(English) The second week

 Phew, this week has flown by so quickly! It was a fun, albeit exhausting week full of new impressions and surprises. And some beautiful sunsets!

At work, it was again a whole lot of introductions and site visits, and it's becoming increasingly clear what we need to do in the coming time. I can't say too much about it yet. However, here's the website which hasn't been updated in a while. There you'll find some info.

This week at work, a tremendous amount of information came my way. I really had to process all of this, which reflected in some bizarre dreams. But after a couple of early nights, I was back to normal.

Becky and I are still waiting for our "real" visa, the Emirates-ID. Without that, there's not much you can do here, like rent a house, for instance. This week we looked again at the apartment complex where we want to live, but since we don't have our official visas yet, they can't "hold" it for us. Quite frustrating! Time is ticking... HOPEFULLY, we will get lucky this week and can really get started. So, it's a waiting game.

In the meantime, we've been looking around for furniture and the like, as we are going to rent an "unfurnished" apartment. In the end, it's more economical, AND we can decorate it as we like! But that means we have to work hard to get it furnished in the coming time. It's going to be a process.

But over the past week, after work and on the weekend, we had some adventures:

• A few evening walks through the neighborhood with ice creams, sunsets, and cats
• A nice dinner at a fancy Japanese place with sushi presented on a kind of mini zen-garden plateau. With mocktails and squid balls.
• During lunch one of the days, we visited an organic farm where they served divine za'atar cheese breads in the garden. Za'atar is a kind of oregano/thyme. Dried za'atar is ground and mixed with sesame and sumac (dried sour berries). Together it forms the za'atar spice mix, which has the same name as the herb. Long story short; yummy! Especially with cheese.
• After work, we visited the mangroves and enjoyed a beautiful walk over a plank path through the mangroves. Water flowed beneath us, crabs scurried around, and in the distance, the sun sank behind the city skyline. The way there was also quite something; our driver and colleague hadn't been there in a while, and suddenly there were all kinds of buildings and roadblocks (a common phenomenon here because so much is built so quickly). We had to navigate around them, resulting in an exciting and wild ride.

Friday night it was time to explore Abu Dhabi's "nightlife," and we ended up with some colleagues in a bar with a Filipino cover band. In the Philippines, people take karaoke very seriously, which means (a lot of) Filipinos are incredibly good with a microphone. All the familiar songs came by, and it was very enjoyable. Wow, could that lady and gentleman sing! Unfortunately, by the end of the evening, we did smell like cigarette smoke, as smoking is allowed in bars. Yuck. Beers were also available, albeit a bit pricier. I think I paid about 12 euros for a Guinness. Good for the liver, we might say ;-)

Saturday morning was a lazy morning with a coffee and a walk, a trip to the salon for nails, and then to "heritage village" with Becky and Irene, a very friendly Spanish lady who is also new here. Heritage Village is an open-air museum where traditional life is showcased. It wasn't particularly our thing, so we quickly moved on to a huge bookstore, where I bought a visual dictionary to brush up on the language a bit. Lovely to browse around too! After that, we ate at the Georgian's, and were pleasantly surprised by very tasty non-alcoholic cocktails (unfortunately also 12 euros each, oh well...). Also, blue cheese and pear kathcapuri. Wow wow wow! The bottom of the wallet wasn't in sight yet, so then a beer WITH alcohol, and the day was over. Very enjoyable!

Sunday we wrapped up with an adventure in the desert. Colleague Sebastian took us to a place about an hour's drive from the center. Armed with water, sunscreen, snacks, and binoculars, we ventured into the wilderness and saw various birds, lizards, insects, camels, and tracks in the sand. Becky and Sebastian know a lot about birds, so I learned a bit too! We spotted a Shrike (which impales its prey on a thorn bush!) and Wheatears. We also saw a "Sand Fish" in the distance, a type of lizard that dives into the sand when threatened. When Sebastian tried to catch it to show us, it "swam" away quickly and disappeared! Then a 2 euro kebab, laundry, and suddenly it's a quarter to ten, Sunday evening. Time to catch some z's!

P.S. It takes me so much effort to name/number the photos correctly, I've decided to leave the captions to the imagination ;-))