HO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

HO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! Sending you all our best wishes and lots of love over the holiday season! We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy lots of good food and holiday cheer!

We cannot believe we have been here in Dubai for 8 weeks now! Time has flown!! I suppose that is because we are keeping very busy and keeping ourselves entertained from nights out to more exploring of Dubai and the UAE!

One of Mark’s mates who he met while living in Whistler, Luke / ‘Weeman’, was here in Dubai deciding if he wants to move over here as well. We met up with him and did another ‘Brunch,’ but this time it was on a Monday night. It was again all you can eat and drink…..so we consumed lots of Italian food and our drink of choice was margaritas and tequila. Our rounds consisted of 6 margaritas and 6 shots….well that was until I had to wave my white flag and switch to some wine. Luckily Mark had Tuesday off work (for one of the public holidays), it was a major duvet day, which was a given after all that tequila.

We decided to have a low key weekend and had a nice dinner date to a very very good Sushi restaurant that Mark found. They have the proper California/American style rolls that we have missed dearly! On the Friday we spent a long day at the beach and just relaxed and soaked up the sun and listened to the peaceful waves. That evening we went to a BBQ at one of mark’s co-workers villa. They had 2 huge bbq pits with 1000s of chicken satay kebabs….they were so delicious and I think mark and I ate half of them.

I decided it was time to no longer rely on the unreliable taxi service here and get a car!!! We rented a car for a month, and we may extend it from there depending on my job situation. I got a wonderful Chevy Aveo…..yeah you probably have never heard of it, cause it is so spectacular! Actually, it is just a 4 door Honda civic size car, and it isn’t that bad at all. It gets me from point A to point B!

Since I got the car I spent the week driving around to all the hospitals and clinics to turn in my CV/resume, hoping for a lab tech job in one of the hospital labs. This driving around allowed me to see lots of different areas of Dubai and realize how confusing the road system is here, especially cause the half the roads aren’t finished yet. The area we live and the marina area are all brand new and very nice, but once you get to the older parts it is weird to see how different they are. Some apartments and hotel-apartments are quite run down and look very very crowded. Mark compared one of the areas called Deira, to streets in Hong Kong, the way they were all lit up with neon signs and tons of small shops next to each other. All that was missing was Bulldogs Bar (For those that know it)!!!

I have also been consistently applying to jobs I find in the classifieds and on other job websites, and have actually been hearing back from some companies now. I declined one job off that I was given, for it just didn’t seem right and there was no room for growth. I also have met with 2 recruiting companies, which are going to assist me in finding a job! It is a very hard time to find job, because of the holidays and because the economic downfall has begun to hit here, but we are staying positive and something will come up very soon! :)

After doing lots of driving around I had to fill up my tank of gas…..it is so ace here because they fill up your car for you and they wash your windows while you sit in the car, and gas is SOOO cheap. It cost me 50 Dirhams, which is about $13.00 or 9 pounds, for a full tank!!!

This past weekend, Mark’s company had a big Holiday Party for all the Senior staff members. It was at this huge mansion that is one of the Sheik’s weekend homes. It was amazing, the garden was as big as a football field, if not bigger, and the part of the house we went in was a side game room type house which had a sunken dance floor and a DJ. This particular Sheik also owns a few hotels in the Jebel Ali area of Dubai, so he just hired his hotel staff to bring out a huge buffet of every sort of food you could imagine. It was like being at another Friday Brunch, and you know what that means….free flowing drinks as well. I think mark and I stuck to the bubbly, since we haven’t had it since the wedding and we missed it dearly. Well that was until the next day, where Mark had another Duvet day, I think there is a pattern here with Mark and the free booze and the next day. lol

One night this week we decided to make the drive to Abu Dhabi, which is one of the emirates next to Dubai and is the capital of the UAE. There was the annual Motor Show Exhibition (a bit like the one at the NEC in Birmingham) in the convention center. I fell in love with the latest Range Rover Sport and Mark saw himself driving a Nice Big Hummer down the crazy roads in Dubai!. I think we both picked out at least 5 cars that we are getting next….after our sexy Nissan Tiida and Chevy Aveo! :) There was also lots of concept cars designs for the future!

