Q arrives in Abu Dhabi

May 5th, 2007

Arrived in Abu Dhabi after an uneventful flight. My friend Desirée told me she once flew to Abu Dhabi and she really loved the airport for its design, and I have to say: I was very impressed by the looks of it. Basically it's a round 2-storey building with no support columns within the structure, apart from the centre one. The centre column had the shape of a whirlpool, so small below and growing bigger on top (donut-shaped). And then almost the whole ceiling is covered in different shapes and sizes of colorful tiles. Should you fly thru the airport, have a look! I promise, you won't be able to miss it! (picture not taken by Q, linked from WikiPedia)

My new employer had arranged for a cab to bring me to my hotel. And boy, was the cab ride interesting. When Shu and I visited Abu Dhabi 3 months ago, we learned quickly that the regular cabs are suicide machines. They drive like sheer maniacs. But there are also the more expensive cabs, they have luxury items as air conditioning, seat belts in the back seats (!) and all in all decent cars. The drivers speak English, something which could not always be said for the drivers in the 'regular' cabs. My ride to the hotel was with the more expensive taxi company. He drove for several stretches at speeds of 200 km/hr!! Ok, traffic was not too busy, and I did not fear for my life as I did with the other cabbies earlier this year, but still....

Right now I'm staying in a hotel until I find an apartment. The hotel I'm staying at is more of an appartment/suites kinda hotel. So I have a living room, bed room, kitchen and bathroom. Very decent! In the kitchen are a washing machine, gas (!) stove and fridge. Very handy should I desire to do some cooking (which I'm sure I will desire if I am going to stay here for at least a month!). Ok, you pay the price for it... so hopefully will find something else soon!

But I'm almost forgetting the bigger picture here:

After having played with the idea of moving to another country for 2 1/2 years, and finally making the decision to actually _do_ it last December, to the point in March where I got the job offer and I basically had 8 weeks to wrap up my life in NL: Yesssssssss! I'm finally here!

Let the fun begin! :)