This is not about cars

Not too long ago there was a little event that occurred in Abu Dhabi, you might have heard of it… the Formula 1?

Yes, well. Much hoo-ha was made over it all over the world and though it appeared that the UAE had gone F1 crazy (!!!), most of the people I spoke to were decidedly “meh” about the whole thing. The biggest draw was not the cars, but the bands playing after each day of racing. We had Beyonce, Kings of Leon, Aerosmith – all very exciting but the shame was that you had to shell out for a race-day ticket in order to be able to see the bands.

The lead up to the race weekend was quite mental. For months there were stands in the malls where you could win tickets to the races, advertising was everywhere, they closed roads to clean and re-paint the sides and markings, the Corniche was brought to a standstill while one of the cars was filmed going up and down, up and down, up and down the same strip to be used in various kinds of PR and road safety stuff.

Ferrari Red was the colour of the season, and no-where more so than on Yas Island.

Abu Dhabi is an island, separated by a very thin strip of water from the mainland. The island of Abu Dhabi is, itself, surrounded by loads and loads of smaller islands, some of which are accessible by car and some by boat. Some are natural and some are man-made, created as a result of dredging the very shallow waterways around Abu Dhabi Island in order to create “paths” for boats to avoid getting banked.

One of the natural islands is Yas Island and Yas was selected to be the site of the F1 track. In a rush of construction that is still on going today (I can’t seem to find out when it was actually started) Yas, which was first turned into a nature reserve, now has the Marina Circuit (site of the F1) which is straddled by the island flagship Yas Hotel, a golf course, several other hotels and in the future will be the site of Ferrari World (allegedly the world’s largest indoor theme park), Yas Mall, a water park, a Warner Bros theme park, residential buildings and a scattering of marinas.

Formula 1 came and went and life returned to normal, except that now there is a whole new glut of hotels and their bars and restaurants to explore!


This weekend, O and I decided to explore Yas Island. We had the choice of going to the new Rotana (we are rather fond of Rotana hotels, since we stayed in one most of the time we were out here exploring and looking for a place to live) or the Yas Hotel. Cuisine was the deciding factor so we booked in to the Japanese restaurant, Kazu, in Yas Hotel.

It was a good thing that we went for the Yas Hotel because it’s a sight to behold. The outside has no sharp lines, it is all curved and smooth covered with lights that cycle through a small range of colours, which gives the impression of being organic – especially when seen from the approach out of Abu Dhabi. The inside is incredibly modern, the lobby and public areas of the hotel look like the space shuttle terminal out of 2001. It is all WHITE and very bright. Once your eyes get used to the assault of so much glaring brightness it is an interesting structure, but rather clinical for a hotel. It is a little too easy to get disoriented because all of the corridors look the same, but this in itself added to the sense of adventure for the first time visitor.

We were escorted to the restaurant, which is along a corridor that appeared to house all of the other restaurants also. After glancing briefly into the other restaurants I’d complain that the sense of being in some sort of terminal (either airport or spaceport) remains – each seemed to be of the same basic design with only the soft furnishings and the colour of the walls differentiating one from the other (although, this is based on only a brief glance inside and I may have the wrong impression).

We sat outside on the “terrace” which overlooks part of the race track. The terrace, again, perpetuates the airport feel – all of the tables and chairs along the row were exactly the same, even though they belonged to different restaurants and the view was somewhat less than exciting since the track was empty.

The food was simply awful. Actually, that’s not fair, not ALL of it was awful, but enough of it was so bad that we complained. Grilled chicken skewers (yakitori) was delicious, so I suspect the tepanyaki or anything from the grill would be good, but the edamame with chilli and garlic tasted like it was smothered in kebab shop chilli sauce, the seared scallop sashimi wasn’t seared in the slightest, the tuna belly nigiri was off and the other nigiri had been made a while before and left to sit out, resulting in an unpleasant sheen to the salmon and a distinct lack of flavour. So put off by this point we didn’t even try the yellow tail. The salmon sashimi was fresh and delicious and the spicy tuna hand rolls were nice although the nori was incredibly tough and we had to request the hand rolls to be made without the spicy mayonnaise that they always seem to come with here.

Our complaint was received with good grace and offers to replace what was below standard. We declined. The offending items were removed from the bill and we were given complementary scoops of green tea ice cream, which was a nice gesture though – sadly – the ice cream tasted awful. Clearly made from and tasting very much of UHT milk/cream and barely a whisper of green tea.

