A Productive Week!

This week ended on a high note as three things that I had been waiting for finally arrived. The first item was that I picked up *the document* (code word for liquor permit). Western expats tend to use that phrase in public and not offend the majority Muslims. The permit looks a bit like a passport and is valid for one year from the date issued. I paid 180 dirham fee for the two of us which translated into our monthly liquor allowance being a generous 1,500 dirham. You first decide on how much you want to pay for the liquor application fee. That figure is taken into account with your monthly allowance and then calculated based as a percentge of your monthly salary. It sounds a bit confusing but our amount is more than enough. A bottle of rye (whiskey for you Americans) and an average priced bottle of wine is around 80 dirham or about $22.00. We're thinking of having our apartment warming party on October 20 so we'll be able to buy booze for it.

ThenNext piece of good news is that I received a cheque from my work to buy a car. I finally decided on getting a 2007 Volvo V70 stationwagon and I managed to get the price down to 100,000 dirham ($30,000). I went to the dealer this morning and gave the money and signed paperwork for registration. I will get special window tinting called V-Kool. Apparently it uses NASA technology that heavily reduces heat and other harmful rays from entering a car's interior and without using really dark tinting. It will cost about $600 but I think it will be worth it. I should get the car in about a week.

I saved the last bit of news for last. My article that took me almost four years to write was finally published! It appears in a peer-reviewed American Library Association publication called Reference and User Serivces Quarterly. The article's title is A Library of One's Own: A Survey of Public Access in Florida's Academic Libraries. I wished that it had been published before I left Florida but c'est la vie. It was a lot of work to write it but I owe my thanks to many at my last job with helping get it published. Darcy and I need to get ready to go out now so until next time...

Ramadan Kareem

So, this week marked the beginning of our first Ramadan here.

Ramadan, apparently, is the time when the Qu'ran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed. During the month, the gates of heaven are open and the gates of hell are closed. It is also a time of charity, generosity and sympathy towards the poor.

Muslims are fasting for purification from sin, and in sympathy for the poor and hungry, from sunup till sundown. They are are also not allowed to do things like smoke (you could swallow the smoke and thus break your fast) or chew gum (which produces saliva that breaks your fast). Apparently really pious Muslims will even spit all day rather than swallowing any saliva! They are also supposed to eschew sex during daylight hours (at night is okay), follow Islam's proscriptions against gossip, lies and bad speech more strictly, and read the Qu'ran through at least once during the month. There are Qu'ran readings every night in the mosques for a couple of hours after the last prayer...we can hear the ones going on across the street in our living room!

Before the dawn prayers, usually around 3am, they have a small meal called suhoor. Then right before the sunset prayer, they break their fast with a small snack--traditionally an odd-number of dates, soup and water. After prayer they have the first real meal of the day, called iftar. All the restaurants in town are having big iftar buffets, of course, many with an "arabian tent" decor and including shisha, etc.

Pregnant women, old people, prepubescent children, and sick people are not required to fast. Neither are menstruating women, though they have to make up the days of fasting after Ramadan is over. I am wondering if that last is an example of pollution taboos or an acknowledgement that a menstruating woman's body is already purifying itself! I'd like to think the latter, but don't really hold out much hope. People who don't fast are supposed to feed the needy each day they miss.

What all this means for us expats is we cannot be seen eating, drinking, smoking, etc. in public from sunup to sundown. Store and office hours are reduced, so one must take that into account when running errands, and apparently we should be more careful than usual about modest dress.

In the past, bars have been closed completely during Ramadan, leading to the expat tradition of stocking one's liquor cabinet and having Ramadan parties every weekend. However, as of last year, the bars are staying open. I am assuming it's because our neighbor, good old Miami-meets-the-Middle-East Dubai with its more liberal ways, has been keeping their bars and nightclubs open for a while now, and Abu Dhabi is feeling the need to be competitive. Yet most of the expats of my acquaintance are actually unhappy with the new policy, and most are having parties at home this month rather than going out anyway! It seems Ramadan work hours in some places are also stretching longer than in previous years. Just another example of global homogenization, I suppose :(

Play and Video News

So, my play went up last week. I think things went really well, all things considered. There was only one night where I forgot any of my lines--the one night almost everyone I knew was there, of course!--and people who saw the shows seemed to enjoy them. I was lucky in that I think I managed to get into the best cast of all four plays. The women I performed with were all really nice and I'm glad I got a chance to know them! Our director gave us a parting gift of a bottle of champagne, so we are having a party in the next couple weeks to get together and drink it.

Michael took a couple of tiny video clips with his digital camera, which I've edited and put up on our new...video blog! Yes, we finally found a site to host all of the videos we end up making. If you'd like to see a bit of the play in action you can surf to http://darcyandmichael.blip.tv.

So next up is the Christmas Pantomime. I auditioned on the weekend, and I have managed to snag a role--Lord Dan, King's Chamberlain. Yes, you read that right, I am playing a man--and a womanizing, terror-of-the-maids-quarters man to boot! Apparently, along with the tradition of the cross dressing "dame" character, it is common for Pantos to have "Principal Boys", which are men's roles played by women. Not my typical casting to be sure, but I'm sure it will be a lot of fun!

Relaxing on Friday...

It's Friday here and it's the weekend. Darcy is out at a long play rehearsal today so I'm happily browsing the web on our Mac laptop. I'm currently listening to Florida 's National Public Radio radio station online. I've not missed not having cable television as I can get a fair amount of news, sports and entertainment online. It would be great if NHL games were available online to view.

