Newsflash: "Don't mind the gaze: you're not in London anymore" from The National

Each time I read The National and come across a bad piece of journalism I think "it can't get any worse than this."

Then the next day's edition hits the streets.

Today, this article discusses THE GAZE -- that omnipresent stare that western women who travel to the Gulf are warned about.

To be honest, I don't mind that much if the editors at The National feel the need to fill a few empty column-inches with editorials about how much women get stared at and whether it should or shouldn't bother them.  I DO mind, however, when rubbish like this makes its way into the presses.  So bear with me while I attack critique the journalist and her two fatal mistakes.

Despite professing to follow the rule of "never say never or always...", she has "come to notice that the western women who complain about the unwanted gaze are seemingly always [my emphasis] women that are by normal standards plain or self-conscious."  Hmm.  If I remember correctly, I've done a fair amount of complaining about people staring at me when I walk around the streets.  Guess that means I'm either plain or self-conscious.  A quick check in the mirror dismisses the first hypothesis, so I must be the latter.  Thanks, Madam Journalist, for pointing that out to me.

The second mistake is better.  Or worse.  Depending on how one looks at it.  Our journalist reports taking a blonde woman's "...complaints about the unwanted attention with a grain of salt...But then again, I am not blonde so I don't know.  Or maybe I know better because I am not blonde."

Let's repeat the last sentence:

"Or maybe I know better because I am not blonde."

Wow!  What a slam!  Well, that was my first thought.  My second just chuckled at the fact that the brunette who wrote that has a Master's degree.

This blonde has a Doctor of Philosphy.

One if by land, two if by sea

I guess that should be one if by air, and no doubt it would have been if they had planes back in Paul Revere's time.

It took me the better part of a day (not counting the past month's worth of enquiries to freight forwarders), multiple phone calls and emails, constant consultations of the calendar, and then a few more phone calls.

But it's done:  we've got air and sea freight locked down and scheduled.

Here's how it all works:

Air freight:

We, essentially, do nothing.  (I love this part)  A fella comes 'round to our house, looks at the stuff we're sending via air, confirms it will not exceed the maximum weight/volume, and then sends a band of little men around the following week to pack it up and take it away.  About two weeks later it magically arrives at our villa in Abu Dhabi.

Sea freight:

We do pretty much everything.  Pack up the boxes.  Hire a local removals company to be here when the container arrives.  Inventory everything that goes in the container, seal it up.  Ten days later it sets sail for the UAE, with an estimated transit time of TWENTY SIX days (Ben Hur wasn't available for the rowing crew), passing through the pirate-infested waters around Somalia:

A week or so after arrival in Abu Dhabi, and maybe, just maybe, without some hot-headed bureaucrat deciding to rifle through everything we own looking for porn, we'll have the fun of unloading the container and setting up house.

That is, yours truly will be setting up house while Mr. World Traveller heads over to the states to renew his driver's license.

I hope he has to fly economy.

Newsflash: "Abu Dhabi reveals cost of parking" from The National

According to today's National, "meters start in October in effort to reduce congestion and haphazard parking -- and to persuade commuters to leave cars at home."

God, I love these newspaper pieces.  They are just so much fun.  This one tickles me because the snippet on the paper's homepage implies that commuters actually have the option to leave their cars at home.  You know, maybe they could take the metro, or the el, or the Abu Dhabi-Dubai shuttle.

And they could, if any of those things existed.

How to find a house in Abu Dhabi - Part Three

Actually, this is more of an update on the progress being made at our villa, which is, in a word, not much.

Despite the fact that Abu Dhabi is a hotbed of construction and probably has the world's largest concentration of cranes, they seem to do things backwards there (soon to be "here").  The latest report on the metamorphosis of our villa from its present state of filth to something habitable by mid-August is this:  they're painting it.

You might think that this is fantastic news.  That's because you live in a place where painting is done last.  Not in Abu Dhabi!  T/here the tradition is to pick one's way around the rubbish left by the previous lot of piggies family and paint the spaces in between.  Once the paint job is complete, they will presumably move on to those niggly little details like repairing the plumbing and air conditioning.  And maybe (just maybe) after that, they'll send in a crew to get rid of the crap that was left there by a pack of people who appear to have had less evacuation notice than the residents of Pompei.  But there's a bright side:

At least they stripped off the wallpaper before they started painting.

Ramadan 2009

As if 120-degree weather (that's 48.9 C for you metric folks) weren't bad enough, we are going to be arriving in Abu Dhabi about five days before the start of Ramadan.

I'm sure you're all curious as to what Ramadan actually means, so I'll tell you:

According to the Ramadan Awareness Campaign, it's from an old Arabic word meaning "scorching heat."  How appropriate that this year it will occur during the scorching month of August.

We're not muslim, but there are elements of Ramadan that will necessarily affect us while we're in the UAE.  For instance:

• We can't drink (not even water!), smoke, eat, or chew gum in public or in front of muslims during daylight hours.  That includes in our car.
• We'll be working approximately two hours a day less than normally.
• We'll have to cover up our shoulders and legs when out in public (so my husband won't be able to wander the streets wearing his usual wife-beater).
• Many bars and restaurants, particularly the food courts in shopping malls, will be closed during the day.
• There won't be any live music or dancing.

But there WILL be sales.  Lots and lots of sales.

So if you want to find us between 20 August and 18 September (approximately), I suggest you look in the furniture stores.

Newsflash: H1N1 health certificate required for expats

Or maybe not.

Consider these two news articles:

Gulf News, 27 July:  "Malls to be provided with thermal scanners"

The National, 28 July:  "Ministry denies call for swine flu certificate"

At first glance, you might shrug and say "so what."  Two completely different pieces of news, right?  Well, not in that bastion of journalistic talent out in the desert.

There are so many things wrong with this I don't know where to start.

The first article, despite carrying the headline about malls and thermal scanners, leads with the following:

Abu Dhabi: Expatriates who are working in the UAE and are on vacation abroad will have to produce a medical certificate that proves they are not infected with H1N1 virus before returning to the country. The move will be implemented from August.

Expatriates who are working?  What about tourists and expat housewives?  And what if they're working expats who didn't leave to go on vacation, but on business?  What is the issuing authority of the medical certificate?  Is it time-sensitive?

Farther down (much farther down), there's a little snippet having something to do with putting thermal scanners in malls.  Then there's some other stuff about incoming flights.

Huh?  What school of journalism did this guy attend where they taught him to generate a headline based on the content of the pre-antepenultimate paragraph in his article (which, by the way, has more than four paragraphs)?  This really upsets me.  Almost as much as having to type out "pre-antepenultimate." If you're not laughing yet, be sure to check out the byline:  this fellow is the Abu Dhabi EDITOR.

It gets better.

According to today's National, the Ministry of Health denies all claims that it resolved to implement a system where returning expats are required to produce H1N1 certificates.  It also denies that thermal scanners will be installed in malls.

I am waiting with baited breath for tomorrow's Gulf News.

