It's All Coming Together

Jo and the kids arrived safely on Wednesday evening. It was great to see them, although I was disappointed to learn this evening that as they came out of arrivals they were more interested in seeing who had won the bet about which t-shirt I would be wearing (Henry apparently, am I that predictable!?).

Prior to their arrival I'd had a productive day. I finally had the excellent news that my residency visa had arrived (there was never any doubt it would be approved but it was a relief to see the piece of paper in my passport), together with my Emirates ID card, and Health Insurance card.

Having these documents is a critical milestone as it means I can sign a contract for our accommodation, get a driving license and (importantly) an alcohol license, amongst other things.

It also means I can open a bank account, so once I'd picked the documents up from the office I headed to the nearest bank to do this. As I am becoming used to, this was another scenario where I had to take a numbered ticket (I wish I owned the company which makes these ticket dispensers) and sit in the waiting area until it was my turn. Once I got to the front of the queue it was a straightforward process and I am now waiting for a call to tell me that my cards and chequebook are ready to be delivered.

I also hoped to get my driving license that afternoon, but I found out that I needed to get my UK license translated into Arabic before I could do this. Thankfully the office assistant knew somewhere to get this done later in the afternoon, so that job was parked (pardon the pun) until Thursday.

Once I had shown Jo and the kids our temporary home I took them out for some tea. I was quite pleased with myself that I was able to show off my local knowledge and my navigation skills by directing the taxi driver to a diner (Johnny Rockets) I had noticed when I had been at the Grand Prix circuit on Tuesday evening. My pride was rather punctured when Jo ordered a beer that she had been desperately looking forward to, and they of course informed her that they didn't serve alcohol. School boy error! Anyway, thankfully the meal itself was very nice.

That was Wednesday in a nutshell. Brief update on Thursday coming soon, including thrilling news about driving licenses, school uniforms and dental treatment. Bet you can't wait.

As always, thanks for reading.

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Today is the Day

In an hour or so Jo and the kids will be on their way to join me in Abu Dhabi, and I can't wait to see them. I moved out of my hotel yesterday, and into a serviced apartment on Yas Island, ready for their arrival. We'll probably be here for two or three weeks, as my visa still hasn't arrived, so the paperwork for our villa has been delayed.

View from the lounge window of our temporary home

Yas Island is where Abu Dhabi's Grand Prix circuit is located, and on a Tuesday evening they open the track to the public as part of a public health initiative. Anyone is free to go to the circuit and cycle, run or just walk round.

Given that I am right next door I decided to go and see what it was like. Between the taxi driver and myself we found the registration desk without too much trouble, and I was soon stepping onto the track.

The event is clearly very popular, with people of all shapes and sizes making their way round the track by one means or another. There were people on professional looking racing bikes zipping round very quickly, and there were people who had clearly come straight from work and rented bikes so they could take part. There was even an old gentleman on a very old bike, with a basket at the front, who would have looked as though his natural environment should be a quaint, old French village.

There were old people and young kids, including some being towed round in bike trailers and clearly loving the experience. I suspect we will spend many Tuesday evenings here once we are settled in, as it will be just a 15 minute drive from home.

Looking down the start / finish grid

Only half the circuit, about three miles, was open last night, so I spent a pleasant, if sticky, hour walking round. I'm looking forward to my bike arriving, and the evenings cooling a little, so I can spend more time here.

Oh well, time to do a couple of jobs in preparation for everyone arriving. As always, thanks for reading, and for your comments and likes.

PS: If you are a member of the Flickr site you can see more of my photos on there. Just click the Flickr icon which should be in the "About Me" section on the right of the page.

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Money, Money, Money

I seem to have spent the last couple of days handing over piles of notes to various people. I can't get a UAE bank account until I have my residency visa (which still hasn't come, but will come tomorrow I'm sure (Insha'Allah)), which means I don't have a local chequebook, and therefore everything has to be paid for in cash or international bank transfer (not an ideal option as these take four or five days).

The main logistical challenge has been with the villa. Having accepted the landlord's offer to rent the villa to us, we now need to pay a maintenance deposit, and a full year's rent in advance, before the process can continue. As an aside, it is only after we have paid all this money that we get to see the contract, which seems a little back to front to me, but "that is just the way it is" (another phrase I'm hearing more and more).

Anyway, as we want to get in the villa as soon as possible I needed to pay the maintenance deposit in cash, so I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning, moving money between accounts online, and using my maximum withdrawal allowances to cobble together the money. I then headed to the landlord's bank to pay the money into his account, although the taxi driver didn't quite understand where I was asking to go, which meant he took me to Al Hilal Luxury Car Showroom rather than Al Hilal Bank. I didn't have that much money with me!

This afternoon's task was to find the uniform shop to order some trousers for Henry, as he is too tall for the standard sizes. The school had sent out a vague map of the shop's new location so I confidently showed this to my taxi driver. He got me to the general area but there was no sign of the shop. After driving in circles for ten minutes, with the driver getting increasingly agitated, I decided to get out and continue on foot.

