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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