Musings on the moving process

Oh, what I'd give to have a bunch of little men come and pack everything up and make it all magically appear in Abu Dhabi.

Instead, here I am watching my Excel moving workbook give birth to even more worksheets -- one for the box inventory, one for the list of stores in Abu Dhabi that we'll need to hit upon arrival, one for the pre-move list of things to be done, one for the list of things to bring in the container (and another just like it for the things that are going by air).

There are manila folders for moving expense receipts.  Folders for vital records.  Folders for stuff that's neither expense-related or vital.

There are piles of moving blankets, carefully stacked and balanced -- all 100 of them.

There's a notebook with daily to-do lists of at least ten items on every page, some of which I manage to get done.

A sea of boxes exists in the dining room, carefully parted so that I can open and close the window and blinds without having to sign up for the Cirque du Soleil Acrobat Training Program.

Decisions about what clothing to move by sea, by air, and by checked baggage consume the better part of my mornings.

We ring the property management firm in charge of turning our wreck villa into something habitable by mid-August on a daily basis.  We're told that it "will get done, so stop calling."

The list goes on.

I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for us.  We clearly brought this on ourselves.  You see, there are two types of relocation packages offered by employers -- the Luxury Package and the Adventure Package.  Sure, we could've rented a brand new villa out in the middle of nowhere a lovely new development, arrived with a couple of suitcases, gone on a spending spree at Ikea, and saved ourselves all of this trouble.  Instead, we chose the road less taken.

And discovered that sometimes the 'road less taken' is less taken for a reason.

Newsflash: Jones the Grocer coming to Abu Dhabi

I'm going to be completely honest here: I never heard of Jones the Grocer before this morning, but I think I'm in love already (sorry honey). While the Aussies are laughing, I think I best explain this to the Yanks and Brits:

Jones the Grocer (actually, "jones the grocer" a la e.e. cummings) is a gourmet food shop, bakery, fromagerie, and café, all rolled into one.  And it's coming to Abu Dhabi later this month, according to this article from The National.

Not that food shopping in Abu Dhabi currently leaves too much to be desired.  The Carrefour at Marina Mall is well-stocked with pretty much everything I would want, and the Spinneys in Al Khalidiya sells plenty of Waitrose-branded products, cheese, Welsh lamb, and even pork.  The first time I visited Carrefour I even took some pictures of the produce and spices:

Not bad, eh?

I have a feeling Jones the Grocer is going to be even better.

For one, it's going to have a 16 square-meter cheese room.  Truffle oil.  Wagyu beef.  (Is it time for lunch yet?).  And as an added bonus, it'll be within walking distance from our new home.

It's days like this when I think that living in Abu Dhabi really isn't going to be much of a hardship.

Click here for a location map

Staying pretty in the desert

Time for a refreshing break from rental market ramblings.  Ready?  Let's say "salon."

I'm not actually much of a salon sort of a gal.  For one, I'm cheap economically conservative, and for two, I really have nothing to contribute to the idle chit chat about last night's reality show that constitutes 99% of the conversations in pretty much any salon.  I'm more of the just-cut-my-hair-and-shut-up type.  But I do go to these places once in a while, and I'm going to up the frequency by some order of magnitude once we arrive in our new home.

There's a salon (or sometimes a "saloon") on pretty much every corner in Abu Dhabi.  A huge number of these are for gents, but I'm going to focus on the ones for ladies in this posting (for reasons that should be obvious, salons over there are not unisex).

Here's a short list of spas and beauty salons in Abu Dhabi.  And here's another one.

Note the conspicuous lack of addresses.  Take Effie Salon, for instance.  It's on Najda Street. Great.  Najda Street (also called 6th Street) is about three kilometers long.  And like most streets, it has two sides.  If it hadn't been smack in front of the hotel we were staying in, I never would've found the place.

But as it happens, Effie's has an enormous sign on the side of the building it's in.  That was sort of helpful, but I still had to circumnavigate the building and ask two salesgirls in one of the shops to point me in the right direction.

Here's what to do: Stand in front of the Al Maha Arjaan, facing Najda Street.  Look to the right and slightly up.  You'll see the sign.  Now walk around to the side of the building facing AWAY from Najda Street.  That's the entrance and there's a directory in the lobby if I remember correctly.

The benefit of not being able to find Effie's right away was that by chatting with the salesgirl I found out that it's a GREAT place to have your eyebrows threaded, but not a very good choice for a manicure and pedicure.  So I ventured up to the mysterious Effie's and had my brows threaded.

I know what many of you gals are thinking, and it rhymes with whisky tango foxtrot.

Eyebrow threading is an ancient art, and interestingly called bande abru (bande = 'thread'; abru = 'eyebrow') in Persia.  Or what used to be Persia.  Notice the amazing similarity to English's 'band' and 'eyebrow.'  Pretty cool, huh?  That's because Persian (Farsi) is an indo-european language, not an afro-asiatic language like the semitic Arabic.  But I digress.

I didn't notice any Persians at Effie's, but the woman who did my eyebrows was a wonderful Indian lady named Dorothy.  Yes, really (remember, it wasn't that long ago that the Brits were still in India).  I had some serious doubts about the efficacy of winding thread around my little eyebrow hairs, and even more serious doubts as to how in the world any premeditated shape would be achieved, but five minutes and pretty much zero pain later, I walked out with the best eyebrow job I'd ever had.

For fifteen dirham ($4.09).

The thing about salons in Abu Dhabi is that they are dirt cheap.   (The same treatment in London's Mayfair costs $23.00.)

Now Effie's isn't the poshest place on the planet, and it seems to cater more to non-western women, which might turn some expats off.  But not this one.  It was clean and tidy, and Dorothy was fantastic.  I didn't have the heart to tell her I was going somewhere else to have my nails and toes done.

Which brings me to manicures and pedicures.  The nice gal at the shop near Effie's recommended Nails (yet another website under construction), which has a branch in Khalidiya at Al Muhairy Centre and another in Abu Dhabi Mall.  I chose the Abu Dhabi Mall location because it was within walking distance (about a mile, which is the most I can do in 110 degree weather) from our hotel.

Nails was great.  No appointments, but I only had to wait about five minutes before two gals went to work on my hands and footsies.  I walked out about 40 minutes later with a superb manicure and pedicure, for a grand total of $27.26.

And this is one of the EXPENSIVE nail salons in the city.

Sometimes, I really do enjoy being a girl.

C is for Capitalism, D is for Dubai

I saw a post recently on one of the expat forums.  The author had a quixotic (i.e., irrational) "dream of living in Dubai" and one of the reasons was that in the good old USA everyone was a slave to capitalism. 

So he prefers to head over to Dubai.  The hotbed of capitalism.  Go figure.

Assessing a job offer

So how do you know whether your salary and allowance package is high enough?  Here's the short answer:

Market research and analysis of your own situation.

It's amazing to me how many people don't do either one of these.  Instead, they post multiple messages on expat forums asking whether their offer is "good enough."  Sometimes I just want to smack them.