Weather has been very humid here for the last few days. At night condensation forms on the windows outside and during the day the evaporated water leaves a mucky mess. So it's difficult to see outside. Living on an island means that's often windy so that prevents window cleaners from doing their job on the highrise buildings.

We finally got our UAE driver's licenses yesterday. We were denied the first time because Canadian citizens need to have Arabic translations of their local driver's licenses stamped by the Canadian Embassy. But it was tense for a moment yesterday as the government workers were confused by our Alberta licenses being called Operator's License and not using the more standard Driver's License term. Then there was confusion about our newly revamped Alberta driver's licenses not matching what was pictured in their book of Canadian provincial licenses. We explained that our licenses were newly issued with a re-worked design.

I have now passed my three month employment probation but I've not yet received official word from Human Resources. So I can't yet start the paperwork for purchasing a car. We're in no hurry as we've grown accustomed to not owning a car. I've not owned a car in six months. Renting cars is about as expensive as in North America. But it's difficult to rent for a day or two and the companies prefer people that rent them for a month. It works out to not being too much cheaper than car payments for owning a new car.

We need to start thinking about where we want to visit on our next vacation. I have asked for a week off at the end of October and the end of Ramadan. We'll probably vist Liwa (desert oasis), Al Ain and the northern Emirates and maybe northern Oman. I've been Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for a few days. I got a referral from a colleague and the place is in close walking distance from our apartment. The lady performs a massage, accupuncture and cupping. It's provide some relief but my problems with my left ulnar nerve and sciatica like symptons will not go away quickly. But I will continue to get treatments and the $30 dollar fee for an hour treatment is a heck of a deal!

car shopping

Over the past week I've been looking at new cars. My employer gives new hires a car allowance (equivalent of up to $30,000 USD). I'm slated to pass probation in a few days which means that I can qualify for that four year interest free loan. I've looked at the Mazda 6, Honda, Subaru, Mitsubishi and last but not least - Volvo. I liked the 2007 Mazda 6 four door hatchback as it has much storage room. The engine is only a four cylinder as the V6 is not offered in the Gulf. Price is about 18,000 under the car allowance limit and the car was loaded with options. But the ride wouldn't be really smooth and expats here have told me that the car doesn't have a strong resale value. I couldn't test drive it as they had no 06 models left and only one 07 model in the showroom.

The Mitsubishi Outlander didn't look too bad but it's classed as an SUV which we decided not to buy. Honda had no cars to test drive when I visited and the new Accords are not cheap. Ditto with Subaru which also has poor resale value. People here love Toyotas. I've been told that for safety from all the idiotic drivers that it is smart to drive an SUV. Dubai Police recorded over 900,000 traffic violations over the last eight months. That works out to 157 an hour! Sixty-three percent of those were recorded by radar. I was still thinking of looking at stationwagons but there aren't too many models here to choose from.

So I naturally turned to Volvo as I've driven them most of my life. I loved my old Volvo Max despite the mechanical problems that it had. It was a heavy car with comfortable seats and was great for cruising. So I decided to test drive a 2007 V70 stationwagon. It's got the venerable 5 cylinder 170 hourspower engine and 17 inch mags. Despite being owned by Ford the car still has the Volvo feel. We bargained the price down to 106,000 Dirham which is 6,000 over my limit. I need to go back and do some more negotiating. One of the best sites for looking at new and used cars here is Drive Arabia.

We tried unsuccessfully to get our UAE driving permit last week. We discovered that the Canadian Embassy requires Arabic translations of your driver's license to be stamped by the embassy. Plus if you license is less than one year old then you may be required to take a driving test first. I got my Alberta drivers's license in April and I stupidly didn't keep my Florida driver's license number so I may end up having to take the test. I'd like to get my license and buy a car within the next two weeks before Ramadan starts. The month long religious holiday makes for strange business hours and some people not wanting to work much (especially the poor Muslims who are fasting all day). I paid $7.00 USD and watched a Canadian Football League (CFL) game online yesterday. The CFL seems to have a new broadband service for this season so I will take advantage of it. Now if only the Edmonton Oilers hockey team could offer the same thing as the new season starts in a month!

Darcy and I created a video tour of our apartment but the files are a bit large. The Mac imovie software can compact it down to a maximum of 10 MB and our first year honeymoon viedo was well under that. But it would be nice to post a link to video somewhere. Unfortunately Blogger doesn't seem to offer that service so we'll check around for other sites. Using our digital cameras and Mac are easy to use to make videos but we'll likely get a camcorder at some point....

Macs rule!

That's all I can say.... :)

Our laptop has come with all sorts of crazy software. We are creating comic books and editing videos from our digital cameras and subscribing to podcasts and rss feeds and essentially doing our best to wear out our internet connection and new hardware. I'm sure that this is just new-toy syndrome, and it will settle down with time, but wow is there a lot of stuff to play with here!

We just had a long weekend...the UAE is switching from a Thursday-Friday weekend to a Friday-Saturday one, so during the turnover Michael got three days off. Everyone seemed to expect we would go away for the weekend, but this was really the first chance we had to just hole up at home and relax without having to run errands or go shopping, so that's essentially what we did. Nice to not to *have* to do anything for a change!

Rehearsals for my play are going along well...we only have a few to go before opening night! We are missing one cast member, who seems to have done a back-door exit at the last minute, so that is a bit of a worry (jus a bit!) but otherwise everything is going well. I managed to learn my lines before we started so now it's just a matter of getting comfortable with the flow of doing it "live", and the voice projection issue. The Club has one of those stages where all the sound goes up instead of out, so we have to speak up and speak out!

Other than that not much news, except I tried getting back to the yoga mat after a long haitus only to find out how out of shape all those yoga muscles are. Lots of work to do there I guess!