Last supper. Or should that be breakfast. This morning was my last free meal at the Murjan Asfar Hotel Apartments here in Abu Dhabi. We have been there for just over two months enjoying the good life. That included the free breakfast and full serviced apartments.
It sure is a man's world here even though it is supposedly enlightened. When we arrived at the hotel my son was placed on a different floor to me. He got the lovely Thai ladies cleaning his room and picking up after him while I got the wee Thai men (or boys) doing the bare minimum in mine. Talk about different standards. He got the slippers and dressing gown and all the freebies while my room had barely anything in it. His TV got better channels and his internet connection when we skyped didn't cut out like mine did. Not that any of that can be controlled by gender but it all seemed so much easier for him than me. After we moved into a family room with two bedrooms, one of the men on his floor remarked to me in the lift that they missed his smiley face and laughter when they went into his room.
So I'll miss the staff there and having my shopping taken up to my room on the trolley and unloaded for me. You can sure get used to all these home comforts.
After three taxi trips we finally got all our accumlated belongings up to our new apartment. There was no nice men with trolleys to help with the moving here so had to lug it all upstairs ourselves. The same occurs when I went grocery shopping just now. The taxi stops miles away from the door as there are vehicles parked right outside and I unload the shopping onto the footpath which is always crawling with ants. Lucky I have my own 'porter' in my room whom I text and he has to run down and cart the bags upstairs. Even with the two of us it has still been a struggle to get the stuff up in one trip.
Our apartment is on a building site. We are in Tower B of a new development with Tower A having been occupied longer. Outside my bedroom window is a large crane that, at times, appears to be about to swing through the window and pick me up. I looked out there the other day and a man was standing on the end of the crane and was only a few metres away from me in my room. And we have no curtains yet so will be dressing in the bathroom.
Looking out the window reminds me of when Dad worked at Longburn Freezing Works on the building site there. You'll see what I mean when you look at the photos. There are four buildings under construction at the moment on this site and a new mall which constructions appears to have stalled on.
We are sited behind the Holiday Inn Hotel on Airport Road. The hotel seems very popular and I believe it has 'Ladies nights' which is when the ladies get free drinks and the men hang around and wait for them to get drunk. Then nature takes its course. It has a nice outdoor bar that appears popular with the local men or so it seems when I've walked past late at night to catch a taxi.
Our location makes it difficult to get onto the site and the one way road system adds to that. You enter from 31st Street between Muroor & Airport Road. I may decide I need a car as once you walk out the building you have to walk a fair distance to the road in either direction. As the temperature is heating up I won't want to be doing that. In one direction it is like walking over a bomb site with debris littering the sand. Taxis are few and far between and even the bus stop (we are on the same bus route as before) is a hike in either direction. I am lucky as I am catching a ride to work tomorrow with my HOF (head of faculty) who lives in the other tower. I will have to leave a lot earlier though as she drops her daughter off at school on the way.
The apartment itself is new, only having had one previous tenant. She obviously didn't know how to clean though so have been down on my hands and knees scrubbing floors. The builders dust is still on the walls and there is glue from the tiles everywhere. So I'll be looking for some product to try to remove that and clean it up. It looks 1000 times better already after a decent clean but I could have used my sister and her 'Ha Ra' cloths here to help out. She'd make a mint here as a cleaner as many cleaners have no idea how to clean. My knees did protest though after a day on them so I need some of those knee pads that Dad uses when he's doing jobs for us.
Before our new beds were delivered I told my son to get the floors cleaned. So he asked the man on the front desk for a broom and made sweeping motions. Next minute there's eight or ten men in the apartment with buckets of water and they're sluicing the floors with all this water. That's how you wash a floor here! When I arrived the floor was under water and as it's all tiles it was very dangerous. So I'm frantically trying to open windows and find something to dry the floor. I hitched up my long dress that I was wearing and used a roll of toilet paper (only thing in the apartment), got down on my knees and started mopping up the water. The floor was littered with tufts of white paper but at least it was dry before the new mattresses were dragged in! Phew! Another crisis averted.