For starters, the market research isn't that difficult, particularly when you consider that the three major English-language periodicals (Gulf News, The National, and The Khaleej Times) regularly report on the rental situation in Abu Dhabi.  If those articles don't supply enough information, run a Google search using the words real estate Abu Dhabi.  I betcha a dirham that the top hit will be www.propertyfinder.ae.  It might not include everything on the market, but it will give you an excellent idea on the general prices in different areas around Abu Dhabi.  Finally, contact a few real estate agents.  Tell them your budget and ask them what's available.  If you pester them enough, they will eventually respond.  (Note for etymology buffs:  eventually comes from the Arabic maybeoneofthesedaysormaybenot.)  Once you've done this research, pick something you think is suitable and write down how much it costs. Let's call this HOUSING.

Now for the tricky part.

Look at your job offer.  The whole package, not just the salary.  Just add all the numbers together -- base salary, housing allowance, furniture allowance, school allowance, etc.  Since money is fungible, it really doesn't matter what the individual amounts are.  Write down that sum and call it INCOME.

Subtract HOUSING from INCOME.  This is what you will have left to live on after you've shelled out all the money in the world for one year's worth of rent.  (hint:  if it's a negative number, stop reading here and stay wherever you are currently living)

If it's a positive number, we need to do a little more work, because you'll still need money to live on.  How much you need depends on your personal situation.  If you have children, count on Dhs 30,000 a year (or more) to send each one to school.  Factor in the expense of a car, as you'll need one in Abu Dhabi.  Remember that you'll likely need to buy all of your major appliances.  Decide whether you'll be shipping your household effects over or buying them locally -- either way, it's an expense.  Don't forget utilities and food and anything else that you regularly spend money on.  Add all of these numbers together and call the sum LIVING EXPENSES.

I hope you see where this is going.  If you don't, it's probably because you missed that third-grade lesson on word problems.

The sad reality is that some offers just aren't good enough.  And the situation darkens for US citizens because the US is one of the very few countries that taxes based on citizenship not residence.  And the basis for US income tax is all of one's compensation.  That means pretty much anything and everything an employer pays -- whatever they choose to call it.  Yes, there are exclusions for non-US residents, and I'll write about them in another post.  But in the meantime, keep in mind that moving to a tax-free country like the UAE doesn't mean one won't pay any taxes.

So how did we end up deciding whether or not our offers were good enough to justify moving halfway across the world?  Well, fortunately, I spent my early adulthood learning how to do financial analysis from two graduates of a usual-top-ten MBA program.  And I have a really good friend called Ms. Excel, who painstakingly calculated the net we'd be pocketing under several different scenarios (okay, so I had to give her the numbers).  This took a lot more time than looking for advice on the internet, but it was the better choice.

Because advice, as we all know, is pretty much worth what you pay for it.

Drugs: Just say "no"...

...to poppy seed cake.  (I'll get to that later.)

The UAE, like any society where religion has been permitted to weave its tentacles through all aspects of government, has an extensive list of "banned" things.

So I won't be bringing the following:

• The Book of Mormon (I have this because I'm still trying to figure out how those golden discs were lost)
  
• Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
  
• Anaïs Nin's Little Birds
  
• Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion (actually, I am bringing this)
  
• my last bottle of codeine-laced French cough syrup
  
• and my poppy seeds
  

It's these last two items that I'll be talking about here.

Browse any UAE/Abu Dhabi/Dubai expat forum and you'll find numerous references to the UAE "banned" drugs list and scary news pieces about normal people being jailed for bringing their prescribed back pain medicine with them.  This write-up from the Gulf News Residents Guide is a bit easier to follow.  The items on this list aren't banned per se, they're controlled, just as they are in many other countries.  Go ahead -- walk into your local CVS pharmacy and ask for a bottle of Tylenol 3 or a bit of morphine if you don't believe me.  (Although if you're in the UK, that paracetamol-with-codeine mix can be had at any chemist sans prescription.)

From my perspective, there are two problems with the controlled substances list.  First, it contains a number of over-the-counter items readily available in most stores, like certain flavours of Robitussin and St. Joseph's cough and cold medicines.  Ok, fine.  It's the second problem -- the total ban on poppy seeds -- that I find idiotic.  Yes, I suppose one could, with enough poppy seeds of the right variety, start a little opium poppy garden in the middle of the desert (I myself prefer bougainvillea), but the seeds themselves apparently have no narcotic content because they only develop once the plant has lost its opium-producing potential.  (See this little horticultural excerpt.)  Nevertheless, you won't find poppy seeds in the baking aisle at Lulu's or Carrefour.  And I won't be bringing mine from home either.

Too bad, because I have an awesome recipe for poppy seed cake.

Shop 'Til You Drop -- Furniture and Household Goods

As I mentioned, shopping seems to be one of the official Abu Dhabi national pastimes.  There are malls everywhere:  Abu Dhabi Mall, Al Wahda Mall, Marina Mall (which, despite being touted as the best mall in Abu Dhabi, doesn't actually have a website), Madinat Zayed Shopping Centre and Gold Souk, Khalidiya Mall, Al Raha Mall, Al Muhairy Centre, and the tiny little Liwa Centre.  

And those are just the MALLS.  I won't even get started on shopping in nearby Dubai.  Hey, that rhymes!

Let me get something straight before I continue:  I'm a bit of an evolutionary mystery because, despite the fact that I'm a woman, I detest shopping.  Don't get me wrong, I like buying things (sometimes), but I don't like having to leave my house to do so and I really don't like paying retail.

But even though shopping is in my Personal Catalogue of Anathema, it's something that will just have to be done once we arrive in our new house that should be on the top of the city's condemned buildlings list villa next month.  We're not bringing much furniture with us, so we'll need sofas and chairs, a dining room set, beds for our room and the guest suites, office furniture for my husband (I can't do without my good old Ethan Allen), bookcases, lighting, curtains, a barbeque, and some portraits of the Crown Prince.

So where to start?

Fortunately, there are plenty of places to go for these and other things, and prices to suit various sizes of pocketbooks (including the Shylockian Austerity Budget and the Ebenezer Scrooge Husbandry Program).  Here's a handy little list:

Furniture

Ikea (yeah, yeah, I know)

Home Centre

Homes r Us (in the Madinat Zayed Shopping Centre)

The One (winner of the Stupidest Website on the Planet Award)

Pan Emirates

Natuzzi (sorry, Dad)

Marlin

Eldiar

Kitchenware

Carrefour

Ikea

The One

Jashanmal

Bed linens

Home Centre

Carrefour

The White Company (new!!)

Zara Home

Curtains and re-upholstering

Shadows

Christmas decorations

Home Centre (nice to know, but I haven't quite nailed down where we're going to find a Christmas tree to put them on...)

Gardening supplies

Ace

Plants

Mina Zayed Plant Souk

Miscellaneous electrical

Carrefour

The Abu Dhabi Co-op

Jashanmal

Plug Ins

and pretty much every shop on Electra Street

I'm not quite sure where we're going to find that portrait of HH, but isn't it a damn good thing for us that shopping ranks second to falconry as the national pastime?

