Abu Dhabi Life

First of all, apologies to those of you who have your day ruined by not being able to read about my miserable little life - we have been beset with internet problems here for 24 hrs and I'm now in Dubai where it seems a little better (if not perfect !)

I thought that this morning I would give you a quick run down on my life (all be it short and sharp) when I’m shipped of to Abu Dhabi to find impossible solutions to other peoples lack of foresight.

As a general rule when I come here I stay in anyone of several apartments rented by the company, in a place called Vision Twin Towers (because there are two of them next to each other obviously…..)

As a point of interest, and drifting slightly away from the plot, the Starbucks Coffee Shop at the bottom of the building, was where I had my first interview for this current job – way back in January, some of you will remember that I took a bit of a gamble and flew out to Dubai for a interview for a permanent job, and whilst I was here I packed in a couple of other interviews and lunch with a ex-colleague.  To cut a long story short, I took this job rather that any of the others.

Back to the plot – the company puts me here because I refuse to check out of my room at the Tilal Liwa because I have a poolside room and may never get that back if I check out.  I also got pretty bored in the early days of packing and unpacking and lugging a great big suitcase around instead of  weekend bag…….

The apartments are generally occupied by Abu Dhabi staff, who live there full time and visit the poor little souls out in the desert once a week.  These apartments are fully serviced like a hotel so if there are empty rooms and people are passing through for the odd night, you get put up in one of these and treat it a bit like a hotel with a kitchen.

There are a series of useful shops across the road…..

…..none of which you can see from this picture, except the last one (under the white block in the middle of the picture) which is a supermarket where I buy my cigars.  Almost next door to that is a great bakery where we get lunch if we’re working in the office that we keep in one of the towers (a flatbread with cheese and chicken cooked in a massive bread oven, folded and scoffed – at AED 6 it’s a bargain !)

Next door to the bakery (almost) is a fantastic Lebanese Kebab shop/ restaurant.  This is my Abu Dhabi treat – a chicken shish with garlic mayonnaise, humus, salad and flatbread, all for AED 30.  You get enough for breakfast as well (I did this morning anyway…….).  Last in this cornucopia (look it up !) is just around the corner.

With blacked out windows and placed behind a high hedge (which makes it stick out like a sore thumb rather than concealing it) is Spinney’s.  Spinney’s is allegedly owned by Waitrose and, although I haven’t seen it myself, is a full supermarket in other locations.  But here it’s just an off-licence……..a lovely off-licence where you don’t need an alcohol licence (there is a rumour that you need a licence but nobody checks if you’re obviously not a Muslim).  A great bottle of South African Pinotage for AED 40 (and another AED 40 for another bottle about an hour later…….) which goes well with a kebab…………

So that’s the evening taken care of – on to the day.  The Municipality office where I have to go to work is just behind the Vision Towers across the front of the fire station…..

…..I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to yellow fire engines – it’s just not right…….

And around the corner (I took all four of these pictures standing in the same spot so you can see there’s not much between them.) is the Municipality building……

The other reason I took this picture from here is because, for some bizarre reason, it’s against the law to take pictures of any government building.

There is a rumour that it was originally designed to be Abu Dhabi’s new General Hospital (I can see that…) and that one day, during the construction, the Sheik drove past and was heard to say “Ah, that must be the new Municipality Building ?” (which I can also believe) and his advisor didn’t have the courage to tell him he was wrong so said “yes Your Highness” (again, I can believe this).  At that very moment however it ceased to be the new General Hospital and became the new Municipality Headquarters……….(this bit I find hard to believe…….but then what do I know !).  Either way, it looks like a hospital, feels like a hospital, smells a bit like a hospital, sounds a bit like a hospital – so it must be a Municipality Headquarters obviously (or a duck…….).

What you don’t really get a feel for in these pictures, are the huge number of cars.  Every main road is at least 2 lanes and mostly 3, people drive with one hand on the horn and parking is the proverbial nightmare.  This aspect is not helped by the way cars are just abandoned instead of parked.  It’s not uncommon (in fact just the opposite) for the kerbside lane of most main roads to just be used for parking (they parallel park all the way along and then someone, completely randomly, will park nose in with boot sticking out into the middle lane, and by early afternoon others will have joined them and consequently there will only be one and a half lanes for free flowing traffic – which doesn’t stop them getting 3 cars abreast down the road obviously !)

Right, I must stop this blathering and get on with some work because this afternoon I need to drive to Dubai down the 4 lane racetrack and if I want to leave early I have to get all my ducks in a row before I slide off !