Watch Sky Travel's Video about Abu Dhabi here:http://travel.sky.com/inspiration/hotTipCityBreaks/1219046506860_316

To get into the holiday spirit even more we have been doing our Christmas shopping, and have been doing lots of running to hope it will help with all the food and drinks we have in the next week. We also purchased our 10 pound turkey for Christmas dinner and all the rest! We are looking forward to cooking the big meal for the 2 of us for our first married Christmas together! We are quite confident everything will go well, but if not we have pizza delivery on speed dial.

We have all the plans set for when the Foden’s arrive on the 27th. We are so very excited and are going to have a fun and busy week with them. We’ll tell you all about what we are doing in the next update.

We hope you all have a very very merry Christmas and holiday season! We miss you all, especially during the holiday time! We will definitely not be seeing a white Christmas here, Thursday is going to be 82*F (26* C).




I made a Christmas wish for you:

For a holiday full of pleasure,
Friends and family all around,
And memories to treasure.
We wish for you a Christmas filled

With joyous holiday cheer;
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
And a very Happy New Year!

All our Love Always,
Erin & Mark
xxxxx

In Dubai is Rudolph a Camel???

Hello All,

We hope this finds you well!! And that you are all enjoying the start of the holiday season!! First of all we want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you all had a lovely time with your families/friends and we missed celebrating it with you all!! We have so many people and things that we are thankful for!! Mark and I were going to make a big Thanksgiving dinner, but it is kind of hard to make for only the 2 of us. So we decided to head out for a nice meal instead. We went out to a very nice Mexican meal at Le Meridian Hotel in the Marina to Maya….the same restaurant is also in San Francisco and New York (http://www.modernmexican.com/mayasf/index.htm) and we were very excited about that J Our friend Salam joined us for this meal, for it was her birthday and we wanted to celebrate that as well!

We found out this week that Mum and Dad Foden, Sarah & Simon are joining us in Dubai, right after Christmas and for new year! We are very excited for their visit and have started lots of planning for when they are here!!

We had a relaxed weekend last weekend and had a fun bowling and arcade night with the two other couples from Discovery Gardens. Then had a nice day at the beach on Friday and brought stuff to BBQ for lunch. We bought a disposable bbq, some burger patties and Richmond sausages and enjoyed a relaxing time in the sun.

We wanted to head to the Dubai Rugby 7s last weekend, which supposedly is the biggest party weekend of the year here. It is a rugby tournament sponsored by Emirates Airlines, 16 (I think) rugby teams from around the world travel here for the tournament. (http://www.dubairugby7s.com/) The stadium is full of expats and people that travel here specifically for the tournament and there is tons of booze and food stands….it is a 3 day tournament….so 3 days of parties. We didn’t join in the parties or tournament this year, but next year we plan on purchasing tickets ahead of time so that we can join in the festivities.

Since we have television with all the Premier league games we were able to watch United beat City last Monday….which was brilliant to see the self-proclaimed “Biggest Club in the world” get taught a lesson by the Best Football Club in the World!! Come on United!!!

Tuesday was National day here in the UAE. It is a Public Holiday celebrating when the Emirates became united 37 years ago. (http://emiratesupdate.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/significance-of-the-uae-national-day/) All the nationals are very very patriotic and wear scarves that look like the flag and decorate their cars with the green, red, white and black. There were quite a few parades and again huge firework displays for 3 days in a row. “The fireworks display along the Corniche (in Abu Dhabi) is to be the largest fireworks display ever done. One full hour of fireworks launched from a whole bunch of different locations over the Emirates Palace and the surrounding Arabian Gulf waters.” Mark had to work as they have a big deadline to meet before Christmas so didn’t take part in the celebrations, but we watched the fireworks in Abu Dhabi on TV and they were pretty spectacular!

Our friend Laura was celebrating her 27th birthday this past weekend so we went out to a nice Chinese dinner with her and her boyfriend. We then made our way to an English pub – The Red Lion!!, where we felt like we were back in England, and then to a nightclub called the Rattlesnake. The Rattlesnake is known for the Prostitutes / Hookers, who flourish there, but apart from them (which were quite entertaining to watch) the bar had a great live band, and Mark and I were very excited when they played Summer of ’69!!