Sea freight: the last of the red hot deals

Some things are really expensive:  diamonds, platinum, a house in London, plutonium, for instance.  But we often forget about the remaining great bargains in our time.  Things like salt, glass, used paperbacks, and sea freight.

That's right, sea freight -- our topic for this morning.

Moving things around on a boat is incredibly cheap, especially if you're not looking for full-service relocation packages.  And when you're married to a gal like me, you don't need full service because I am a packing MAVEN.  If you don't believe me, I'll send you my Excel workbook.

The quotes for getting a 20-foot container's worth of our stuff from England to Abu Dhabi have come in and average about £2,000.  That number includes getting the container to our door, giving us a couple of hours to load it, making it appear in Abu Dhabi, and delivering it to the Tornado Villa (which still resembles something out of 1980's downtown Beirut, as suggested by a friend).

I looked back at our invoice from 2006 from the UK move and the breakdown was:

export documentation:  $100

delivery of empty container to our house:  $725

ocean freight:  $920

destination CSC (whatever that is):  $205

customs clearance:  $200

delivery to new flat:  $710.60 (why bother with the sixty cents?)

ocean freight:  $920 !!

Now if that isn't the bargain of the century, I don't know what is.

Home, sweet home

Well, it looks like we're nearly there, as the utilities at Tornado Villa should be connected today (for you fans of etymology, the English word "today" has its origins in the semitic root twodaysorsofromnowifyou'relucky).

You're probably wondering why in the world we would want to spend this much time and effort leasing a villa that is presently a mess and may not be ready by the time we move when we could walk into a shiny new one in Al Raha Gardens or Golf Gardens.  I can answer that in three words:

Location.  Location.  Location.

In other words, smack in the middle of Abu Dhabi island.

Now that we're a bit more confident about actually having a place to live in Abu Dhabi, I can give you the address:

A big white villa in Al Karama, somewhere sort of near an embassy, across the street from a villa with extremely ugly walls, next to a couple of other big villas, and not too far from the shopping mall.

I hope you all have your Outlook settings tweaked to allow for 12-line address fields.

How to find a house in Abu Dhabi - Part Two

It's now just about four weeks since my research assistant (new term for husband) located a villa for us.  You remember, the one with the kitchen that looks like the film set of the food fight in Animal House.

And it looks as if we're going to get it.

Finally.

Let's take a look at the process of acquiring this magnificent piece of real estate:

28 June

First of all, this wasn't something listed in any property database or newspaper real estate section.  Why not?  Because it was a complete disaster area.  I mean, the guys in Stalag 17 had it better in terms of living quarters.  At least they were military folk and therefore pretty neat and tidy (I believe there is only ONE military man in the world who isn't neat and tidy, and I'm married to him).  This place was so bad that even the real estate agent (who is working for us, not for the owner) didn't want to show it to us.  Eventually she did.  And it was pretty bad. Mind you, I didn't actually SEE it, or any of the pictures, until after we made the offer.

1 July

We made an offer to the property management firm, contingent on all cleaning and repairs being completed within 30 days.  At that time, if work was completed to our satisfaction, we would enter into an annual rental agreement.  They agreed.

2 July

We sent a work list to the property manager, detailing all items to be cleaned and/or repaired. 

6 July

Property manager accepted the work list.

Then we waited a week.

12 July

We asked for a progress report and were told nothing had been done.  Why not?  Because the property management firm wasn't going to start ANY work until the annual rent had been paid and contract signed and utilities hooked up.

Utilities hooked up?  I know, I know.  Apparently the way things work out in the Land of Lawrence is that the tenant has the utilities connected, the property manager does the work, and then reimburses the tenant.  Ok, whatever.

The little hiccough here was a slight (9 day) delay getting the check and contract taken care of. So we waited.  And we waited.  And we waited again.

21 July

It is entirely possible that we now have a place to live in Abu Dhabi.  (Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd write.)  In between doing all that clever consulting work, my RA will be popping around to check on progress.  So far they seem to have removed an entire dumpster's worth of rubbish from the garden, so things are looking good.

Remember, this is Arabia, so the fact that someone has removed rubbish from your house is cause for celebration.

I have to confess I haven't actually learned any patience over the past month.  But at least I've discovered that mañana is actually an Arabic word.

Shop 'Til You Drop -- White Goods

White goods are so pretty,

Satin-finished steel,

If you go to Carrefour

You can get a deal!

Those lines will make a LOT more sense if you are familiar with the soundtrack to Hair.

This is the first in a what will probably be a series of shop-til-you-drop postings.  Because not only is shopping one of the official UAE national pastimes, it's also necessary -- at least until you get that 3,500 square foot villa furnished and outfitted with appliances.

Yep, that's right, I said *appliances*.  As in white goods.  The refrigerator, range, dishwasher, and laundry facilities are all conspicuously missing from villas in Abu Dhabi.  Actually, there is a refrigerator standing in the yard outside the villa we are trying to rent, but I don't think that counts.

I don't really know why the culture of take-your-appliances-with-you exists over there. Particularly when you think that a significant number of expats leaving a villa might not be moving into another one, but moving OUT of Abu Dhabi.  And it's not just the appliances that go, but the curtains, light fixtures, and even the light bulbs.

What this means is that it's a priority to buy those appliances within a day or two of arriving, and if you're anything like me, that means you'll want to have done some research beforehand. The most efficient way to get that research done is to send your husband over there armed with a shopping list and a notepad and have HIM run around the appliance stores.  But not everyone can do that, so here's a short guide to appliance-hunting in the capital:

Go to Carrefour.

Ok, maybe that's too short.  But my scout -- er, husband -- seemed to have excellent luck there and reported the following:

LG refrigerator

Indesit cooker

LG convection microwave

LG washer/dryer

Sony flatpanel television

Sharp canister vacuum cleaner

and a flash Maytag dishwasher.

Now doesn't he deserve a round of applause?  Particularly since we're talking about a man who doesn't cook, doesn't do laundry (well, at least not very often), doesn't believe in dishwashers, and doesn't watch television.

There are other places I could send him -- Costless, Jashanmal, Better Life  -- to name a few. But why?  After all, a dishwasher is a dishwasher, at least once you get up into the astronomical price ranges of brands like Miele and Bosch.  And unlike here at home where we plan on using an appliance for ten to fifteen years, the farthest ahead we need to think about our Abu Dhabi kitchen is about two years.

Assuming, that is, that we actually HAVE a kitchen to move into in a few weeks.

How to move a household halfway around the world (and not die trying)

Right, so it's not EXACTLY halfway around the world, but Abu Dhabi is pretty far from the US East coast, and if the Pacific Ocean weren't so bloody big, I wouldn't actually have to exaggerate.

This will be our third transcontinental move in as many years and as before, we're doing it ourselves rather than hiring a full-service moving company.  I have a feeling this time around will be a bit more complicated than the last two, mostly due to the Procrustean policies of our respective employers.

