As Promised

I seem to remember that I’d update you all on the goings-on down at the Moreeb Dune with the Abu Dhabi Motors Festival.

I “popped” down there on Wednesday to make sure that we were doing our job properly (which, of course, we were !) and to take the opportunity to observe some camel and horse racing – all very lovely and Arabic and interesting.

As you will recall, after that we went and watched some of the dune buggies being generally silly – I can tell you that it only got more silly over the next two days !  I’ve uploaded more photographs and videos onto my Facebook account, and I assume that you can all view them because nobody has told me anything different ?

I’ll leave you to work out whether I had a good time or not but the presence of V8 racing cars, heavily modified quad and motorbikes, freshly cooked Shwarmas and a ready made excuse to leave work early to attend should give you a pretty good clue !

You may also recall that I have now moved into my new apartment (or to be more specific, the companies apartment) in Madinat Zayed.  The company decided to take on this apartment as we quickly worked out that it would pay for itself in about 35 days by not having to use the only hotel in the area.  It’s been a bit of a struggle to find one, get it furnished (which is still an on-going struggle), get the utilities turned on and get moved in.

Atually moving in was the easy bit !  The furniture has been a slightly different prospect.  It was agreed that I would select the furniture that we would require and that the landlord would buy it.  I tried to simplify this by selecting everything from IKEA (because you can pretty much get everything from there and they’ll deliver to the area – which surely has to be helpful ?).  Trouble is, IKEA won’t do orders on-line or over the phone and therefore I had to provide the landlord with a list and they had to go to Abu Dhabi and order it all and get it delivered – you wouldn’t have thought that this could be that difficult……..

I suspect that the language barriers didn’t help (the Landlords people only speak Arabic, the list was in English and the IKEA staff are all Indian/somewhere similar !).  The upshot is that I have 3 quarters of what was on the list, I had to go to IKEA and organize my own mattresses, I have a list of stuff that I’m going to sort out myself this evening and I have at least two things in the apartment that aren’t complete and that I can’t sort out myself because I didn’t make the original order (I have a wardrobe with no doors and a chair in pieces with no screws – I am taking the glass half full attitude with the wardrobe as it could have just as well been the other way around and I could have had the doors with no wardrobe and I wouldn’t have been a happy bunny in those circumstances !)

So that’s tonight’s challenge (as well as running two laps of the Yas Marina F1 circuit) – wish me luck !  I have to limit any potential damage to my finances by firstly taking back one or two things that were ordered that we don’t need and getting access to the credit note that the Landlord has concerning the 3 mattresses that were sent back originally because they were the wrong size.  To be fair, the last time I had to go and get something on their behalf (the mattresses) they paid me back in full the next morning so I’m not expecting any drama.

As we are on the subject of drama, since I moved in on Thursday I haven’t had any electricity (you wouldn’t believe me – but I’m going to tell you anyway, but as I was typing that last sentence the Abu Dhabi Distribution Company actually turned up at my apartment to connect me so forget that I wrote the last sentence !).

The drama involved with the simplest things in this part of the world can be exhausting – in this case, although I have signed a tenancy agreement with the landlord I couldn’t have any electricity because I don’t have my residency visa sorted out yet (which is an entirely different administrative set of long winded cockups perpetuated by someone different !) so the landlord has kindly agreed to reconnect it under his name until my papers are sorted (I suspect that the internet is going to prove a step to far in that direction but we can see if we can circumnavigate the system somehow !).  I guess it would have been more helpful if he hadn’t have cut it off in the first place (like we asked him not too………) but I guess you can’t have everything – I’ve done well not to burn the place down whilst we haven’t had any lights except candles, and I can happily live on Shwarmas and falafels so that hasn’t been an issue, and I’ve “utilized” the local hotel a couple of times for showers after I’ve had a swim and been to the gym (I guess I’m going to have to pay at some point because eventually they are going to notice that I’m no longer a resident despite the fact that I’ve been there every day for the last week for some reason or other – it’s the best part of aed 550 for a month’s membership, which is all bike money.  I guess I’mgoing to have to bite the bullet at some point because as swimming is a fundamental part of being a Triathlete and the Tilal Liwa has the only accessible pool for about 100km, it’s a bit of a no-brainer !

Anyway (I was rambling a bit there……), in summary, I have electricity now and as soon as I’ve put a plug on the cooker (tonight) and put up the shower curtain that I’m buying  in IKEA tonight (tonight) I’ll be able to have a hot shower and a hot meal – I’m going to get a kettle today or tomorrow and then I’ll be in clover !  So, if all goes to plan, I’ll be sitting on my new sofa drinking coffee and reading my book by Friday morning – wish me luck again !

Changing the subject back to more mundane things, I noticed today that I haven’t had a drink for a week, which considering there was a time when I worried that I had a drink problem, isn’t a bad thing to “notice”.  I’ve also given up smoking for the customary 2 weeks before a race (but then I have another race a week after that so it’ll be nearly a month in the end) so I may be a little tetchy for a day or two, but I’m sure my colleagues enjoy listening to me discussing issues with Head Office !

Last night Psycho and I went out for dinner in Madinat Zayed, which was the first time I’ve been to any of the restaurants in MZ.  We had the usual kebab type meal with the usual hummus and salad etc.  and the bill was a pleasing aed 30 each (about 5 English pounds to waddle out completely stuffed !) so I suspect I will be doing that again at some point in the near future !  Psycho’s off next week so I doubt we will get time to try anywhere else (not that there is much else – although I did get a pizza delivery menu through the door over the weekend) so it was nice to do something different.

I’m sure that there’s loads of other things to tell you all about but I’ve got to get my act together and go to AD to IKEA and to one of the schools that we might use when the rest of the family move over – add, having the right kit for a run around Yas to the equation and I have a number of things to think about before I set off on a 200km drive !

I’ve uploaded all the photos I have from the weekend, as well as a few video’s (in the last few days) – here’s the link to the photos - http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/media/set/?set=a.10150535846129721.392074.846004720&type=1

Let me know if you can’t get access – I don’t know what I’ll do about it but it’ll be nice to know if someone has tried !

Until next time !