Out With the Old

H has for the most part been an easy going child from the get go.  He transitioned from bottles to sippy cups in three days, was potty trained at 21 months, and transitioned from crib to big boy bed with absolutely no issues.


But there's one thing we've had trouble getting rid of:

THE PACIFIER.


I know we should have gotten rid of it long ago, but it has been as much a crutch for us as parents as it has been for him.  At least we made sure to adhere to the pediatrician's recommendation of the 3 C's (car, crib, crisis).  But as tomorrow begins a new year, we will begin it as a year with no pacifiers (for this kid anyway).


We'll see how it goes...wish us luck!  Perhaps it will only take 3 days to transition?


As for changes for me, my biggest challenge will be to let go of the frustrations that have plagued me since we've moved here.  It seems that it has been a constant 1 step forward, 10 steps back.  But I'm trying to look forward with a positive attitude for both the known (vacation in Paris, new baby, a trip home!) and the unknown. 


Happy New Year everyone!

Preparing for Christmas a.k.a. "Decorating on the Cheap"

In preparation for the holidays, we purchased a 4 ft. Christmas tree at Lulu Hypermarket for a whopping 39 dirhams.  Add to that a couple of boxes of ornaments (6 dirhams total), lights (16 dirhams), and a tree topper (9 dirhams) and you have our $20 Christmas tree.

H and E set up the tree the day after Thanksgiving.

The final product:

Stockings brought from home (the only Christmas related things we packed):

Close ups of our cheap foil ornaments:

A lot of these broke so if you look closely at the picture of the tree you can see lots of these little "presents" sitting at the base...

Our only "real" ornament and it's not even a real ornament.  It used to be one of H's toys that broke but will now be part of our ornament collection.

I'll post pictures of our Christmas celebration after Friday.  Santa is treating H pretty well this year...all the presents under the tree are for him!  E and I are treating ourselves to a family trip to Paris instead. : )

Halloween 2009

Well, now that Thanksgiving has passed, I figured today would be a good time to post some Halloween pictures (at least it's not December yet!).

We actually celebrated on October 30th (Friday) because someone at the compound decided that celebrating on Halloween would interfere with the beginning of the work week (Sunday-Thursday here).


H dressed up as Iron Man.  It was the only costume I was able to find at Bawadi Mall in his size.  He was not too happy at first with the "muscles."

Eventually he calmed down...

We had a couple of H's friends over for Halloween cupcakes and treats before heading out for trick-or-treating.

These cupcakes looked better in my head than real life.  Baking supplies/equipment are hard to come by.

Hanging out with friends...

And trick-or-treating!  (Notice his nice plastic bag being used as a candy carrier.  I was really on top of things this year.)

Next year, I'll know to be a little more organized regarding costumes, pumpkins, etc. but H had fun regardless.  


Now, on to Christmas!

Thanks Giving

It's been a long time since I've posted.  There was plenty to blog about--furnishing the apartment, setting up TV and internet, dealing with the bank, adjusting to life as a stay-at-home-mom , grocery store experiences--but, frankly, I wasn't up for it.  I have had a hard time adjusting to life here and didn't really want to relieve the trials and tribulations we've been through.  It seemed like for every positive there were 10 negatives following.

This week, as Thanksgiving approached, I tried thinking mostly about the positives.  Most of them don't have much to do with life in the UAE, though I may eventually revisit some of the things I mentioned above to really let you know what we've been through.

So today I celebrate Thanksgiving with my thanks giving:

*I am thankful for the health of my family both here and abroad.

*I am thankful for my wonderfully supportive husband, who has tolerated my "grumpiness" over the past few months.

*I am thankful for my sweet H, who is so smart, funny, helpful, and who tells me every day "I love my Mommy."

*I am thankful for baby number two we are expecting next year and for a (so far) easy pregnancy.