To be fair, some of the complication arises from the fact that we've been given choices -- a good thing, since people vary in terms of what they want to bring with them when moving halfway across the world.  Some want their entire household, some want a subset of that, and some would prefer to arrive in their new home with nothing more than a suitcase full of clothing and purchase everything locally.  It's not the choices themselves that are maddening, it's the fact that the individual who came up with the relocation allowance policies doesn't seem to have made it past third grade math.  Here's why:

Take me, for example.  I've been offered the following options for my relocation allowance:

1.   sea freight of a 20-foot container
2.  air freight of 661.38 lbs
3.  cash of US $340.32

Based on our experience and research, we know the approximate cost of sea freight and air freight, so let me revise my relocation offer in terms of cost to the employer in dollars:

1.   $2,000
2.  $2,000
3.  $340.32

Huh?

But maybe that's just one company's weirdness and other employers have staff who are actually able to add.  Let's take a look at another relocation package:

1.  sea freight of 20-foot container + $5,000
2.  air freight of 1,000 lbs + $10,000

As before, I'll substitute the shipping costs with actual dollar amounts and restate the allowances to make comparison easier:

1.  $7,000
2.  $14,000

The reason this doesn't make a bit of sense is because air freight costs more than sea freight.  A lot more.  The average cost of shipping a 20-foot container with something like 4 or 5 tons of cargo is $2,000, the same as the average cost of shipping a half ton via air freight (and by the way, that half ton is volumetric weight, and therefore actually quite less than half a ton).  So why the cash incentive to ship LESS when the cost to the person paying is the SAME?  Imagine if the Sphinx had posed such a question to weary travellers instead of the four legs-two legs-three-legs riddle.  No one would have ever gotten anywhere.

So here we are, not only packing up half the house, but now running complicated Excel scenarios trying to optimise the volumetric weight allowances, segregate the packed boxes into air and sea freight groups, weigh EVERYTHING that's going by air, deal with two different freight forwarders, and schedule two separate moving exercises.

And all because someone can't add.

Skype

Don't take my word for it, go to the UAE and point your browser to www.skype.com.

You won't get through.

Then go browse some expat forums and read (for your entertainment) the multitude of panicky posts asking what to do about calling abroad cheaply and how to crack the Skype problem.

Anyone who's done a bit of research on VoIP, specifically Skype, in the UAE knows that the site is blocked by the Powers That Be.  Ok, so the telephone monopoly is protecting its interests.  Fine.  Whatever.  Anyone with half a brain (well, most people with half a brain) can get around this.

The easiest thing to do is to download Skype before you travel.  See, it's not the application that's blocked, it's the website from which you download it.

Of course, there are those who don't research things ad nauseum before they move halfway across the world, and even those who do might end up having to re-download the app once they're already in the UAE.  We might have to make the leap up to a minimum 3/4 brain requirement to find a solution to this problem, but it can be done.

First of all, read about proxy servers, paying close attention to "anonymising proxies."  Then find a free one and configure your browser to use it (one might think that proxy server information is inaccessible once in the UAE, but one would be wrong - the Powers that Be aren't that clever).  I'm particularly fond of Tor (The Onion Router) and find that it works wherever and whenever I need it to.  Once that's all done, open the browser using the proxy and head over to the Skype site.

Trust me, it works.

Education in the Desert

I thought it would be nice to take a break from the rental market rants and talk about higher education in Abu Dhabi since, well, it's something I'm going to jump into feet first in a few short weeks.

NYU seems to be doing the same thing, just on a slightly grander scale, per yesterday's edition of The National:

"Make No Little Plans"

There are a number of universities in the UAE already, but there aren't really any branches of American universities there.  The unfortunate demise of George Mason University's Ras al Khaimah campus earlier this year is a complete mystery to me -- most articles have some vague reference "the economic downturn" or "budget and control issues" being at fault.  I can't even figure out what their target student population was.

So now, NYU is embarking on an even bigger campus project in Abu Dhabi.  From my perspective, there are three interesting points to consider:

1. This will be (as far as I know) the first higher education institution in Abu Dhabi to focus on a liberal arts curriculum.
   
2. The campus will be something of "a legal bubble" in terms of internet access and social/academic freedom.
   
3. The admissions standards will be "highly selective."
   

Let's discuss these one by one.

First of all, what's going on with NYUAD's core curriculum description?

• Pathways of World Literature
• Structures of Thought and Society
• Art, Technology, and Invention
• Ideas and Methods of Science

I don't know about you, but this reminds me of a great little story called "The Emperor's New Clothes."  Why can't they just say that the core curriculum is the same old tried and true "literature/social science/fine arts/science" set that everyone KNOWS it is.  Sigh.

But whatever NYUAD wants to call it, the very idea of a liberal arts focus is stirring up some debate in the ether -- particularly with respect to how it will appeal to potential Emirati students.  (There are also a few ESL teacher types on Dave's ESL Cafe who seem to have fun bashing the liberal arts in general - ah well.  Some of them were probably my students back when I taught the one and only postgraduate education course that I ever will teach.)

I actually like the liberal arts.  And I certainly don't think it's useless, as will be confirmed after five minutes of conversation with any graduate of the superb institution St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland.  The question is whether students in Abu Dhabi are ready for this type of academic venture.  Remember, we're talking about a city that has ONE public library in the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation.  A quick look through their online catalog tells me that the following are available:

A few books by Steven Pinker

Melville's Moby Dick

Various Isaac Asimov

Various Noam Chomsky

Various Mark Twain

Cervantes' Don Quixote

and some Tolstoy

as well as tons of other stuff.

Looks good so far, right?  Well, I ventured a bit further into the literary corners of my mind and searched for some books that I didn't think would be there:

anything by Chaim Potok

anything by Henry Miller

Lady Chatterly's Lover

E.M. Forster's Maurice

anything by Vladimir Nabokov

anything by Ray Bradbury

Atlas Shrugged, or anything by Ayn Rand

the bible

And guess what - they weren't there.

There's a reason these books aren't in the Cultural Foundation's library catalogue, and I'll bet you can figure it out, so I don't need to go into details here.  The metaquestion is more interesting:

How is a (true) liberal arts curriculum compatible with cultural restraints?

Maybe NYU will have the answer to that, which brings me to the next interesting thing about NYUAD:  the legal bubble.

According to this NYU News article of April 2009, "many of the emirate's more controversial laws and regulations will be lifted" on its Abu Dhabi campus.  Like access to blocked internet sites, including the famously popular Skype.com, which I'll address in another post.  Or homosexuality.  Or academic freedom.  So there's a bit of a contradiction here:  those American students who decide to attend NYUAD won't really be immersing themselves in local culture, and those local students may find themselves in a cultural bubble that defies their own customs.  This is gonna be interesting to watch.

Finally, the "highly selective" admissions standards beg the question as to what the target student population is, and whether Emirati students will constitute a significant part of it.  Don't get me wrong -- I'm not assuming that the average college-bound Emirati can't handle it, but this recent article in The National states that

"...only 13 per cent of applicants to federal universities scored enough in their English exams to bypass remedial courses."

THIRTEEN per cent.