This turned out to be a mistake. The temperature here has dropped from last week, but it is still in the mid 30s today. I wandered up and down the block where I was convinced the shop was, but could not find it, and was getting increasingly hot and bothered. Eventually I decided to walk round to the back of the block, and hey presto, there was the shop.

Down I went to the uniform section, where I was presented with a numbered ticket (they seem to have this queuing system pretty much everywhere), and told to take my place in the queue. The room was big enough for maybe 15 people and there were at least 20 of us in there, and from what I can tell, the queuing system was being completed ignored.

I decided to join the scrum, so approached the counter and explained why I was there, namely to order some specially made trousers. The lady behind the counter was adamant that I didn't need to do this, even when I shared Henry's measurements. She called a few colleagues over and a very animated discussion took place, which I didn't understand a word of. Finally they decided that yes, it would need to be a special order, and (of course) there would be a 50% premium for this. Eventually the paperwork was completed and I handed over my credit card, but of course it was cash only. Given that the villa deposit had pretty much cleaned me out I was a little concerned that I didn't have enough cash to pay for the trousers and get a taxi back to my hotel, but thankfully I did, with a few dirhams to spare.

It's now time for me to pack up as I am checking out of the hotel tomorrow, to move to a serviced apartment ahead of Jo and the kids to arriving on Wednesday. Hopefully we won't be there for too long but let's wait and see.

Thanks for reading, as always. I am aware that a couple of people have tried to leave comments on previous posts without success. I have changed some of the settings, which may have sorted this, but do please let me know if you still have a problem.

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House Hunting in Abu Dhabi

Employers in Abu Dhabi are legally required to provide accommodation or an accommodation allowance. Some large organisations have their own compounds or residential complexes, but my employer does not fall into this category, meaning that we are receiving an allowance rather than a specific property.This means that one of our first tasks has been to find somewhere to live. I had been hoping to get this sorted before Jo and the kids come out next week, but this was always a long shot given how long things take here.

As we are not familiar with the area, or what is available, we opted to use a real estate agent. The upside is they do all of the work for you, the downside is that it is an extra cost. We are not yet at the end of the process, but I think on balance we have done the right thing, even if it has had the potential to be frustrating at times.

Our search began a few months ago when Jo and I spent a few days in Abu Dhabi shortly after I'd been offered the job. We spent a day being shown round by a friend of a friend who lives here, and another day being shown round by two agents. This allowed us to get a feel about what we could get for our money, and the general area where we want to live. It took us a little while to get used to how house hunting works, for example:

• Landlords do not spend anytime making empty properties "presentable" to potential tenants, meaning you are often looking at properties which are very dirty, and in a poor state of repair. It can prove difficult to visualise what it would be like living there.
• People think nothing of driving round and "breaking into" empty properties to have a look around. Breaking in is maybe putting it a bit strongly as there is often a door unlocked somewhere, nevertheless we were a little shocked when this is what happened with the first property we looked at.

Having decided on the area we want to live in, near to the school that Henry and Archie (and hopefully soon Flossie) will be going to, when Jo and I came out last week we were able to go back out with the agent and focus our search on a smaller area. We saw a number of villas, none of which gave us "that feeling", but eventually we found the one and instructed the agent to secure it for us.

We returned to our hotel to cool off (believe me, viewing houses in 40+ degree heat is unpleasant), and to have a refreshing beer, and were disappointed to receive a phone call to inform us that the villa had already gone. Thankfully there were two other villas available in the same compound, so Jo and the agent rushed back to have a look at them, and we were able to secure one.

That was the first hurdle. The next stage is to wait for an "offer letter" from the landlord, which we finally received yesterday, ten days after we said we wanted the villa. Once we are happy with the offer we pay a deposit, and then have to wait two or three weeks whilst the villa is made habitable. There is scope for this to be frustrating as our container has already arrived in Abu Dhabi so we are incurring storage costs for that, plus we will need to pay for temporary accommodation until we can move in. However, we need to not let ourselves get frustrated as I am already learning that there is no point putting pressure on people out here, things will happen at their own pace. "Insha'Allah", or God-willing, is a phrase I am becoming very familiar with.

Our container arrived in the UAE a couple of weeks ago

So this part of our adventure is to be continued. In the meantime I shall leave you with a few pictures of our soon-to-be new home.

Our villa (semi detached)

Our only outside space downstairs (bit different to Stonestack), but we do have a roof terrace.

Roof terrace.

Kitchen

A typical room (they all look very similar)

The communal pool, one minute walk away.

Thanks for reading, feel free to leave any comments below if you have made it this far.

 

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A walk along the Corniche

With Jo back in the UK for two weeks my days have settled into something of a routine whilst I fill the time until starting work on 1 September. My mornings and early afternoons consist of various tasks related to obtaining my visa (which I should have by the end of this week, hurray!) or sorting out our accommodation (post about that coming soon). If I need any supplies I'll pop to one of the malls in a taxi (too hot to walk), where I will also take the opportunity to feed my Starbucks addiction (but I must not get addicted to the HUGE and delicious warm sugar coated doughnuts they sell here!).