We moseyed on down the terrace to the outdoor seating for Atayeb which describes itself as a Pan Arab dining spot. Despite the identikit furniture, this looked very nice, and they offer shisha on the terrace. After pausing at Atayeb for a smoke (not cigarettes – still off those, go me!) and a beer or two we found our way to one of the four bars Yas Hotel boasts. We went to “Rush”, the hotel’s signature bar. Despite it being absolutely empty (well, not absolutely, but near enough) and the pretentious name the atmosphere at Rush was quite nice. I’d definitely go back again, even though the drinks cost an arm and a leg – although that is pretty standard out here.

The only snag, really, was getting home. Since Yas Island is not yet a popular destination for the late-night revellers (even on a Friday night) there is a distinct lack of taxis coming and going between there and Abu Dhabi island. I fully expect this to change, but for the time being it is necessary to ask the concierge to phone for a cab. In our case, he at first wanted to charge an extortionate fare – but the concierge was able to find someone much more reasonable. He only charged us twice what it cost to get there.

It was a lot of fun visiting a new place. Abu Dhabi isn’t small, but it isn’t large enough so that a new restaurant/bar/hotel/anything opening gets lost in the noise. Which means that anything new gets a lot of attention and buzz, whether it deserves it or not! Though there are still some restaurants and bars to be discovered, I predict the lure of Yas Hotel will be short lived. There are other, comparable, hotel-complexes which have more character and diversity that are no further away (and in fact are currently more easily accessible) than Yas.

Aaaaand Employed Again

I have found myself gainfully employed again, after a brief but enjoyable period of having nothing but housework to avoid doing.

Funny thing really – for all my months and months of applying for jobs, this one found me!

It was while my mum was visiting, we were treating ourselves to an expensive day on the beach (the public beach has been closed for months now while they are renovating it – again – after being open for only 6 months, so we had to go to a hotel) when I got a call on my mobile asking if I was interested in an Executive Assistant opportunity.

My reaction was decidedly lukewarm. But I had another conversation with the person who called, found out the job was a little more involved than I had thought, and decided that I’d be stupid not to go for an interview, because at the very least it would be some much needed interview experience.

First interview was ok, saw the office and met the woman I’d been speaking to on the phone. Both seemed quite nice. I learned more about the job and found it would probably be more interesting than I had thought, and certainly nothing like my last “assistant” role. What’s that thing they say about having to eat your words...? Yeah.

The decided lack of experience on my CV had me convinced that I wouldn’t be invited back for the second interview – so I carried on applying for jobs and avoiding housework.

Imagine my surprise when I got called in for that second interview, this time with the guy whom I’d be assisting in an executive manner! It went well enough, but once again I didn’t expect much to come of it. I went against advice and was completely honest about my experience and abilities, it would have been silly not to – they had my CV and could see that I’d had one “real” job aside from doing the PhD. However, an unexpected trump card revealed itself, when the guy whom I’d be assisting (henceforth to be known as “008”) said that he’d done a PhD and when it finished realised that he didn’t want to go into academia!

Trump card or no, I still didn’t hold out much hope that I’d get the job.

So, once again, I was somewhat surprised when I got a missed call while getting a leg-wax from the woman who had called me the first time when I was on the beach telling me that I had the job! Who’d of thunk it?!

I accepted, needless to say. It would have been foolish not to for all manner of reasons, the current economic climate being just one (and incidentally, who’d have thought that a phrase like “current economic climate” would become one of those that just trips off the tongue with the greatest of ease? Fun times, eh?).

Fast forward a few days and I had decided to treat myself to a mid-week sun-bath before I start working and have the chance of doing so taken away. Lying there on the self same beach I’d been on with my mum when I had that monumental first phone call and work calls again. I did not say that I was sitting on the beach (again), because I didn’t want to give the impression that I am a complete WAG, but listened while I was told that I needed to email a copy of my passport because they needed it to process my IT equipment. No biggie, thinks I, that’ll be to give me access to a desktop computer, an email address and to put me on the phone system. No no! In fact, it was so that I could get my laptop and my blackberry. I suddenly felt very aware of a heavy weight of responsibility settling itself on my nicely tanning (burnt) shoulders. I’m pretty sure I laughed. All I had running through my head was thoughts of: You see this phone? It means we OWN YOU!

I also couldn’t understand why an Executive Assistant should be in want of a laptop AND a blackberry, which made me briefly entertain the fantasy that I would actually be working for someone who was kind of like James Bond… hence the “008”… (Eddie Izzard has NOTHING on me.)


I’m starting my third week at work now, and so far it’s been ok. Had a few incredibly stressful moments and a few terribly boring ones. There’s a huge amount that I don’t understand, but that’s inevitable with any new job, and especially when one isn’t trained in the field of that job.