I really AM pulling for NYU's success out there, but like I said, this is gonna be interesting to watch.

In search of coffee

I'm not a coffee snob, but the little packets of instant coffee granules in the hotel rooms really do leave something to be desired.  And sometimes it's nice to sit in a comfy chair and read the paper in a different setting, like one that doesn't involve an unmade bed in the middle of the room.  So on my most recent trip to Abu Dhabi, I made it a priority to find some cafes.

This was hard work.

For starters, there really isn't as much information on Abu Dhabi as one might think, given that it's an international city approximately the size of Washington, DC.  The places to begin are few:

TimeOut Abu Dhabi

Trip Advisor

The tried and true (but incredibly out of date) Abu Dhabi Complete Residents' Guide

Unfortunately, these resources all tend to be a bit on hotelcentric, meaning it's a lot harder to find that cute little hole-in-the-wall than it is to find the coffee shop in the Intercontinental.  I'll continue my quest, but meanwhile offer four reviews for your coffee-sipping pleasure:

1.  Ninar

You can't beat this place.  It's got everything -- reasonably good coffee (I'm not a snob, remember?), great breakfast food; fun, cheap, and fresh bites for the evening; industrious emirati students cramming for exams, and big comfy sofas and chairs.  And since going out for morning coffee in the Al Markaziyah neighbourhood doesn't seem to be a popular activity, you'll probably have the place to yourself before noon.

The tiny little problem with Ninar is actually locating it.  It's next to the Transylvania Cafe', but that didn't really help us.  We were fortunate that we knew the area and were committed to walking around in circles until we found the place.

Here's what to do:  Starting at the intersection of 6th (Najda) and Hamdan Streets, head up 6th towards the Corniche until you arrive at the corner of Le Royal Meridien hotel (n.b., not Le Meridien Royal, as most Francophones would think, and definitely not Le Meridien, which is way over in the Tourist club Area).  You'll recognise Le R.M. by the flying saucer restaurant perched atop.  Now turn right and walk past the Hamdan Post Office.  Ninar is just past it on your left.

2.  City Cafe'

This is actually in a hotel -- the Al Maja Arjaan (one of the Rotana group), but I like it because it doesn't look like a hotel cafe'.  It's small, with a few sofas and low tables, and the cappuccino and caffe' latte are perfectly acceptable.  Service is friendly and prompt, and the place is usually quiet enough to get work done (occasionally there will be one of those mobile phone maniacs who doesn't understand that his phone amplifies his voice for him).  As an added bonus, if you look like me they'll reserve you one of the nice big sofa tables and your caffe' latte will arrive without you even having to bother to order it.

Here's what to do:  Go to the Al Maha Arjaan at the corner of 6th and Hamdan Streets.  Walk in.  Turn right.

3.  Gloria Jean's

I'm not a big fan of coffee house chains.  Particularly the ones with pseudo-Italianate names that are either spelled wrong, pronounced wrong, or both.  But I like the Gloria Jean's at Marina Mall because of the atmosphere -- at the front of the mall on the mezzanine looking out over the yachts in the marina, it's bright and cheerful and you can take advantage of the sun without suffering from the heat.  The food isn't much to write home about, but the view makes it worth it.

Here's what to do:  Get in a taxi.  Say "Marina Mall."  Enter the mall, look up slightly to the right and you'll see G.J.'s.

4.  Starbucks

I don't like Starbucks.  The coffee tastes burnt (to my philistine palate), and even their decaf packs way too much of a punch for this caffeine-intolerant gal.  But the big guy had a meeting at the Hamdan Street branch and I went in to do some knitting.

Never again.

The place was, to put it simply, filthy.  Stains on the carpets.  Stains on the furniture.  Stains and scratches on the tables.  Maybe they were going for that distressed look, and just overdid it a tad.

Here's what to do:  Head to whichever Starbucks is closest to you (I'm not giving them any more free advertising).  Then pass it by and go somewhere else.

How to find a house in Abu Dhabi

Well, at least how to generate utter panic and frustration.

Believe it or not, we started looking back in March, long before either one of us had full-time job offers, to get a sense of the neighbourhoods, availability, prices, and general layout of properties.  This was amazingly difficult, particularly when the real estate agents found out we weren't ready to sign a contract and present a check (for all the money in the world) immediately.  As I mentioned in a previous post, it was difficult even getting them to ring back when they discovered it was nothing more than a recce trip.  Only one agent (not surprisingly the one we ended up using when we became ready!) drove me around Abu Dhabi to see some exemplars.

There are effectively three categories of rental accommodation in Abu Dhabi (well, four, if you count labour camps):

A.  Villa built to western expat spec

B.  Villa built to UAE national spec

C.  Apartment in a high rise

You might think that A and B are the same.  They are not.  The "expat" type of villas in compounds like Khalidiya Village, Al Raha Gardens, Mushrif Gardens, and Golf Gardens can be enormous (four or five bedrooms, all with en suites, and potentially around 2,500-3,000 sq. ft. or more in living area).

The "UAE national" type of villas are larger.  I saw one in Mushrif that had not one, but two living rooms (one for the ladies with a separate entrance, and one larger room that was reminiscent of the ballroom in The Sound of Music.  The kitchen was the size of a slightly smaller ballroom, four immense bedrooms were on the next floor, and the top floor had two maid's rooms, each with a bath.  I came away from it thinking that all of our personal belongings would fit nicely in the main living room.

While this all sounds fantastic, the fact is that many expats don't actually want such a place.  They can't wrap their heads around those dimensions, which are likely built for entertaining extensive groups of family and friends.  And they may not be shipping most of their worldly goods across the seas, so obviously want something that will look slightly cozier than a barn once they've filled it with local purchases.

We are not in that category of expat.

Big is good, and bigger is even better, particularly when you look at the inventory of antique rugs that are still rolled up down in our cellar here in the UK.  Or when you consider that I want a kitchen that I can put a sofa (or two) in.  And since both of us do a substantial amount of work from home, those extra bedrooms come in handy for office space.  (No, we could not share office space.  Those of you who know us know why.)

Right, so last month my other half starts scouting around Abu Dhabi for a villa with the following specifications:

• a garden
• a big kitchen
• parking
• within walking distance to something other than a highway

This is harder than it sounds.

At the time, a villa in the enormously popular Khalidiya Village compound had become available and cost less than... well, let's just say less than it did in January.  (I don't think one had been vacant for years, and there has been a waiting list).  I was excited.  Wow!  Walking distance to Khalidiya Mall!  Being able to buy a pint of milk without having to get in a car!  Sadly this was too good to be true.  The thing about these compounds is that they've got one way in and out -- you know, for tight security in a practically crime-free city.  So if you're on the end of the compound farthest from the gate, even though you might be able to throw a baseball at Khalidiya Mall, you'll end up driving to get that pint of milk.  So much for Khalidiya Village.