When late afternoon comes the hotel's pool will be in the shade so I have been for a swim for the last couple of days. It's only a small pool but I'm doing my best to get some exercise. Mind you I'm getting some funny looks as I plough (slowly) backwards and forwards! I've also decided that despite the heat I need to get out and about a little more. So as dusk fell yesterday I ventured out for a walk on the Corniche, which runs along the edge of the main island. There was a nice breeze but it was still very hot, so I was rather damp when I got back.

Anyway, please find below a few of the snaps I took on my walk.

The Millennium Hotel, home for the next week or so

Looking back at the city from the Corniche

The city has a number of green spaces, which seem lovely from what I have seen so far

Reem Island, currently being developed

The sun sets, seen from the corniche

The island is made up of a number of sectors and zones, apparently it's all very confusing to navigate!

The Corniche racetrack, I mean, road

Arty (well I think it is) sunset shot

Thanks for reading as always.

Arty (well I think it is) sunset shot

 

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The Adventure Begins

As I come towards the end of my first week in Abu Dhabi I have finally found time to sit down and update my blog. It has been a hectic week, not helped by a day out of action (is "Abu Dhabi belly" a recognised condition?), but progress has been made on a number of fronts.

Jo flew out with me last Sunday evening, a second night flight in two days, having flown back from Florida on Friday / Saturday. The plan was for us to push on with getting my residency visa, and to find somewhere to live (not a decision I was willing to make on my own!) before Jo had to fly back to the UK on Thursday.

The first minor hurdle was before we got into the country. Having secured an Entry Permit before coming, before going through immigration I was required to exchange the scanned copy which had been emailed to me for the original copy which had apparently been left at the airport. We thought we had done well when we quickly found the visa counter and there was no queue, however after rummaging through the piles of entry permits on his desk, and making an agitated phone call, the man on the counter informed me that my permit was at the visa counter in another terminal of the airport. Thankfully it was only five minutes walk away so the matter was soon resolved and the original permit was in my possession.

A precious piece of paper

We grabbed our cases off the carousel, and headed through the "nothing to declare" channel, feeling very nervous that we would be selected to have our cases searched. Not that we had anything sinister in our luggage, but the stories you hear about people getting into trouble for seemingly innocuous things do make you worry a little.

The taxi sent by the hotel was waiting for us, and within 20 minutes we were checking into our hotel, the Millennium, in the middle of the city.

Thankfully BDO provide support with the visa process. Like many companies they have a PRO, a "man who can" who liaises with various government departments and carries out admin procedures. Unfortunately BDO's PRO is on leave at the moment so my support is being provided by a manager from the Abu Dhabi office. Within an hour of us checking in he had arrived to take possession of my passport and entry permit (I'd only had it an hour!) so the process of applying for my residency visa could start.

Part of the process is for me to undergo various medical tests, which happened on Tuesday. I was collected from the hotel by a couple of BDO managers at 7:30am and whisked off to the medical centre where the tests are undertaken. I was one of many people there for the same tests but the whole process was pretty methodical. I think this is how it went, it all passed in a bit of a blur:

1. Register at the main counter and receive a numbered ticket showing your position in line for the medical tests.
2. Walk out of the building, walk round the corner to another building, register at the counter and receive a second numbered ticket showing your position in the queue for various bits of personal information to be collected.
3. Wait until your number comes up on the display then go to the indicated counter where your photograph is taken, finger and palm prints are recorded digitally, and a sample of your signature is taken.
4. Back to the original building, wait in the main waiting room (separate waiting rooms for males and females) until your number is shown.
5. Go to counter indicated and pay 250 dirhams for the medical tests.
6. Go through the door indicated where you will find a corridor of small offices. A security guard will direct you to one of these offices where a doctor will decide what tests you need and mark these on a card.
7. Straight into another of the offices where you will have a blood sample taken.
8. Down to the end of the corridor where a chest X-ray will be taken.

It took an hour and a half from start to finish, with the tests themselves probably taking up five minutes of this, and the rest being sat waiting. Mind you, it seems to have been a good idea to arrive early - I had 80 people in front of me for the medical tests despite arriving at 7:45am, but as I left I could see people holding tickets suggesting there were 200+ people in front of them.

The medical test results are available within 24 hours so it is actually a pretty efficient process (I wonder how long it would take in the UK?). Mind you, it felt a little strange that it was the manager from BDO that went to collect the results (which were fine), no such thing as patient confidentiality here.

The next stage, as far as I am aware (it happens without my input) is to apply for my medical insurance card and my Emirates ID card, following which I can get my residency visa. Then we can start the process of applying for visas for Jo and the kids.

That's probably enough for now, I'll cover the progress made with looking for somewhere to live in another post.

Thanks for reading, please do leave a comment if you have any advice on how I can improve future posts.

 

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News Flash

Blog update coming soon but just to let you know that we have found somewhere to live, and are in process of completing relevant paperwork.

 

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Today is the day

After a wonderful family holiday in Florida, Jo and I are now on board our flight for Abu Dhabi waiting to take off. For me it is goodbye UK until Christmas, Jo is back at the end of the week, then flies out with the family on 28 August. Watch out for further blog updates in the coming days as I go through the process of obtaining my full visa.