*I am thankful for being in the final stages of setting things up here in Al Ain so that we can finally concentrate on the goals we came here to achieve: furthering E's education and saving money.

So, from here in our little "oasis," I wish you all (all three of you?) a Happy Thanksgiving!

Apartment

Good news!  We finally received the keys to our apartment on Tuesday evening.  In the usual fashion to which we have not yet become accustomed, everything was fairly disorganized, confusing, and--as a tease to keep you coming back for more--good.


The first thing they did was hold a meeting to tell which individuals/families would be receiving keys...which ended up being almost everyone.  Then there was the usual gripe session, where everyone huddles around the representative to voice their individual complaints.  Finally, after two hours of waiting, a bus arrived to take us to the apartments.  And we were pleasantly surprised.


We have a nice two bedroom, two and a half bath apartment.  Is it what we would normally pick out?  No.  But we have no complaints as it is free, big, and free.


I took a few pictures but apparently, capturing wide spaces from various angles is not my strong suit.

Living area

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Kitchen

One of the bathrooms

Two of the three bathrooms have some decorative tiling that say "Romantic" and have a violin next to them.  The cabinets are plastic made to look like wood.  But again: FREE.  No complaints here!


As you can see, it's pretty bare.  No closets, no appliances.  We ordered our stove, fridge, and washer on Wednesday night, had our bed and mattress delivered yesterday, and are heading to IKEA tomorrow to furnish the rest of the place.


In other good news, E finally received his passport from The Employer, which will make getting other things accomplished a little bit easier.


We will be without internet access for I'm not sure how long but I will post again as soon as I can!

Border Crossing

Tuesday marked our 30th day in the UAE.  Normally, this would not be much of a milestone.  I'm still waiting to tell you some of the big milestones we are still waiting on...we are moving into our apartment, we bought a car, we furnished our apartment, etc.  Sigh.


But back to Tuesday.  When we arrived in Abu Dhabi on August 30th, we received a 30 day visitor visa which we have to keep valid until E can sponsor us for our residency visa.  And since E has yet to even received his residency visa, as of Wednesday we would be in the country illegally. 


We spoke to several people about our options for extending our visas:


1.  Go to the immigration office and pay 500 dirhams each
or
2.  Cross the border into Oman and re-enter the UAE on another 30 day visitor visa.


I wasn't thrilled with the first--that's a lot of money!  E wasn't thrilled with the second.  Understandably, he was not overly happy about sending his wife and child to another country without being able to accompany us (E's employer has been holding onto all of the employees' passports while they take care of the residency visas for them...and that headache is a whole other story).


Anyway, we started talking to other people in the same situation last Saturday.  What were they going to do?  Had they heard of any problems with the border crossing?  Had they heard the immigration office was a hassle?


Once again, as has been the case with everything since we arrived, the rumor mill was in full force...


...I would not be able to cross the border with a child without permission from the father...


...I would have no problem crossing the border as a woman...


...the border crossing would take all day because you have to drive 80 kilometers into Oman...


...the border crossing would be simple and easy and take less than 2 hours...


...I would have to spend the night in Oman...


...the immigration office was worthless because they would make you pay the money and then tell you to do the border crossing anyway...


...the immigration office was easy, all I had to do was fill our a form and pay some money...


Confused yet?  We certainly were.  We didn't know what to think or what to do and much to my dismay no decision was made by Tuesday.  So now, on top of dealing with this, we would have to pay a fine for staying in the country after our visa had expired.  Argh!  I was completely frustrated.


Finally, E asked his co-worker who already has his residency visa and a car to take us across the border on Wednesday.  And after all that, it was super easy and simple.  Nothing to worry about!


Five of us piled into Andy's car on Wednesday afternoon.  He drove us towards the border and our first stop was exiting the UAE.  We went into a building, filled out a form, paid 25 dirhams each, and received our exit stamp.  First step accomplished!