I’m finding my feet and getting to know the people who work around me. Everyone is very nice, very welcoming and very helpful. The office is small-ish but not too small. The only complaint is the long hours, but it’s standard here. I try* to get to work between 7:30 and 8 and 5 is the earliest I’ll go home.

Home time, whatever time that may be, is wonderful. It’s winter so the weather is gorgeous right now and I walk home! Depending on the height of my heel it can take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes, I pop in my iPod and take my sweet time strolling around the centre of Abu Dhabi. There are always loads of people around, walking and driving, and I feel terribly cosmopolitan and smug thinking about my half hour of daily exercise. But joking aside, I’m finding it a great way to let go of the day, especially a stressful one.

My last job was depressing because it was so brain meltingly boring and kinda soul destroying. This one is way more stressful (in my last job I was finished all my daily tasks by 10:30 and had to hope for something to come up, in this one I stayed long after most people had gone on a Thursday to try and get something finished) but I feel like I’m actually doing something with my day, that my job has value and, should I want to, there is a career path I could take here. In the last two weeks there were at least three times when I thought that I was in over my head and maybe I should leave within my three months probation period, which is kind of distressing and definitely one of the reasons I need my walk home in the evening.

I don’t know what I’m going to do in the summer though!




*This is a whole other blog entry in itself!

Unemployed Again

My job was only temporary – six months filling in for someone who was on leave – so it wasn’t exactly a surprise when I was told that my services would no longer be required (only they were much, much nicer than that – they even bought me a going away present!) and I had actually been expecting it to happen two months earlier.

I worked the full six months, which is fantastic in terms of pay, but was more than enough in terms of time in the role. I was soooooooo not right for that job. It wasn’t especially difficult, it wasn’t especially challenging (apart from sometimes, but then any job is challenging when you have to deal with ‘special’ people who seem to have been put there for the sole purpose of making you want to bang your head against the desk and gouge your eyes out with a rusty tea-spoon).

But really, that was part the problem (the challenging bit, not the head-banging/eye-gouging bit). The role was not challenging in any way after the first couple of weeks. After learning all the processes and who everyone was and which gloves to use to handle them… that was it! And very often my set tasks were completed before lunch and I had to wait for something else to come up. No challenge.

I was bored and frustrated, but it taught me about the kind of jobs that I absolutely will not be applying for now that I am looking again. Anything with “assistant” in the title is out (unless the job title is “Jonny Depp’s Bathing Assistant”, in which case I might make an exception – depends on whether or not dental is included in the health insurance).


And so begins the dance of looking at job advertisements online, filling in their make-you-want-to-tear-your-hair-out application forms, attaching my CV and cover letter and never hearing a thing from them.

Job hunting everywhere is tough right now – I know that. I have enough friends (I do too have friends!) in enough parts of the world to have a decent idea of what the job market is like across a fair proportion of the globe.

Really, it is no harder to find work here than it is anywhere else. In fact, if you are in the right industry then you’re golden! Sadly, I am not in the right industry and so I am more like slightly tarnished tin.

Here’s the thing. If you’re in gas, construction or engineering you will be snapped up – in some cases they’ll even train you! Though they do prefer that you be Emirati for that. Anything else and you can find work, however you had better have been doing the exact role that is advertised for, oooo, let’s say 5-15 years.

‘Transferable skills’ is not a commonly known commodity, I’m sad to say. And since I abound with transferrable skills and not very much else… I’m not hearing a lot of response back from the applications I send out.

I’m really not going about this the right way, I know that. I know that I should be shlepping my bum around to all the places that I want to apply to and speaking directly to the HR department. But, to be honest, the thought of all that makes me very nervous. I’ve not had to do stuff like this before. Of course I’ve had interviews, but that was always in the academic world, which I know! I don’t know this world at all. And I feel completely pathetic confessing that, at the age of *cough*28*cough*.


For now, I’m enjoying being the master of my own time again. And I’m filling in those application forms and emailing my CV. It’s been a week and I’m not bored yet, I still have a number of little projects that I had neither the time nor the inclination for while I was still working. I’m also determined to get into the kitchen more and have already begun that process with a delicious lasagne last week and I have plans for all manner of soup related experiments.

CAMEL!!!

I had my first up-close real-life camel sighting today!

On the way to work there seemed to be an accident up ahead because all the drivers in front of us were driving crazier than usual (you learn to read traffic like a fisherman reads the sea out here).

It wasn't an accident though! There was a camel running along the break-down lane in between the two directions of traffic!

How it got there I have no idea because it's three lanes of very fast moving traffic on either side. It was trotting along, looking a little scared but not panicked (thankfully, also it was sticking to the breakdown lane and not going out where the cars were) and as we passed by we saw the flashing police lights in the background so someone was doing something about it.