The weather hasn’t been the best for the past few days. It is still relatively warm 72-76*F (22-24*C) but has been quite humid with sporadic rain. I guess the average rainfall for December is around 3-4 inches, and in the past week there has been a lot more than that. Since the country is not used to the rain there are no drainage systems and therefore all the roads flood very easily, which creates havoc. We don’t mind the rain, but we are keeping our fingers crossed it stops by the time the Foden’s arrive in a few weeks!

We spent Friday a little hungover, but we decorated our first Christmas Tree together! Lots of fun and we found out that Mark cant tie knots very well! All we need now is the Fairy on top!

I had a Job interview on Thursday for an Administrative Assistant ….. got the job offer, so now have to decide if I should take it as something to keep me busy until a better opportunity arises for me. Unfortunately I have not had any other luck with other jobs yet, but trying to be as patient as possible about it.

Mark been working the last few Saturdays and will be working the next few public holidays in December. Work is very busy for him and he is now starting to help with The Dubai Mall project as well as his own project, because of the deadline and need more brains working on it. But since he is working extra now, it means he is able to take off from Christmas Eve through the new year!! :)

We hope you are all doing great and hope to hear from you soon!

All our Love,
Mark & Erin
Xxxxxxx

Some pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2215114&l=98626&id=6402232 (of the Atlantis Fireworks from a few weeks ago)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2215119&l=db894&id=6402232 (some pics of the floods/lightning that occurred)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2217055&l=55fa0&id=6402232 (arcade/bowling/dinners/our christmas tree)

Dubai Friday Brunches

Hi Guys,

So Erin mentioned that we went to a Friday Brunch with some friends from work! By all accounts they are always a quite drunken event!

Nearly all hotels have these Brunches and they all seem to last about 4 hours. They are basically All you can eat and All you can drink! We look forward to trying out a lot of these Brunches so that we know the best ones to take any of our visitors to!

However - The basic idea is that you get your table and are waited on for drinks and go and chose anything that you want to eat (As Erin said, From Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding to all your favourite Sushi)! But there seems to be a game that most people play..........

Try and finish your glass of Champagne before the waiter is there to top it up for you!

Its a challenge as they are the most efficient waiters ever - but i think i managed it on our Friday Brunch Debut! - However i did end up in bed at 7pm!! Oops!

Hope you are all well!

Love & Miss you guys

Mark & Erin

xxx

Flying High in Dubai!

Two weeks have flown by since I last sent an update….I can't believe how fast the weeks are going by. And that is with me not having a job. Yes I'm still unemployed :( but continuing to look and hoping to find a job soon. I may have a few options…for met some people in the last few weeks that said they will keep their eyes open for me at their companies. Luckily life is far from boring here, and I am keeping myself very busy still, finding new things to do daily, and being a housewife! ;)

Our taco night dinner party was a great success…the 2 couples headed over for dinner and Steve brought some illegal beers over! We hope to try to do them once a week with our Discovery Garden friends!

Mark's old boss Neil was in Dubai on business and he treated us to a lovely Chinese Dinner at Le Meridian…which was then followed by some drinks at the Irish Bar Dubliners….they even had Magnus Cider on Tap, so I was very happy!

We were very excited to head to our first Friday Brunch, at Madinat Jumeirah, a amazingly beautiful hotel on the beach and surrounded by man made streams with turtles in them! We have heard that this is the best and poshest Friday Brunch, so when we get visitors here we will be taking you here!! (http://www.madinatjumeirah.com/special_offers/#PTP_061102_01332184_1BKW8) –

There were16 of us at the brunch, most of the guys work at Balfour and a few were ex-balfour employees. The food buffets were just spectacular, there were 2 rooms and all of outside full of food from around the world, there was anything and everything you could ever imagine – Mexican, roast dinner, sushi, chocolate fountain, and then it was also all you could drink margaritas, bloody mary, mojitos, champagne, wine, etc, Mark definitely enjoyed the all you can drink and decided he was going to do make sure and get his moneys worth…he was quite drunk and around 6:30pm we had to head home so he could go to bed! Haha It was a lot of fun and we are continuing to meet lots of new people and make new friends.