The next stop was a non-compound villa in Al Karama.  That's the neighbourhood smack in the centre of Abu Dhabi -- potentially within walking distance to all sorts of things.  It has a garden!  A huge kitchen!  Parking for two cars!  It's next to the Palestinian Embassy!  (Ok, maybe that wasn't exactly on our wish-list.)  And at the moment it looks like this:

And not only did the previous tenants live like this, they LEFT it in this condition.  I'd show more pictures, but I think it would be more relaxing if you went out and rented a horror movie.

The funny thing is, we decided it was perfect.  Because when you're moving to a place like Abu Dhabi, "perfect" takes on a whole new meaning.

A Fistful of Dirhams

The UAE dirham is the unit of currency of the UAE.  Up until now, I've been wondering where the word actually came from....

It's from the Greek drachma!!  And from that we get dram for a unit of mass!  Interesting that the Arabic adoption repairs the initial consonant cluster [dr] by inserting a vowel.  Oh...sorry...I got carried away.

The other cool thing about the UAE dirham is that it's pegged to the US dollar.  So, at least for the time being, and since 1997, 1 US dollar = 3.67 Dhs.  A very handy thing for those of us who persist in thinking in our native currency, despite living in the UK for over three years.

I only have one complaint.

Why 3.67?  Why not 3, or 4?  See, unless something costs of 3.67 times some power of 10 (like a 367,000 Dhs villa), it's a royal pain to convert dirhams to dollars on the fly.  (Of course it's also possible that I was absent on the day they covered the 3.67 times table in my third grade class).  So my tactic is to divide x by 3 and by 4, and then choose a number in the middle of those two results.  But it would be so much easier to just divide by either 3 or 4, particularly for those Barbie dolls that say "Math is hard" when you pull the string on their back.

No doubt my clever economist friend will shed some light on this one day, but in the meantime, I've got to get back to memorising my 3.67 times table.

Or, if you just can't be bothered, think of a 100 Dhs note as a $28 bill.

Newsflash: "Abu Dhabi Rents Fall to Compete with Dubai" from The National

Today's National reports that rents in the capital (Abu Dhabi) are finally starting to fall as the following occur:

1. People leave Abu Dhabi permanently
2. People choose to leave Abu Dhabi and rent in Dubai
3. 500,000 more new villas have become available at Al Raha Gardens

Abu Dhabi Rents Fall to Compete with Dubai

And Emirates Business24/7 tells us the same:

Tenants in Abu Dhabi Expect 50% Lower Rents

This all seems like great news.  Sort of like the weatherman predicting 78 degrees and sunny.

Then it rains.

See, we can't really ever have complete confidence in the weatherman, because he isn't always right.  Nor can we have much confidence in newspaper reports about rental markets in Abu Dhabi, because they change their minds every couple of weeks.

On 28 June 2009, just two short weeks ago, Emirates Business24/7 reported the following:

Rents Rise in Capital Defying Forecasts

In case you don't feel like reading the articles, here's a one-sentence summary of them:

28 June 2009:   Rents are increasing in Abu Dhabi.

14 July 2009: Rents are decreasing in Abu Dhabi.

The more I think about it, the more it's NOT like the weatherman.  The weatherman doesn't tell us that it will be both sunny and rainy.  Some Abu Dhabi journalists, though, appear to be doing just that.

For the geographically challenged

Ok, sometimes that includes me.

Today we're going to look at some maps.  Maps are our friends, unless you are a taxi driver in Abu Dhabi, in which case looking at a two-dimensional rendering of any geographical area is slightly more daunting than looking at a Rubik's Cube for the first time.  (Free advice:  Don't give your driver a map, as it will only make things worse.  Take my word for it.  Multiple experiments have demonstrated that there is not a single professional driver in Abu Dhabi who is familiar with the concept of a map.)

I mentioned a couple of days ago that Abu Dhabi is not Dubai.  That still holds true.  Here's a partial UAE map showing that they are, in fact, two different places:

Since we're concerned here with Abu Dhabi, not Dubai, let's zoom in on just the Abu Dhabi portion (the city and its surroundings, not the entire Emirate of Abu Dhabi):

Although it's difficult to see, the city of Abu Dhabi is an island, the crucial dividing point between "mainland" and "Abu Dhabi island" being that bit of water in the middle of the map running twixt Bain Al Jessrain and Officers City.  While significant development is occurring in off-island areas around Khalifa City A (shown as Madinat Khalifa A on the map), the heart of the city, including government offices, businesses, shopping, restaurants, etc.  are still on Abu Dhabi island.  Eventually, lots of this stuff will move over to Khalifa City A.  Eventually.

Finally, we'll take a quick look at Abu Dhabi Island and its neighbourhoods:

The key area on this map is the Corniche -- the stretch of seafront running between the Tourist Club Area and Al Khubeirah on the northwest side of the island.  The closer you are to the Corniche, the closer you are (generally) to the central business district, shops, eateries, etc.  Neighbourhoods like Al Bateen, Al Karama, Al Mushrif, and Al Nahyan tend to be more residential, and farther away from the action (and noise) of the city.

The National Newspaper has published some excellent articles in its "Why Live In..." series.  Here are a few samples for your reading pleasure:

Al Karama

Behind Hamdan Street

Al Khalidiya 1

Al Khalidiya 2

Al Mushrif

Al Wahda

Muroor

That should be enough to make you (and me) slightly less geographically challenged.  Providing you can read a map.

Ready? Set? .....Rent!

I've seen an enormous number of posts of various forums asking whether the salary package someone has been offered is "good."  Even I have posted such questions.  The short answer is that if it can cover housing and still leave you with an acceptable salary, then it's probably ok...

Keeping in mind that housing in Abu Dhabi can easily cost somewhere around Dhs 350,000 annually, or about USD 100,000.  That's right.  A 1 with five zeroes after it. 

One.  Hundred.  Thousand.  Dollars.

And it's all paid with one check up front.

Now that you've had a chance to catch your breath, I'll try to explain in a little more detail.

First off, there are more people in Abu Dhabi (demand) than there are housing units to accommodate them (supply).  Most of us remember (well, those of us who attended class) from Econ 101 what the supply-demand curve looks like.  So prices are high, and the market seems to bear it.  I'm hopeful my clever economist friends (ok, my one clever economist FRIEND) will corroborate this.  The demand in Abu Dhabi this past February was so high that villas were listed and rented within a matter of hours.  Hours.

Second, housing doesn't actually have to cost Dhs 350,000.  It could cost more.  In the winter of 2008-09, a four bedroom villa in Al Raha Gardens (off-island, near Khalifa City A) went for about Dhs 350,000.  A three bedroom apartment right in town was about the same.  A four bedroom villa in Khalidiya or Bateen, if one could be found, cost more like Dhs 500,000.  It was a bad time to move to Abu Dhabi, as rental increases over the past two years were astronomical.

The good news is that they've come down in 2009.  Somewhat.  This recent article from The National, though, explains that many landlords are still looking for the high prices of last year.

Third, as with pretty much anywhere, the farther you venture out of the city, the cheaper housing gets.  And "out of the city" has started to mean "Dubai," thanks to the rental market in Dubai plummeting in the past year.  Unfortunately, the commute from Dubai to Abu Dhabi doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun to me.  I haven't actually tried it, and have no plans to.

