle is super-navigable, but it sounded good anyway).  So I'm going to point to a few key pages for the benefit of those who have even less patience than I.

All-in-One 3-pack:  Landline, TV, and Internet

Dhs 422 for the Gold package (download speed of 2 Mbps -- that's b for bits, not B for Bytes)

Dhs 522 for the Platinum package (download speed of 4 Mbps)

Dhs 280 for installation of either

All-in-One 2-pack:  Landline and Internet

Dhs 363 for the Gold package

Dhs 464 for the Platinum package

Dhs 180 for installation of either

Al Shamil:  Broadband Internet only

Dhs 449 (4 Mbps)

Dhs 349 (2 Mbps)

Dhs 249 (1 Mbps)

Dhs 200 for installation of any

Dhs 180 for wired modem

Holy expensive Internet, Batman!

That's USD 122.00 or GBP 74.00 per month for a lousy 4 Megabits per second connection speed.  Stateside a few years ago, we were paying about $30 a month for DSL and here in the UK we've got a brilliant international phone plan/broadband (8 Mbps, thank you very much) package for 30 quid.  I guess Etisalat is making up for the fact that all those Skype users are still getting away with making free VoIP calls to their friends and loved ones back home.

As of now, I don't know which we'll be using.  One of us hasn't watched telly since Seinfeld was still running, the other probably goes back even farther.  We've got mobile phones (I hate the things, but my husband makes me carry one around for emergencies).  So we don't really need the bundled package, but since the 2 Mbps All-in-One 3-pack costs less than the 4 Mbps Internet-only option, maybe I'll just start watching Turner Classic Movies on a regular basis.

Getting mail in the desert

I recently sent out an email broadcast to friends and family informing them of our upcoming move and providing change of address details.  Well, sort of.  That change of address part was rather difficult, as although we have a current address, we're not going to have anything to change it to.  This bit of information has been plaguing my mum (consider what an effective plague this would have been on top of gnats, incurable boils, and locusts) so I think it's high time I let her know that I am, in fact, thinking about how to get mail over in Abu Dhabi.  Maybe it will help out a few other people as well.

The truth is, there are no street addresses in Abu Dhabi.  There is mail, however -- it's just delivered to post office boxes.   Well, maybe it's delivered to post office boxes eventually.  But we now know that the word "eventually" has its roots in the Arabic word for "youmightgetitonedayoryoumightnot."  And to be perfectly honest, after spending my entire life in places that have little men coming to my door daily, I'm too spoiled to be enthusiastic about having to drive somewhere on a regular basis to pick up my mail.  So what to do?

There are a number of solutions, most of which come at a cost.  I'll outline a few of them here:

1.  Snail mail to your post office box in Abu Dhabi.

I don't really like this idea, but I suppose it works.  And the Emirates Post website has detailed information on renting a private p.o. box.  In fact, it appears one can even do this online (although since Emirates Post fails to provide a map of post office locations, perhaps that's not such a great plan).

The other problem with sending stuff through the regular mail is that it will likely be opened. This practice was undoubtedly initiated in order to prevent my parents from sending me the usual Chippendale's calendar for Christmas, but unfortunately will affect the rest of the population.  Bottom line:  We may rent a post office box in Abu Dhabi, but we might not.

What it costs

1 lb. package via USPS First-class mail:  USD 10.31 -- well, that and the 530 Dhs (USD 144.00) that you'll have to fork over to rent the post office box

2.  Federal Express

FedEx, to me, is the gold standard of postal services.  Why?  Well, mostly because it's a private firm (that means not run by a government).  And the beauty of FedEx-ing things to Abu Dhabi is that the parcels are less likely to be opened, or so I've heard.  The downside with this method is that it doesn't really fit in well with the Shylockian Money Saving Scheme that I adopted long ago, but it might be necessary in a pinch.

What it costs

1 lb. FedEx package from East Coast U.S. to Abu Dhabi:  USD 75.35

3.  Aramex Shop&Ship

Sometimes the good old USPS just won't do.  Like, for instance, when you want to buy something from Amazon.com.  This is when Aramex's Shop&Ship service comes in handy.  For a one time set-up fee of USD 35.00, you can have an Aramex box with a US or UK address that can be used for online shopping, bills, correspondence and so forth.  Of course, then you actually have to pay for the goods to be forwarded to you in Abu Dhabi.  It's still not a bad deal, with the primary downside (in my opinion) being that you can't choose what Aramex forwards to you once it arrives in their hands -- so you might end up paying for junk mail.