After Mark's early night, he was able to get up at a decent time the next day and surprisingly didn't feel too horrible. We made it out to the Autodrome at motor city – after getting lost and heading the wrong way for about an hour. There was The Superbike Championship motocycle races, so we were able to watch mark's co-worker, Rod Scott, race and win (http://www.gulfnews.com/sport/Motor_Racing/10259993.html). Abdul Aziz Bin Laden, Osma's nephew was also racing and we were standing right next to him after the race was over….kinda freeked me out. There was also a motorcycle stunt driver which was cool to watch and then Touring Car races, where we watched the Porsche win! While we were at the autodrome we experienced our first sandstorm….the wind started to pick up and a few minutes later you could only see a few feet in front of you because it there was so much sand in the air.

We have never seen something like that before….but I guess the Sandstorms happen about once a month here (http://www.saranair.com/images/others/sandstorm_dubai2.jpg). After the sandstorm passed it then rained…….for about 10 seconds, which will add to its 10mm (0.4 inch) average rainfall for the month of November.

This weekend that just passed, Mark only had Friday off work…so we tried to squeeze lots into Thursday night and Friday…. The Atlantis hotel, which is a new hotel that opened at the end of the Jumeirah Palm Island, had it's official opening party. Over 2,000 VIP guests flew into Dubai to attend this $20 million dollar party. Look at this link to see some of the famous people who were there:
http://www.gulfnews.com/tabloid/Society/10260390.html There was a firework display about 3 times the size of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, this display was visible from space and had rockets launched from over 716 spots!

Mark and I had a few drinks with some work mates at the Mai Tai bar in the marina, where you can get bowls of rum….bowls of drinks are the future as we discovered on our honeymoon in Santa Cruz!! We then made our way to the beach at the base of the Jumeirah Palm Island with our friend Ian who brought an ice chest of beers to watch the amazing fireworks!!! We were in awe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie5ear3bHUQ

We had a relaxing beach day on Friday and stayed till 5:30 to watch the amazing sunset over the Arabian gulf.

Mark is back at work today and I'm continuing my housewife duties and job searching. Tonight we are having a few friends over for dinner and to watch the football matches!

I may head to airport tomorrow to try and catch a glimpse of some of the famous celebrities that are now leaving town!!

Here are some pics we have taken over the past few weeks:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2212822&l=48361&id=6402232

We hope you are all doing very well and miss you all!!! We are enjoying all the updates you are sending us about what you all have been up to, so keep those coming!! :)

Happy 18th Birthday Simon and Happy 25th Birthday Amber!!! Sending you lots and lots of
love!!!!

xxxxxxxxx

Funny Work Story

So today a guy who works in admin came to see me – Just to see how my day was going, nice guy, met him a few times and he told me his name yesterday (Pally), so anyway he said:

“Mr Mark Sir, where are you from”?

I told him the UK, and he seemed to like that answer.

He then asked me where I thought he was from, I said

“I have no idea whatsoever”

He told me to guess and I was very hesitant (as I didn’t want to upset him) but the only place I could think of was India! He replied:

“Noooooo Me not from India, they all stink – I don’t like people who come from India”

Was brilliant – cracked me up!

For anyone who is interested - He is from Sri Lanka!
Hope this finds you well

Love Mark

Our 2nd week here!

So I assume most (hopefully all) of you got Mark's email with an update about his job and what he is doing at work.

Last Thursday, as I mentioned before, we went to Barasti.  It is a huge place right on the beach with about 5 different bars.  We met quite a few people from Mark's work there and there were about 8 others that he used to work with at HBG there as well.  We went with Steve & Laura and Dan & Gemma, who are are new friends who live at Discovery Gardens as well.  They have both been here about a month longer than us, and Steve works at DBB as well.  The night was very fun and just a nice atmosphere.  We only had a few beers/ciders because the alcohol is quite pricy and we are trying to be reasonable.

