Hotel Living

We are nearing the 30 day mark into our expat adventure and we are getting into a groove with daily routines and places to go. My daily routine is easy--get up early and go into work for 8+ hours then come home. Diana and the girls' routine is not quite that simple yet. They do some school work, Diana makes some phone calls, the kids play on their phones then they do a little running around the city. Sometimes it involves shopping in the local markets for dinner food (the refrigerators are ridiculously small) or playing at the Corniche or beach.

We have been living in a hotel since we got here. It's a 3 bedroom suite so there is certainly enough space for us all, but it is still a hotel. Hotels restaurants are the only places allowed to sell alcohol with meals, but we ended up in a totally dry hotel. We do occasionally venture out to try a different hotel restaurant occasionally, but they are really expensive. The meals are very gourmet and we are definitely enjoying it. Aside from the hotel restaurants, there are small, local cafes everywhere, with just about any kind of food. We went out looking to try something new a few days ago and stumbled across a vegetarian Indian restaurant that is worth going back to.

We have found housing in the area we want to live, called Al Raha Beach. It is a 3 bedroom, 200 sq. meter flat on the 3rd floor of an apartment building on the island of Al Muneera. There is a shaded pool which is essential in the hot summer and there is a private beach for the apartment complex. There is also a gym in the building to keep Diana happy. The process to lease the flat is not particularly well defined and varies by the owner. The common trait is that the lease is paid up front for the 12 months. Sometimes (as with our landlord), you can make 2 payments, but you need both checks at lease signing.

We had hoped to find a furnished flat and confirming what we found on the internet, there are only a few options for furnished flats. Our flat at least has kitchen appliances and a washer/dryer which leaves us more of our budget to buy furniture. So far we have made 5 or 6 trips to Ikea but have got most of the necessities on order and ready for delivery (and they will assemble it for free). I'm not thrilled about being surrounded by Ikea furniture for the next year. If we can't sell the furniture before we leave, we will make some college-bound kid happy with enough furniture to fill a dorm room.

While we didn't send any furniture we did send some of kitchen necessities along. Our belongings have been sailing the world on their way to get to us. We (well, just me) have been tracking the progress of the container ship with our goods. Since it has left Baltimore, it has visited Norfolk VA, Charleston SC, Freeport (Bahamas) and Haifa (Israel). It is currently transiting the Suez canal on it's way to the port of Salalah in southern Oman. It should only be another few days until it arrives in the port of Jebel Ali (between Abu Dhabi and Dubai) then it needs to clear customs and only then will it get scheduled for delivery to our flat.

Hopefully this weekend will be the last in the hotel. If things work as planned (ha!) we should sign the lease for the flat and have our Ikea furniture delivered this week. There's even an outside chance that our sea-going belongings will show up. If that's not busy enough, the girls may be starting school next week as well. More details on school and our day trip to last weekend to Dubai in the next post.