Second, we had to drive about 10 kilometers into Oman to their border crossing.  We went into a building, filled out another form, paid 60 dirhams each, received an entry AND an exit stamp into and out of Oman.  They then handed us a piece of paper, which we would have to hand to the officer as we were exiting Oman.  So we got back in the car, drove to the gate, handed the piece of paper, and headed back towards the UAE.


As we neared the UAE border we saw a sign that said "No Wine" and "No Guns."  Check and check.  We stopped once again, received new 30 visitor visa stamps and were on our merry way.


Well, this boring post is almost over.  Hopefully I'll have more exciting news to share soon.  But for now it's back to waiting around for things to happen and hanging out by the pool with lots of sunscreen (see below).

Isn't he the cutest?  He likes to apply the sunscreen himself and runs away if I try to do it (as captured above).

Shaa Allah

My learning of Arabic so far is pretty minimal (granted we arrived only 3 weeks ago).

So far, I can say shukran (thank you), funduq Rotana (Rotana hotel), and Askoon fee Al Ain (I live in Al Ain). H will probably pick it up much more quickly...he already says "Askoon a Al Ain."

Here's another thing I've learned that I think is hilarious:

In Arabic culture, it is customary to respond "In'shaa Allah" ("If God wills it.") when you're talking about something in the future/making plans.

Example:

-You: "Let's get together for coffee tomorrow at 2 o'clock."

-Arabic friend: "In'shaa Allah."

Now, let's say your Arabic friend shows up late at 3 o'clock. His response?

-"Shaa Allah." ("God willed it.")

HA! I love it and just may have to start using it.

Didn't get to the grocery shopping? Shaa Allah.

Didn't get a new post up on the blog? Shaa Allah.

Didn't get around to doing the laundry? Shaa Allah.

Kitchen Nightmares?

Let's start with the good news: Ramadan is over (!!), which will make life much easier. We can finally take a sip of water in public whenever we want! Ramadan was certainly one of the hardest aspects of adjustment so far. Basically any time we were out in public before sundown, we were unable to eat or drink (H could, but we still tried to be discreet about it). Another issue is that once restaurants opened after sundown, most served Iftar buffets to break the fast. I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of buffets. You end up spending more money and don't necessarily eat your money's worth. Case in point, we went to a restaurant and spent 50 dirhams each and here's what I ate: pita chips and hummus, rice (2 differents kinds), and a couple of (bite-size) pieces of chicken. E ate more but he is a little more adventurous in terms of the food available here.

Anyway, the bad news is: we are STILL living in a hotel. We're not sure when we'll be moving into our apartment. The rumor mill is:

1. We will be moving into our apartments in 2 weeks.

2. We will be moving into our apartments in 6 months.

3. The apartments are spacious and very nice.

4. The apartments are tiny and dirty.

5. The apartment complex has a pool.

6. The apartment complex does not have a pool.

Well, with all this information, logic tells us...um, nothing. So, we are trying to "go with the flow" and be patient as we wait and wait.

Meanwhile, we were tired of spending money every day to take a taxi to a restaurant, pay for said taxi, pay for a meal which we (read I) didn't necessarily enjoy, take a taxi back to the hotel, and pay for said taxi. At the end of the meal, we were spending at least 140 dirhams, if not more. And our hotel has several restaurants but they are pretty expensive (and we are not into spending money when we could make it better and cheaper ourselves).

So, we took matters into our own hands.

Our hotel room comes equipped with a small kitchen area (a sink, countertops, and cabinets). Here it is in all its spacious glory:

Our tools:

A 99 dirham electric "multicooker."

A 49 dirham hot plate.

With this small investment, we (well, mostly E) started cooking our own meals at the hotel. He has actually produced some really good meals. Here he is preparing our steaks for fajitas:

And our guacamole made in a hotel mug:

The final product:

Mary and Dave would think this meat was wayyyy overcooked, but it was fine for me!