My purchases to date are: 2 new beds - mattress & bases; a three seater couch; a two seater couch with drinks holder in the middle; two duvet sets; fridge; washer/dryer; cleaning products; TV cabinet (cheapest I could find); TV (dearest my son could find); sheets (1 pair each of Egyptian cotton - reckon if we this close to Egypt may as well have the best); towels (2 white good quality - 2 beach for swimming); bath mat; 3 knives, forks & spoons; 2 cups; 1 cereal bowl; 2 sharp knives; breadboard; fish slice; small frypan for omeletes; 1 ring convention cooker; jug. Minimalistic is the catch phrase. I've got an iron and ironing board & two small book shelves to pick up that I'm buying second hand. Then hopefully I'll be able to make do until all the teachers go home in June then I'll pick up wardrobes and tables second hand. Having no storage other than the kitchen cupboards is a challenge. Also apartments don't have stoves in them so you have to buy your own. Having said that, they are so much cheaper than at home. You can get a four burner normal size gas oven for 1300AED which is around $450NZ. I paid 999AED for the fridge and I love the lock on it. I could have used that years ago when I had hungry teenagers. All fridges come with a lock. The washing maching is also a dryer which is wonderful. It cost 1999AED so you pay more for that facility.
The Tower has a good gym and outdoor pool on the roof along with a sauna and yoga room. I haven't used them yet but the pool never seems to be used. Strange. The gym is busy though and could probably be twice the size. Lots of fit looking people here and it's funny to be back where everyone is wearing western clothes again. The four towers in the block are nearly all teachers so you can't get away from them.
Tonight will be my first sleep here though my son has been here for a few nights. The constant noise is a concern even though work has stopped. Building continued on one site even on Friday (holy day). Our building runs on generators so the noise is continual. I changed bedrooms after visiting at night due to the humming that never stops. As we are on the 8th floor we are not high enough up to miss the sound so I don't know how I'll go with sleeping tonight.
The rooms don't look so small now either and the large foyer will be able to be used for storage if I can get some big wardrobes to put in there. And we get food delivery to the apartment from numerous local restaurants so will be availing myself of that this week. It's hard to believe that I've only cooked twice since I've been here so will be getting back into that again.
View from my bedroom
It sure is a man's world here even though it is supposedly enlightened. When we arrived at the hotel my son was placed on a different floor to me. He got the lovely Thai ladies cleaning his room and picking up after him while I got the wee Thai men (or boys) doing the bare minimum in mine. Talk about different standards. He got the slippers and dressing gown and all the freebies while my room had barely anything in it. His TV got better channels and his internet connection when we skyped didn't cut out like mine did. Not that any of that can be controlled by gender but it all seemed so much easier for him than me. After we moved into a family room with two bedrooms, one of the men on his floor remarked to me in the lift that they missed his smiley face and laughter when they went into his room.
So I'll miss the staff there and having my shopping taken up to my room on the trolley and unloaded for me. You can sure get used to all these home comforts.
After three taxi trips we finally got all our accumlated belongings up to our new apartment. There was no nice men with trolleys to help with the moving here so had to lug it all upstairs ourselves. The same occurs when I went grocery shopping just now. The taxi stops miles away from the door as there are vehicles parked right outside and I unload the shopping onto the footpath which is always crawling with ants. Lucky I have my own 'porter' in my room whom I text and he has to run down and cart the bags upstairs. Even with the two of us it has still been a struggle to get the stuff up in one trip.
Our apartment is on a building site. We are in Tower B of a new development with Tower A having been occupied longer. Outside my bedroom window is a large crane that, at times, appears to be about to swing through the window and pick me up. I looked out there the other day and a man was standing on the end of the crane and was only a few metres away from me in my room. And we have no curtains yet so will be dressing in the bathroom.
Looking out the window reminds me of when Dad worked at Longburn Freezing Works on the building site there. You'll see what I mean when you look at the photos. There are four buildings under construction at the moment on this site and a new mall which constructions appears to have stalled on.
We are sited behind the Holiday Inn Hotel on Airport Road. The hotel seems very popular and I believe it has 'Ladies nights' which is when the ladies get free drinks and the men hang around and wait for them to get drunk. Then nature takes its course. It has a nice outdoor bar that appears popular with the local men or so it seems when I've walked past late at night to catch a taxi.