What it costs

1 lb. Aramex forwarded package to Abu Dhabi:  Dhs 39, or USD 10.62

4.  Online postal box services

This is a pretty fascinating idea in the mail forwarding realm, and Earth Class Mail seems to be the winning candidate.  The way it works is:  you get an address with Earth Class Mail and they scan the envelope of whatever comes their way.  Then you log on to your account and, after viewing the envelope scans, decide what to have opened and scanned, shredded, recycled, or forwarded to you unopened via snail mail.  ECM seems best designed for small pieces like bills, not parcels.  And of course not everyone would be comfortable having his mail opened, no matter how much the company touts its security measures.  I don't think we'll be using it, but it's worth mentioning here.

What it costs:

ECM operates on a subscription basis.  The basic package of USD 19.95 a month gets you up to 50 pieces of mail receieved, unlimited recycling, shredding, and storage.  But those scans are going to cost you:  each one over the limit (which is zero on the basic package) is another USD 1.50.  And there's a one-time setup fee of USD 25.00.

After writing this and looking at ECM's "professional" package, it seems to me that it would be a fantastic benefit for a company with overseas employees to offer.  For USD 60.00 per month, up to 200 pieces of mail are processed, 45 scans are included (same overcharge of USD 1.50 applies to the extra scans), and there are unlimited numbers of named recipients.  Someone (other than yours truly, because I give out more than enough free advice) would have to look into exactly how to deal with the fact that some folks would go over their allotted amounts while some would only be receiving a few items per month.  But you know what?  That's what Microsoft Excel was created for.

Hope you found this helpful.  Unless you're my mum, in which case I hope this puts your mind at rest.  We're working on it.

T minus four days

I know you're all waiting with baited breath to hear my latest rant over whatever news piece has been published today, or perhaps where to find a nice set of Henckels knives over in the Land o' Lawrence.

Well, you're just going to have to wait another day.  I'm knackered.

The air freight crew (all one of them) spent 7 hours here yesterday packing up our 1,001.2 lbs. of stuff.  After a delicious meal of ready-made whatever from the Waitrose, we rearranged a few more things and closed up a few more boxes.  The container arrived today promptly at 0900 and it took three stout lads from the local removals firm just over an hour to load it. Barring any antics by somali pirates (I'm not even going to dignify them by capitalising the "s" in "somali"), we'll see that again sometime in the last week of September.  The house has been hoovered and dusted, and I'm actually cooking dinner for the first time in several days.

So I hope you'll all pardon me if I don't write a juicy little tidbit about that expat couple who got arrested the other day for kissing each other hello.

Because right now, I just don't care.

Getting a liquor license

It is amazing to me how under-utilised Google is, particularly by those people who seem to need it most.

Have a look around the expat forums and you'll find countless threads starting with something like:    "How do I get a liquor license in Abu Dhabi?"  Do any of these folks realise that they could type that very sentence into a Google search box and the top hit will be this:

http://www.admmi.com/Beverages/get_license.aspx

??

In fact, it actually takes less time to run a Google search than it does to log in to Forum X, start a new thread, and write up a question (well, sometimes these forum posts are in the form of a question, sometimes they seem to be written by people who were absent on the day the concept of a complete sentence was discussed in grammar school).  Not to mention the time cost of inserting all those annoying little emoticons.

Ceteris paribus with respect to time, however, the real problem with going to a forum to ask advice on practical matters is that you get exactly what you pay for:  responses like "I think maybe the license fee is X."

Why would anyone value this over the straight-from-the-horse's-mouth information they can get from the site above?

I confess I don't know the answer to this question, except for my stock response of "half of the population is below average."  But I'm on a campaign to make the process of getting good information even easier than it is now (I expect in a day or so this blog post will be high up on the Google results).

Here's what to do:

Requirement to obtain a liquor license as applies to normal non-Muslim residents in employment within Abu Dhabi:

Fill in Liquor License application form (to be typed) in Arabic.

Provide original passport plus a copy. Also present residential papers. 

Present Labour contract copy with the original.

Attach 2 recent passport sized photos with application form.

If there is doubt of religion (possible due to nationality or name), present religion certificate from either the appropriate embassy or other authority.

Minimum salary requirement must be above 3000-4000 DHS monthly depending on circumstance. Salary Certificate from the applicant’s company must be presented, in Arabic.

Salary Certificate from the company, in Arabic, addressed to the Directorate Gen. Of Police Abu Dhabi - Criminal Investigation Department.

Those who fall into the Drivers category of employment are not allowed to obtain a liquor license.

For renewals old liquor license must be presented.

Also please note that the value of the permit is based on the holder’s salary; up to 20% of the holders salary may be used for alcohol. 