The BBQ, which I also mentioned before, was a lot of fun.  It was mainly people who have worked at DBB for a long time that were there, but everyone was very friendly and we got to ask lots of questions to experienced world travelers/workers.

Last week, I spent my time job searching and applying.  I had 1 interview so far, and got the job as the head receptionist at a new spa that is opening, but the hours are ridiculous and it is 6 days a week, and the pay wasn't very well. I decided to decline this offer, and am hoping more interview and offers are on their way.  Last week I also went to the beach one morning.  Salam (Aubrey's friend from New York & now my good friend here) picked me up at 7:00 am and we went to a public beach until about 11.  The sun is less strong at that time of the day and the beach was our own!  The water is soo clear and light and the sand is so white :)  

I haven't really  mentioned the weather in the past emails/blogs.....it was pretty hot when we arrived, but has substantially cooled down over the past few weeks.  Nov-Feb are the best months weather wise here, so we picked the right time to come so we can get used to the heat.  It has been high 80's to low 90's during mid day and then cools down to the 70's at night.  It is a humid heat as well, so doesn't work so well with my hair! hehe  But the heat is completely bearable at the moment and we are enjoying no rain or snow or frost, and enjoying getting a sun tan!

I made it to the new mall on Wednesday, the Dubai Mall.  (www.albawaba.com/en/countries/UAE/237570) It is where Mark's office is as well.  It just opened this week, but only 1/3 of the shops are opened.  I just walked around the 4 levels, watched the fish and sharks in the massive aquarium, watched people ice skate on at the ice rink, and checked out all the shops that are going to be opening..........including Bloomingdales, Sephora, forever 21, and lots of others.  I think that is going to be my favorite mall, once all the shops are opened :)  Mark met me after work and I was able to see his office and his job site and understand more so what he is working on :) It is just so spectacular!

This past weekend, Mark only had Friday off, so we made the most of it!  On Thursday evening we went out with Steve & Laura to the Emirates Tower Hotel, and went to a very nice Chinese dinner and then out to a few different bars which were also in the hotel.  We thoroughly enjoyed our evening, and woke up Friday and had a big English Breakfast....pork sausages, bacon, eggs, beans.!  So we thought we couldn't have pork here, but really they sell it at all the grocery stores, it is just in a different section...it is called the Non-Muslim section.   We then were off to the beach with Steve & Laura & Dan & Gemma.  We went to a Beach Park, it is open to anyone, you just pay a small fee to park and enter and then can rent chairs, umbrellas, towels, and there is food and drinks there as well.  The 6 of us were there for a good 4 hours and enjoyed the water and sun.  Neither Mark, nor I got burnt! :) We were very good and put on lots of sun cream! :)

We now have internet, TV, and a phone at the apartment :)  It was just installed today, so have to find the channels that we'll actually watch (lots are in other languages), but we got the sport channels so Mark can watch his football!  And now that we have the internet it will be easier to chat with everyone and webcam :)  We do have a phone, which is probably cheaper to call in to and out from, especially compared to a mobile.  The number for that is +971 04 4315334.

Also, I sent our temporary PO Box address out, but just in case you didn't receive it and would like to send us anything it is:

Dutco Balfour Beatty

Attn: Mark Foden Vst:2587

PO Box 8944

Dubai, UAE

Make sure to write somewhere 'Private & Confidential' or the company may open it.  Also, we have been told that it would be a good idea to send everything recorded delivery, for it can then be tracked (things tend to get lost or misplaced apparently)

This week we have a few plans.......

Monday night we have invited Steve, Laura, Dan & Gemma over for dinner.  I'm going to make tacos, for they all said they haven't had much mexican food, so I thought it would be good.  And then Friday we are going to go to a Friday Brunch, which is basically where you go to a hotel and there is all you can eat and drink for 5 hours!  It is a traditional thing that expats do here on their day off.  We are going with about 15 people from Mark's company, so should be lots of fun!

