The Journey: July 2014

As I mentioned in my previous post, Jason accepted a job with a new Company and we packed up our bags to move to the UAE. I did a quick visit in May to check it all out and see what we would need in our shipment. Then I moved here in early June for our next 2-3 year assignment. We stayed at the St. Regis for about a month, but no complaints here as the place was amazing. However, after 2 months of living out of a suitcase, we were so excited to get the keys to our new apartment, even if we did have to sleep on an air mattress for a couple of nights until the bed was delivered.
We got right to work and went shopping daily to get all the furniture for our new place. We left all the furniture in Lagos, as it belonged to the old company, so we started off fresh here in the new city. It has been my full time job for the last month to go to all the malls and grocery stores to see what all they have. But it's good exercise with all the walking and enjoying the air conditioning.

So for a little bit about Abu Dhabi, most people know it solely from the Sex and the City 2 movie. And honestly, that was all I knew about the city too before I started doing research. It's about an hour and a half drive from Dubai, and a little more conservative and family oriented than Dubai. It's a relatively new city and is growing everyday with new high rises, malls and houses going up everywhere. There are several "suburb" islands that are really growing, like Saadiyat Island that has a brand new NYU campus and is building a Guggenheim and Louvre museums. Also, Yas Island has a waterpark and Ferrari World, with the fastest roller coaster in the world. Its exciting to see all the fun things that there are to do here! The weather is hot right now, around 108 highs, but cools off in the winter to lows in the 50s and highs in the 70s, which I am soooo looking forward to!!

I started going to BodyTree Studio, that has all kind of fitness classes, as well as joined the American Women's Network. However, with Ramadan this month and the general exodus of expats during the summer, they both have scaled down their classes/events until the August/September time frame. Therefore I really have not met anyone here in the city except Jason's co-workers. They held a barbeque on July 4th so that was fun to met the others in the office and have some good American food. I will post pictures of our new apartment once we get all the furniture and decorations set up!!