Our location makes it difficult to get onto the site and the one way road system adds to that. You enter from 31st Street between Muroor & Airport Road. I may decide I need a car as once you walk out the building you have to walk a fair distance to the road in either direction. As the temperature is heating up I won't want to be doing that. In one direction it is like walking over a bomb site with debris littering the sand. Taxis are few and far between and even the bus stop (we are on the same bus route as before) is a hike in either direction. I am lucky as I am catching a ride to work tomorrow with my HOF (head of faculty) who lives in the other tower. I will have to leave a lot earlier though as she drops her daughter off at school on the way.
The apartment itself is new, only having had one previous tenant. She obviously didn't know how to clean though so have been down on my hands and knees scrubbing floors. The builders dust is still on the walls and there is glue from the tiles everywhere. So I'll be looking for some product to try to remove that and clean it up. It looks 1000 times better already after a decent clean but I could have used my sister and her 'Ha Ra' cloths here to help out. She'd make a mint here as a cleaner as many cleaners have no idea how to clean. My knees did protest though after a day on them so I need some of those knee pads that Dad uses when he's doing jobs for us.
Before our new beds were delivered I told my son to get the floors cleaned. So he asked the man on the front desk for a broom and made sweeping motions. Next minute there's eight or ten men in the apartment with buckets of water and they're sluicing the floors with all this water. That's how you wash a floor here! When I arrived the floor was under water and as it's all tiles it was very dangerous. So I'm frantically trying to open windows and find something to dry the floor. I hitched up my long dress that I was wearing and used a roll of toilet paper (only thing in the apartment), got down on my knees and started mopping up the water. The floor was littered with tufts of white paper but at least it was dry before the new mattresses were dragged in! Phew! Another crisis averted.
My purchases to date are: 2 new beds - mattress & bases; a three seater couch; a two seater couch with drinks holder in the middle; two duvet sets; fridge; washer/dryer; cleaning products; TV cabinet (cheapest I could find); TV (dearest my son could find); sheets (1 pair each of Egyptian cotton - reckon if we this close to Egypt may as well have the best); towels (2 white good quality - 2 beach for swimming); bath mat; 3 knives, forks & spoons; 2 cups; 1 cereal bowl; 2 sharp knives; breadboard; fish slice; small frypan for omeletes; 1 ring convention cooker; jug. Minimalistic is the catch phrase. I've got an iron and ironing board & two small book shelves to pick up that I'm buying second hand. Then hopefully I'll be able to make do until all the teachers go home in June then I'll pick up wardrobes and tables second hand. Having no storage other than the kitchen cupboards is a challenge. Also apartments don't have stoves in them so you have to buy your own. Having said that, they are so much cheaper than at home. You can get a four burner normal size gas oven for 1300AED which is around $450NZ. I paid 999AED for the fridge and I love the lock on it. I could have used that years ago when I had hungry teenagers. All fridges come with a lock. The washing maching is also a dryer which is wonderful. It cost 1999AED so you pay more for that facility.
The Tower has a good gym and outdoor pool on the roof along with a sauna and yoga room. I haven't used them yet but the pool never seems to be used. Strange. The gym is busy though and could probably be twice the size. Lots of fit looking people here and it's funny to be back where everyone is wearing western clothes again. The four towers in the block are nearly all teachers so you can't get away from them.
Tonight will be my first sleep here though my son has been here for a few nights. The constant noise is a concern even though work has stopped. Building continued on one site even on Friday (holy day). Our building runs on generators so the noise is continual. I changed bedrooms after visiting at night due to the humming that never stops. As we are on the 8th floor we are not high enough up to miss the sound so I don't know how I'll go with sleeping tonight.
The rooms don't look so small now either and the large foyer will be able to be used for storage if I can get some big wardrobes to put in there. And we get food delivery to the apartment from numerous local restaurants so will be availing myself of that this week. It's hard to believe that I've only cooked twice since I've been here so will be getting back into that again.
View from my bedroom
Nice new kitchen
Roof top swimming pool
View from the lounge
Check out the lock on the fridge - handy to keep those kids out
Good to hear you are really getting things sorted now. I am sad for you that you have no little men running around after you now! I hope you get some sleep. I am sure that you will get used to the noise. Fancy not cooking for all that time - sounds like bliss! That must mean that you haven't had dishes either! Sweet. School tomorrow! Better go and finished getting organised! Trace
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