Hope this finds you all very well!  We are missing you all & send our love!

xxxxxx

Pictures

Check out pictures I posted on Facebook of our apartment and a few sites!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2209421&l=3e98a&id=6402232

xxx

Hello from Dubai

So we made it! :)

Mark and I left Manchester on Monday afternoon, after very hard goodbyes!  We flew on Emirates, which is a very nice airline!  The seats were very large and comfy and lots of leg room!  There were 100's of movies and games and tv shows, which passed the 7 hours quite quickly, and they even served free booze on the plane!  We arrived a little late, but met our customs assistant without any problems!  The customs lines were very very long, but because Mark's company hired this assistant, we got to cut in front of everyone and were straight through.  Whenever anyone visits us, we'll have to hire www.marhabaservices.com, for it is definitely worth the help.  We both got a 60 day tourist visa when going through customs.  We then met our driver, which was also set up by Mark's company.  Next, we had to figure out how to get the bags that we had sent through Emirates Cargo......this was the biggest pain in the @ss!!  We had to figure out where to go, drive around the HUGE airport to find the right building, get paperwork signed off, pay more money, get customs office to stamp it, pay more money, the wait in a warehouse full for them to find our bags, bearing in mind it was 3:00 in the morning.  But after our patience was just about gone, our bags were found and stuffed into a small 4 door car that our driver had!  

We travelled about 25 minutes to our apartment, seeing all the famous sites for the first time.  The entire city is SO lit up and there are so many huge buildings and building cranes!!  We saw the Burj Dubai (tallest building in the world near where mark is working), the Burj Al Arab (the only 7 star hotel in the world that looks like a sail), and loads of other sites.  Finally we made it to our apartment and managed to get all of our luggage up there and into bed.  To our surprise, we had bread, mild, cheese, water, and soda all in our fridge!  We went straight to bed, for Mark had to be up in an hour for work.  

Our apartment is very large and spacious!  It is 1 bedroom, with a big bathroom attached, and lots of floor space.  The living room is also very large, and has another bathroom and kitchen attached!  It is fully furnished.....bed, bedding, dresser, couch, chairs, table, silverware, plates, cups, pans, iron, vacuum, kettle, microwave, etc!  Not nearly close to all that we need, but enough to get us started!!  I took pictures, but forgot my cable today so will have to put them on here next time.  The only negative thing about it is that it is a bit further than we had imagined, further from the ocean and further out of town, but we will get used to it and it's not a problem.  The tower we are in isn't full occupied, so is very quiet! There is this massive power station, which is shown on the maps, but is shown as this tiny thing, when actually it is very big.  The power station is between us and the marina and city center.

Mark's first day of work was just with HR doing lots of paperwork and listening to all the safety talks and rules.  He got his car, it's a 2008 Nissan.  Not the best car in the world, but definitely not the worst!  He met another guy that lives in Discovery Gardens as well and just started about 3 weeks ago, so already found a mate!  His second day at work, he got a ride to his site, because it is in the middle of the city!  He got a bunch of paperwork to read and discover exactly what he is doing.  I'll let him write about that when he gets the chance because I don't know the details.

While Mark was at work Tuesday I unpacked our 8 bags and found places for everything!!  On Tuesday evening, we drove to the mall (Ibn Battuta Mall) that is about a mile from our house and had some dinner and walked around.  It is huge and has a mixture of US clothing shops and UK clothing shops.  I'm not sure of prices yet for haven't been shopping yet. hehe  We then found attached to the mall a place called a Hypermart, it is a Huge shop that literally has everything.  It's a grocery store, cheap clothing shop, and homegood shop all in one!  We went in there and got a full load of groceries to fill up our cupboards with some food!

Wednesday, while Mark was at work I had an incident at the house....the fire alarm was going off all day and i couldn't get the door to unlock to ask security what was going on, guess I was having a blonde moment. lol  About 5 hours of ironing later (yes Trisha I was ironing all of mark's shirts!!) and 5 hours of listening to a high pitched alarm, I managed to get the door open and get security to get the alarm off.  Last night, after Mark got off work we drove to the 'city' where Mark is working and saw the Burj up close and the vicinity of his site.  We then went to the Mall of the Emirates, which is even huger than the mall by our house and managed to get SIM cards and phone numbers!  I'll send the numbers on email!