Finally, the process of shopping for a rental villa or apartment can be pretty maddening.  There's no multiple listing service in Abu Dhabi, the same ads seem to crop up all the time, and the few real estate agent websites are updated on an irregular basis at best.  So you need an agent who is well-connected and ready to spring on what is available.  You also need (with most agents) to be prepared to fork over that deposit check right smartly -- my experience this past March involved multiple unreturned phone calls and emails when the agents I spoke to found out I was "just looking" and not ready to sign on the dotted line.

All that said, the good news is that rentals appear to be dropping, particularly in compounds off the island, and that villas in highly sought-after areas like Khalidiya Village have actually become available for the first time in years.

With the caveats mentioned above, here are the best sites I've come across for sussing out the property rental scene in Abu Dhabi:

Khaleej Times Property (powered by propertyfinder.ae)

Gulf News Properties4U

Lease|Rent

2RentUAE

Future View Property

Oh, I should mention that the last two never bothered replying to my emails.

Newsflash: "Lewd stares distressing for women" from The National

You've got to love The National.  First of all, this article appears to have been printed in the "Sport" section.  Hmmm.

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090711/WEEKENDER/707109836/0/sport

In case you don't feel like reading it, here's a one-sentence summary:

Western women get stared at in Abu Dhabi.

There are plenty of little cultural tidbits in this article, sprinkled around like hundreds and thousands on a cupcake, but my favourite is this quote:

"Emirati men are courteous.  They never stare."

Well, this might be true, but it's also true that I've been honked at, asked to sunbathe, and invited to the beach for a swim by men who are unmistakeably Emiratis.

So what is this all about?  In my mind it seems it would have been more appropriate for the implied quantifier to be the existential, as in 

Ex NOT STARE(x), where x = Emirati Man

rather than the implied universal

Ax NOT STARE(x)

But that could just be the frustrated semanticist in me talking.

I think what's at the heart of the matter is this:  For some reason, expats have the idea that they should never, ever, say anything negative about life in Abu Dhabi.  Don't take my word for it -- go log on to some Abu Dhabi expat forum, start a thread titled "One thing I hate about Abu Dhabi."  Then count the minutes until some moderator deletes your post and gives you a little electronic slap on the hand.  I'm not advocating that we all bash Abu Dhabi, but let's try not ignore the fact that certain aspects of life there are dislikeable, and let's not apologise for disliking them.

Including the fact that men, some of whom are Emiratis, stare at us.

Document Attestation - Part One

This morning, boys and girls, we are going to learn about the process of attesting documents.  Well, at least I'm going to provide a few links and references.  You can learn it on your own.  Or do what we did and ask an enormous favour of a stateside pal who saw to it that my diploma was couriered around Washington getting all the right little stamps and signatures.

Here are few things to know:

1.  Attestation is not the same as apostille.  Be aware of this when you contact your university registrar and they tell you to "just send in a request for a duplicate diploma and write APOSTILLE on the request."  That'll be great if you want to head over to pretty much any country in the world.  Except the UAE.  See, "apostille" refers to a certificate that only applies to countries which are party to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents.  And the UAE isn't party to that convention, so foreign documents like diplomas, marriage licenses, and birth certificates still need to be "legalised."  That is, attested according to the rules of the UAE.   See the US Department of State page for more detailed information:

http://travel.state.gov/family/abduction/hague_issues/hague_issues_562.html

2.  As tempting as it is to go to every forum relating to working in the UAE and start a thread titled "HELP with attesting documents," I advise against this.  Go straight to the horse's mouth - your home country's (i.e., the country in which the original document was issued) embassy site.  Here are a few links:

United States

http://abudhabi.usembassy.gov/document_authentication.html

United Kingdom

http://ukinuae.fco.gov.uk/en/help-for-brit...galise-document

Australia

http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/authen.html

Canada

http://international.gc.ca/about-a_propos/..._documents.aspx

Zayed University in Abu Dhabi has an excellent description of the process on its website:

http://www.zu.ac.ae/employment/html/beforearrive.html#attestingdocuments

3.  The process of attestation can be done once you're in the UAE, but it's going to be a lot easier (and cheaper) to do before you actually move.  Get started on it soon.  As in yesterday.

4.  For most people, the documents that will need to be attested are

• The diploma of the highest degree awarded.  That's diploma, not transcript.  In other words, that fancy calligraphied certificate that you put in a frame and hang in your office.

• Your marriage certificate (if you're married).  I still haven't figured out why this is relevant for a work visa, but there are a lot of things I still haven't figured out about the UAE.

• Birth certificates for your children.

I hope this is a helpful start.  For many of you (like my husband), the process will be taken care of by your employers.  For others (like me), you'll need to take care of attestation (and pay for it) yourselves.  With a little background reading and careful planning, it will all work out.

Why this site?

Now that's over with, let me get to the reason behind this site.

There are actually sites out there telling one How To Do Things In Abu Dhabi.  Two immediately come to mind:

www.abudhabiwoman.com

http://www.expatforum.com/expats/dubai-expat-forum-expats-living-dubai/

The latter, even though a bit Dubaicentric, can have plenty of relevant information on it.  It can also have plenty of irrevelant information.  One problem with both of them is that, well, I can't control the content or its organisation.  And I like to control things.  There are other problems, too, but I'll leave those to your imagination.

What I envision is less of a blog and more of an encyclopoedia (sprinkled with my musings).  Topics to be covered will include:

Red Tape (documentation, paperwork, visas, etc.)

Eatable Abu Dhabi (where to go for the really good grub)

Mr Khalifa's Neighbourhood (the low-down on where to live)

Shopaholics Anonymous (where to buy what)

I Enjoy Being a Girl (women's stuff from manicures to fancy dresses)

Nightmare on Electra Street (appliances and electronics)

Telecom 101 (telephony, broadband, satellite TV)

The Doctor's Office (healthcare)

Gym Rats (exercise, fitness, and other active pursuits)

The Men's Room (sort of the opposite of I Enjoy Being a Girl)

Two Lead Feet (automobiles and driving)

and whatever else comes to mind as I go along.

How did this happen?

The short answer is:  It's all my fault.  Here we were, happily cruising along with a part-time London to Abu Dhabi commute and I had to screw it up by applying for a job.  Which I got.  So blame me.

Now, after rounds of negotiations, renegotiations, waiting, questions, phone calls, fear, debate, and shock, we are, in fact, actually committed to moving to the UAE.  Abu Dhabi, specifically (n.b.  Abu Dhabi is not Dubai, even though the letters in Dubai constitute a subset of those in Abu Dhabi).  Here's a map for the geographically challenged:

And we're leaving in five weeks.

Fortunately, I am a natural researcher, so the past five months have been spent reading everything I can find on the web or in print, travelling back and forth to explore in person, and assembling Excel workbooks for just about every aspect of the move one can imagine.

I figure that's the least I can do, since after all, it is all my fault.