Payment: the charge will be 20% of the license value (for example, should a license value be DHS400, then the charge would be DHS 80.

The completed documents should be taken by the applicant to the Police Directorate (click here to see map).

The Licensing Department is open from 8am-11am on Sundays and Mondays ONLY.

PROs applying on behalf of the employee can go to the Licensing Department on Wednesdays from 8am-11am.

Licences issued will be delivered to you by Empost within a week after submission. DHS 10 will be charged by Empost for delivery.

Now for those of you below the mean (and you know who you are), here's a special gift from me to you, just in case you didn't manage to notice the link to the liquor license application at the bottom of the linked page:

Liquor License Application Form

Ok, that's done.  Of course it's still going to be necessary to actually do a search for this information in order to end up here.  So I offer the following useful link:

www.google.com

Use it.

Cheap eats galore (if you can find them)

It's funny how many people I talk to about Abu Dhabi are surprised to hear how hopping the culinary scene is.  (If you one of those surprised people, check out the Gourmet Abu Dhabi 2009 festival site.)  Yes, it's a city in the middle of a desert, but so is Las Vegas, and I'm sure the latter has many decent eateries (I can't confirm this empirically, as I've never been to Las Vegas and am highly unlikely to set foot there).

Let's take just ONE of the umpteen posh hotels in the city, Le Royal Meridien (remember, this is not the same place as Le Meridien).  A quick look at their website reveals that this hotel alone has nine dining options:

1.  The Shuja Yacht dinner cruise (dinner on a boat)

2.  The Piano Lounge (rather what it sounds like)

3.  Al Fanar (the spaceship restaurant)

4.  Amalfi (de rigueur Italian place)

5.  Soba (Japanese)

6.  L'Opera Brasserie (I still haven't figured out what or where this is)

7.  PJ O'Reilly's (also rather what it sounds like)

8.  Oceans (overpriced, er, delicious seafood)

9.  Zari Zardozi (Indian)

You could stay there for a week and never eat at the same place twice, but you'll pay through the nose for the privilege.

So where to go for a good dinner that won't kill the budget?  Fortunately there are scads of little places - some dirt cheap, some just a hell of a lot more reasonable than what you'll find in a four-star hotel.  TimeOut Abu Dhabi recently published a list of 31 cheap eats, and if you add in the remaining 35 or so from the average-priced list, there's a wealth of places to choose from (I don't recommend 49ers The Gold Rush unless you happen to be a single male looking for, um, company).

There's just one tiny little wrinkle.

Most of the restaurant and café reviews don't actually provide essential information on location.  And even those that do include this minor detail do it in a pretty vague way.  Take, for example, the write up on my favourite Persian restaurant, Hatam al Tae, which offers this handy map:

Great!  Super!  Whoohoo!  A map showing where this restaurant is!  Except that Hatam al Tae is actually located on the other side of Hamdan Street, more like here:

I know what you're thinking:  "Big deal, so it's across the street.  Not a problem."  But Hamdan Street is fairly wide, noisy, and chock-a-block full of cars.  And Hatam al Tae is a wee place, tucked in a corner off the main road.  So you might miss it.

Note to TimeOut editorial staff:  A map that provides flawed information as to the location of a business is about as useful as a clock that's run down.  Except that a broken clock is right twice a day, whereas a bad map is never right.

Being the Pollyanna that I am, however, I see a bright side to all of this:

When you go looking for that elusive cheap eat in Abu Dhabi, I guarantee you'll burn more calories looking for the place than you'll consume once you're there.

Newsflash: "High-speed ferry service for Abu Dhabi" from The National

As much as I love to poke a bit of fun at The National, it really is a pretty good newspaper.

For starters, it's in English.  It's also much more Abu Dhabi-centric than the Gulf News.  And it has a great cryptic crossword (although the Khaleej Times puzzle section beats everyone hands-down).  So I wake up each morning and I read The National online.

I should amend that:  I don't actually read the whole newspaper.  I read the headlines.  When I see a headline that sounds interesting or particularly relevant I read the story.  So I'm probably going to skip things like "Footballer finds career as trick expert despite disability," "The orange blanket sapping the life out of Baghdad," and "Dubai refuses Sex and the City filming."  (Okay, okay, I actually did read that last one as it's going to be my next topic.)

What captured my interest in today's paper was the announcement of a high-speed ferry service to Qatar and Bahrain.  This is great news, because it means if we ever want to go to either place, we don't have to drive through Saudi Arabia:

Not only does that cut the travelling time down, but it means we don't have to EVER have to go through Saudi.  Now that's some pretty good news.