Government Slant

Because of their incredible growth, diverse population and friendly, pro-West attitudes, it’s easy to forget that the UAE is not a democracy. The government – more specifically, the ruling Al Nahyan family – has final say in all matters, and is a highly respected authority. This is evidenced from time to time, like in “Gulf…

Without An Address

The Emirates Post Office doesn’t offer direct home or office mail delivery; mail goes to PO Boxes. Because this system isn’t set up, there’s no desire to formalize actual addresses. Businesses, apartment buildings, government agencies etc. are near landmarks or cross streets; restaurants and bars in or near hotels. It seems we have gotten used…

VICTORY!

One month to the day of our move in, Etisalat installed our internet. Let’s hope it keeps working!!! So, stay tuned for hopefully more frequent updates!

F1 Fever!

So, the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Formula One Race events start tomorrow – three days of speeding around a track to vye for the season title. Four racers have a shot at taking it all: Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. We are definitely not avid race fans, and know…

Think Good Thoughts!

So, day 328 in the quest to get internet in the apartment, and no luck. We’ve aggressively followed up in every means possible – phone, email, web chat, in person. Please pray that we get connected soon! In the meantime, a little update from Halloween. To drown Brian’s sorrows, we went to a fabulous dinner…

Holy Sheikh!

Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed al Qasimi, the Ruler of one of the seven emirates Ras al Khaimah, died today. As such, official mourning has been declared with effect from today for a week through, which the flags will be flown at half mast in Abu Dhabi, and even longer in some other emirates. Right now,…

Apartment Shenanigans

As it turns out, securing our new apartment was more of an adventure than we anticipated. Things are just done differently here. We expected some differences, but for a country that is vying for a spot as one of the world’s financial hubs, some of these differences were kind of surprising. To begin with, there…

Megan’s Edelman Blog goes live!

It took a little bit longer than expected, but Edelman rolled out blogs for all of the fellows this week. I’m particularly partial the cutie they have in Abu Dhabi. Check it out!! For every 50 page views, we get a free steak dinner. And eventually, when they have a subscribe option to officially follow…

We made it!!

So after almost 24 hours, 5 in-flight movies and almost not finding our apartment, Megan and I made it safely to Abu Dhabi. We are both exhausted but promise to post some good pictures/videos tomorrow of the new digs.