Today, I managed to get out of the apartment without any trouble and got a taxi down to the mall that is close to our house.  I'm in starbucks at the moment on their free internet!

As long as we are doing the conversions right, things seem to be quite cheap here!  A 32" flat screen, that we are looking into purchasing in the near future is about $600-700, which is very comparable if not less than in the US.

In regards to clothes, the majority of women and men are in normal clothes and women are literally wearing whatever they please.  There are a lot of expatriates and I'm sure we will only meet more of them!  There are locals that are wearing the white disdasha and headdress for men and black abaya with niqab for women.  Mark and I both feel very comfortable and don't really feel out of place at all, which is very good!!  And everyone here seems very polite and nice and welcoming!

It seems as though some of the processes to do with setting up a phone line, internet, tv at the house, and get a alcohol licence, and a P.O box may be a bit of a pain, but we just have to be patient and I'm sure over time we will have it all sorted out!

We are going out tonight to the marina, so I get to see the ocean for the first time :)  We're heading out with some of Mark's colleagues and I'm sure we may meet up with a few other people that we know here.  Tomorrow we are invited to a BBQ at the Director of Mark's projects house so we will meet lots of more people there as well.

Well  I hope this didn't bore you and please write us emails and let us know what you are up to!

All our love,

Erin & Mark

xxxxx

Our Goodbye's

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to send a quick update before Mark and I leave England. We leave tomorrow (Monday) afternoon!  We are both very excited and can't wait to get there and get settled!!  We had a mishap with the luggage...discovered we could only bring 20 kilos each (which is NOTHING) on the plane, so we packed and sent 4 big bags early through cargo shipping, those bags are meant to arrive today in Dubai and stored for us at the airport.  I think we managed to fit everything in that we wanted to which is great!!  We arrive in Dubai at midnight on Tuesday morning and are meant to be met by people affiliated with Mark's work and they will walk us through customs and then help us with our bags and pick up our bags from the cargo shipping.  We will be driven straight to our apartment, which is meant to have some food in it for us for Tuesday and hopefully head to bed.  Mark works a full day on Tuesday, which is pretty rough, but is just paperwork and HR stuff.  That is all the stuff that is meant to happen when we arrive, but we'll see what actually happens. hehe I'll let you know if it is all smooth sailing.

Once we are in Dubai, we will get internet at our apartment, we just don't know how long it will take.  I will try to find an internet cafe, so I can at least send an email and some pictures of everything, but be patient and we will send an update as soon as we can.

Dubai is 11 hours different than America, but once the clocks change in America (next week I think), we will be 12 hours different.  So that is very easy to figure out and for you to know what time it is where we are!! :)

We had a few leaving parties this weekend, to say our good byes to friends and family over here.  On Friday night, Mark and I went out into Manchester to a nice Japanese meal and then met up with about 15 of our friends.  We went to Revolution bar and then onto Chicago Rock.  We were meant to go to Walkabout, Mark's favorite bar, but we were having so much fun we didn't even go in there.  We have lots of funny pictures from the night, which I will post once I have some free time in Dubai.

Yesterday I was able to speak to my grandparents and parents on skype conference call, so was good to catch up with them and tell them all about our plans and what we have been up to.  They are very excited about our adventures!

Last night some of the family came over, Mark's grandparents, Auntie Jen and family, Auntie Barbara and family and Uncle David and family.  We had a very full house and lots of good food.  Trish made a yummy lasagna, I made a yummy chili and David made a yummy curry!  We also had about 50 different desserts, along with granddads famous carmel shortbread, which is not one of my favorites!!  It was great to see everyone and spend them with them, yet very hard and sad to say our goodbyes.

Today we are just finishing packing and watching the NFL game that is at Wimbley in London (some of Mark's friends are at the game today).  And tonight we are having a roast dinner for our last meal in England.  I think Trish is making sausages as well, since there is No pork in Dubai. hehe

I hope this finds you all happy and healthy!  I'm sure you are all keeping busy as well, but don't forget to update us on your lives!

We miss you all very much and think about you often!

Until next time.....we love you xxxx