We have now been here just a little over 2 weeks and things are starting to settle down. Diana and the girls have made friends with another homeschool family (Jim and Stacey) with 4 kids. They are a bit younger but they just can't get enough of each other. Jim and I work at the same office and he has been awesome at helping us get familiar with things around here.
We decided to lease a Mitsubishi Pajero (the Montero brand in the US) for the next year. It would save us some cash if we bought a used car, but I don't have my residence visa and accompanying Emirates ID card yet. They are both required for putting a car on the road. There's just too much to learn about the way this country does things and leasing was a much easier option.
Driving here is on the right side of the road and there are lines to separate lanes and arrows in the turn lanes so the roads are familiar. Unfortunately, many drivers seem to feel the lines and arrows are merely suggestions. It is normal to turn left from pretty much any lane, not just the lane that is, um, specifically for that reason. If the car to your left is turning, well then you can, too. Traffic circles (roundabouts as they call them here) are even less organized. You are free to exit the roundabout from any lane as well. Somehow all of the drivers manage to cooperate and I haven't seen any accidents yet.
Once you get out of the city streets it seems you can drive anywhere you like. We saw a bunch of cars parked on the beach on Yas Island so we decided to find out how they got there. We got off the highway, made a left and the road just kind of stopped at the sand. We drove along the beach for a while, got out near a group of people kite surfing and watched for a bit. The girls (except for Diana) loved the 4 wheeling on the bumpy beach.
Diana has driven more than I have so far. She drove the kids to the Emirates Park Zoo yesterday and took her new friend Stacey to a baby shower at a swanky hotel off-island. The shower was for one of the ladies I work with and included many of the company wives so she got a chance to meet a few more people, including one who recently relocated from Eldersburg.
We have narrowed our housing search down to the area called Al Raha Beach. It is outside of the city and close to where I work and where the girls will likely be going to school. I don't expect to find a sea view flat, but we are looking for at least a partial sea view. We visited a few flats last week and are going again this weekend. We also saw a couple huge villas away from the beach but they are a bit lonely.
The girls have toured a few of the American schools in the area. There are only a handful of options but all of the girls like the GEMS American Academy. It is a private co-ed school (most of them are). It is also a for-profit school which seems a bit strange to me. We are in the process of registering with GEMS and some of their required documentation is a bit difficult to find since the kids are homeschooled. Like a letter of recommendation from the teacher, for example!
Other little things we had to deal with this week included a windy day where the sand got all stirred up and was all over the place. Not exactly a sand storm, but more like a dust storm. Who would have thought that granite sidewalks had a downside? Dust on granite is like the ice storm that just hit our area, right?
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