Wow it's been another long day, and I foresee a lot more of these to come! After I finished writing my blog for this morning, I went outside to wait for the bus to pick me up. I decided to go down a bit early and wait. The bus naturally was late, but it gave me the chance to experience the heat of the summer and watch the people go by. It is actually pretty interesting to watch people, especially when you see them watching you in return. While I stood out there, I watched a man who wore a scarf all over his face watering a small patch of grass for about twenty minutes… It took me a while to realize that he was trying to water grass in the desert before that sunk in for me, and made me chuckle a little bit; who am I to blame him though there really is nothing like soft cool grass under your bare feet, on a warm summer day.

Once the bus arrived and collected me, I was able to meet a number of new students. It was actually really nice, everyone I have met from the school is actually really nice and they continue to be. I must make a comment here about the traffic in Abu Dhabi, as it is literally frightening. It appears as though most of it is a free for all, as they act as race car drivers zooming down the highway. Cars are going this way and that, and I believe the speed limit for IN CITY driving is 80km, and their limit for highway is 120km! However, I have seen in a couple of instances where they drive faster than that. There is really a huge car culture as well, it seems as though almost everyone is driving something nice. Also there seems to be a lot of Ferrari logos all over the place, on things and people.

While we were at the school we were required to complete a bunch of paper work, as tomorrow really is our first day of work. Once the paper work was complete we were taken on a bus to purchase sim cards to put into our future cell phones. The price to purchase a sim card in the UAE is about 28 Dirham, which equals about 7.56 CAD. Although let me tell you about the adventures of getting a cell phone in the UAE. You can only get plans here if you are a resident, if you are not one you do not qualify. Non-residence individuals need to purchase credits to load their phones in order to use them. Now that that is explained I will explain the process by steps.

1) Be a resident (which I am not)

2) Be a non-resident and get no good deal (which I am and did)

3) Purchase sim card

4) Purchase cell phone (but unable to get any good deals on phone as you are not able to prove you will be living there long term yet)

5) Agonize for a while if the cell phone purchase you made was a good one, as you really wanted the Iphone but couldn't afford it until the end of next month when your check came in, and it would be cheeper anyways as you could prove you were a resident. Although with no GPS, phone, map, or internet you're pretty much left with buying a phone as best you can in your price range.

6) Figure out if the sim card actually works in it, as it can take up to two hours for your phone to recognize the sim card, all the time you are just itching to figure out how to put time on it, or data, or anything. At least in the mean time you can use the calculator to do Dirham to CAD, Euro, Pound etc… depending on what you're buying or the nationality of the person you're talking to; luckily for you the US dollar and the Canadian dollar are pretty much on par so when you figure out the one, you've pretty much have the other!

7) Once the damn sim card works, and you want to thank whatever deity you believe in or don't believe in. Now it's time to figure out how to put time on it… really how do you put time on it? You ponder for a while and begin to cry.

8) Once your tears have ceased, you realize that you most likely get time from a corner store for a pay as you go like at home! (or you don't cleverly figure it out, but through your short breaks between sobs another and much more clever teacher tells you how she had cleverly figured it out).

9) Delighted go to the store and purchase card, give them your money…. Now what?

10) Numbers on the back, so many numbers. Finally you realize, after having called every three digit number on the back. You notice the small one at the very top of the page, that comes first and realize the first number IS the number you want to dial.

11) YAHOO! Now you have minutes on your phone… but wait you really wanted data.

12) Slowly regress to your pathetic state of existence, as you did in step 7. Clever teach friend quickly interrupts out of her sheer brilliance (and nothing to do with the fact she doesn't want to see a grown woman in such a pathetic state) to tell you to text this complicated and random four digit code *1m1g* - apparently meaning one month, one GB

13) Jumps up into sheer happiness and delight

14) Become an internet gunky, unable to turn your eyes away from the phone, to the point where when asked if you'd like to look around Abu Dhabi, you respond - "What's an Abu Dhabi?"

Though some of the facts in that may have been exaggerated a little, the basic outline is pretty much true. Not a single cell phone company in this city thought it would be a good idea to post how people are supposed to make their phones work. Also it is kind of a complicated process when you have just arrived to the country, and are a bit confused about everything!

Oh did I mention we did most of this at the Abu Dhabi mall?? :D I kid you not I was at the Abu Dhabi mall, the place was huge and it was awesome over all! I also don't think it is too far away from my apartment. Which I discovered isn't as nice as everyone else's. However, my apartment is in a main area of the city, I have a maid clean my apartment for free here, I have a TV, I don't have to pay utilities like everyone else, and the best part is that it's only a 5 minute walk from the beach!!!!!!! Everyone else has I think close to a fifteen minute drive, woot. Ah sacrifices we have to make.

After I went shopping I went over to a friend's house who happens to be a fellow Canadian, and a couple of other people I am able to call my friends; one of which is from New Zealand and the other is American. Most of the time we while we were there, we were all trying to figure out our phones and playing with our phones once they were figured out. Although in between we did go to the grocery store, pick up some items and made a veggie stir-fry together - it was delicious!

Afterwards it was a trip back home, and trust me this was interesting. Let me tell you another thing about Abu Dhabi, it really doesn't have a really good address system. It works by saying the street name and something nearby, for example: I'm on George Street near the Tim Horton's. The problem is you need to kind of need to know where things are in order to do this. I at his point had no concept, without internet, or a GPS. I knew the street names and something it was near. However, my cab driver was confused as to where I was going as he didn't know my landmark the Al Ain Jeweler below. This made me really nervous because he continuously asked me if all these jewelry stores were the ones I wanted and they weren't. I was beginning to think I was lost, with practically no contacts, no support, and it was just getting dark; that's when I saw the big pink building and realized that was home! I was so relived let me tell you. Wow there is nothing like being lost. Now I have a cell phone and it has a GPS and I know the exact quadrants if I ever get lost again; to be honest I don't think I would even need the cell phone to get home after today.

Once I was home I discovered that my roommate hadn't arrived yet, so I decided to go out and go for a walk and pick up a few things. I bought some coat hangers, some tape, shoes and a purse; along with a few other items. The important part is that this allowed me some time to explore some of the area around me, which was really nice. I may even go swimming tomorrow!

Once I returned it wasn't took long after that my roommate arrived. She is from Ireland, and seems to be a very nice individual. I believe that she and I will get along quite well. We went on a little cell phone adventure for her, but she was here last year and knows everything already.

Alas still no internet, but I am writing these so I can keep people informed of my adventures. Tomorrow is my first day of work and I should be heading to bed soon. Night!