New year, new blog!

Well, I thought I'd give this blogging thing a go! Let's see how I get on.

Caz and I have now been in Abu Dhabi for 6 months, give or take a couple of weeks - and what a weird 6 months! Neither of us has lived abroad before, but I think even if we had it would still seem weird! We are definitely getting used to it, but it has taken some adjustment to deal with life in the Middle East.

This is where we live - we have the ground floor. It's on a development called Mohammed bin Zayed City about 40 mins out of the City Centre. It's quite roomy and provides parking, which is like gold dust in the City. As I have to travel to Dubai regularly it also cuts down the journey time to get there. I work for a Global IT Infrastructure distribution company based in Dubai and Caroline works at a maternity hospital in Abu Dhabi. I guess you will get more of a flavour of our work as these posts continue, but for now I want to talk about this week.

We have had all our kids over from the UK this week which has been great. Christmas Day was a bit of an anti-climax as we both had to work, but we did get chance to "Skype" with my family in the evening which was good. Basically, we saved our Christmas festivities until our kids arrived on the 28th. So a full crimble dinner was a must and we swapped pressies.

A couple of days ago we paid a visit to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque which is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately we got there past the time for visitors so we could only look at the outside. Caz and I will definitely go back though to take a look inside.

For New Year's Eve we booked to go on a Desert Safari. We were picked up by our driver and host, Amir who expertly guided us though the desert in his 4x4. The crazy dune bashing was fantastic - the hysterical laughs of terror from the kids were pretty funny! We stopped by some camel farms and watched the sun go down on top of the dunes - very nice, awwww.

We arrived at Bedouin camp where we had Arabic coffee, dates, tea, kebabs and rice. As Amir is a regular host he let us smuggle in our own drinks for the night (!), so a good time was had by all. The girls had henna tattoos which looked really lovely. They even bought some of their own henna today and did some more themselves.

So on the strike of midnight we cracked open the Champagne, but unfortunately as a heavy fog had descended, there were no fireworks. All in all, a great day.

Good job we hadn't booked anything in Dubai as all outdoor events (fireworks, concerts etc) were cancelled by order of Sheikh Mohammed as a mark of respect to the people of Gaza during the current conflict with Israel. I guess the rockets fired into Israel by Hamas over the last couple of weeks, unilaterally breaking the ceasefire, don't count! Anyway... quite a few upset people in Dubai I would imagine.

Today was a little more subdued. Lee was not feeling too great (too many Fosters me thinks!), but the rest of us went to Al Raha Beach Hotel for brunch. International buffets are great! I had salad, sushi, fresh crab, smoked salmon, lobster, beef, roast pots, all manner of puddings, fruits and cheeses! Finished off with coffee. Yummy! ....yes I know, I am a pig!

Tomorrow I think we may be off to the beach......