We eat our meals out on our balcony, which is enjoyable, but mostly a result of trying to keep the mess made by H on the tile floor rather than the hotel carpet.

(A different meal, obviously. I'm not yet a very organized blogger.)

H enjoying his meal (a different one again) on his plates

brought from home (so glad we remembered these!).

Some of E's beset efforts: fajitas, whole wheat pasta with pesto and sausage, and garlic-rubbed steaks (steaks are actually very cheap here so I think we will be eating a lot of red meat while we're here...yeah! a break from buying tons of chicken when it was on sale for $1.99 a pound at Kroger).

Last Night

Last night, we experienced our first sand/rain storm in Al Ain. We noticed the wind was picking up and went out on the balcony. Here's our view from the balcony if we lean out. Notice the cloud of dust at the top of the picture.

This is our actual, straight-on view from our balcony. Lovely air conditioning units (this is only a partial view). This is still mainly dust and sand (and trash) flying around.

We probably spent 15 minutes trying to get a picture of the lightning. This is the only one E got. Lighting is fast!

More of the air conditioning units after the rain finally started.

The wind was really strong and when we went on a walk this morning, we saw a lot of broken tree branches on the ground.

On another note, yesterday we went to the grocery store to get some supplies. E wanted to get some paper towels and we grabbed these:

Later, I was reading something on the internet and I hear E say "Is this what paper towels are?" and as I look over, he is holding this up:

HA! Now that I look at the first picture, I can see they are obviously not paper towels but in the store they really looked that way. I guess we need to start being more observant.

Anyway, now we are stuck with lots of toilet paper for cleaning the counters of our make shift kitchen. I'll post pictures of that soon.

Oops

What happens when you buy the cheapest adaptor at Carrefour?

You return to your 5 star hotel and plug it in.

And realize you wasted your money when it blows a fuse, burns itself...

...and the wall of your room. Oops!

Abu Dhabi

H is currently taking a nap, so I'll take this opportunity to show a few images of Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is the capital and the second largest city in the UAE and, thankfully, not where we will be living. Not that it wasn't nice, but it was extremely hot and VERY humid. Like 80-90% humidity on top of temperatures of 110+ degrees.

On our first day in Abu Dhabi, they took us on a "tour" of the city. This included a two hour stop at one of the malls, sitting in the parking lot of a palace and not being able to go in because we didn't have a reservation, and a quick visit to this mosque:

A quick wikipedia search tells me that this is Sheikh Zayed Mosque, the largest mosque in the UAE and the eighth largest in the world. Too bad this is all we got to see of it. It was closed, so we only got these few quick shots of the outside before everyone climbed back onto the bus. Overall, not a very well organized tour but it got us out of the hotel room for a few hours.

Abu Dhabi is a typical big city...lots of people, construction (H liked to call all of the cranes "dinosaurs"), and traffic. It seems like they've made a lot of efforts, though, to create parks and outdoor spaces for people to enjoy.

One evening, we decided to take a walk along the Persian/Arabian Gulf on the Corniche. It is a nice, paved walkway along the Gulf. We saw a lot of people out exercising--they must have a much higher tolerance than us because even at 7 p.m. we were sweating like crazy!

Here are a few images from our walk. All of the images look really hazy (I guess from the heat/humidity) but this is pretty much how it looked in "real" life too.

Along the Corniche, they had these rest areas covered with "sails" to create some shade.

H really enjoyed this walk since we were cooped up in the hotel most of the day--it was just too hot to go outside. We attempted a trip to the playground earlier in the day which lasted about 5 minutes total.

We left Abu Dhabi last Thursday and are now in Al Ain. It is still hot here, but much less humid...in other words tolerable. : ) This is where we will live for the next few years, though we are still waiting to hear about our apartment. Right now, we are staying at the Rotana Hotel. It's very nice and has an awesome pool, which H and I get to frequent every day while E goes to orientation in Abu Dhabi every day. Lucky us!