It was quite young, teenage I think, and I hope that the police or someone was able to herd it to safety.

Certainly woke us up this morning!

Ramadan is coming

And Foreigner is getting fat.

Ok, maybe not fat, but definitely chubbier than I used to be and decidedly more squishy than I’d like to be.

Undoubtedly, a part of the reason for this is the canteen at work. The food is goooooood. It’s not amazing, sadly, but it is good considering it’s canteen food and cheapity cheap cheap cheap.

Every day there are at least three different kinds of salad, soup, a couple of curries (which are made with proper spices and everything, I crunched down on a cardamom pod the other day) and various other “regional” dishes that cater for all the nationalities that work where I work. It’s pretty groovy and very difficult not to eat loads.

They also do deserts. They have a whole display case of deserts that look a-may-zing. Cakes and mousses and doughnuts and… this




What this is I’m not entirely sure. Maybe a different angle will help…




Nope. Doesn’t help.

In the office, we agreed that the most likely answer was a frog, or frog-like creature, that had been run over. Note the bulging red eyes…



… and the delightful addition of cherries in the mouth, which I like to think of as the guts being squeezed out while the poor creature was mercilessly squished




What it definitely is, is some made up of scraps of pastry that were quite possibly left over from making something (or somethings) else and while this appeals to certain waste-not-want-not sensibilities, I cannot help but question the sanity of the mind that conjured up and then executed this delightful sweet-treat.

AHEM! Moving on.

So yes, Ramadan is coming, and in fact might already be swinging by the time I get round to posting this entry* (am so excited, got a friend coming to stay this weekend). What with O being Muslim flavour I am quite used to the whole fasting thing, and even kept him company by attempting to fast myself last year, but the one thing I am sure of is that Ramadan is going to be a very different experience in Abu Dhabi than it is in the UK.

Some things that I do know:

> Eating/drinking/smoking when in public is out of the question (not that the smoking is an issue for me anymore, 2 months and 14 days without a cigarette today!).

> Restaurants, cafes and other places of consumption that are open to public view will be closed between sun-up and sun-down.

> Shops and things will have odd hours, but what these are I don’t yet know.

> Getting a cab anywhere at any time is going to be EVEN MORE of a nightmare than it is now (woe, woe is me!).

> There are going to be massive Iftar (break of fast) feasts laid out across the city. Hotels will charge and mosques will not. Anyone is welcome to these and I cannot wait to try one out. Iftar tents will be accompanied by music and shisha tents. I imagine it to be like a big, month long party.

> Night becomes day with everyone coming out after breaking fast and staying up late late late.

I’m looking forward to this, my first Ramadan in a Muslim country. I’m going to try fasting again and see how I go without drinking in the heat (by far the worse out of not eating vs. not drinking).

It will undoubtedly be an experience and one which I will, of course, tell all and sundry who are bored enough to be reading my ramblings here.

And don't forget! Run-over frog-like creature sees and watches you...!




*Ramadan actually starts on Saturday, so Ramadan Kareem everyone!

The end of a looooong chapter

At the end of last month I went back to London to attend my graduation. Along with many other “graduands” that month I had my moment where I walked across a stage, shook a hand and sat back down as a “graduate”.

However, this was not my first time. Oh no. Not for the first time did my poor parents have to sit through a multitude of boring inspirational speeches and a long list of unpronounceable names (miraculously pronounced correctly – I have always wondered just how many days the announcer spends practicing those names) just to see those few fleeting seconds that stand to mark the time, effort and – lest we forget! – money that went in to earning that particular academic diploma.

This was my third graduation ceremony and I can now legitimately call myself Dr. Foreigner (PhD, please don’t think I can help if there is some kind of heart related emergency). Aside from the red and blue gown and the ridiculous floppy hat the ceremony was much the same as the previous two – except it also wasn’t.

Pretty early on in my path down further education I knew that I wanted to be a lecturer. I loved the subject I was studying, it engrossed me and I found my most of my lecturers utterly inspiring. It was the perfect life! The university environment is dynamic and exciting, colleagues and peers are interesting, students are enthralled, the holidays are good and research in exotic locations is the cherry in the amaretto sour!

So I did my BA and found my groove. Pursued said groove into an MA straight after that and then got offered funding to do a PhD right back at my home uni with one of my favorite lecturers from my Bachelor days. Perfect. And it was… for a while. The subject area wasn’t exactly in my groove, but the region was (Africa baby!) and the future looked bright, shiny and right on target.

I had a lot of fun studying for my PhD. I met some firm friends, I lived in a wonderful part of the world for a heart-wrenchingly short time and had some experiences that I would not trade for all the world. I also learned a lot about myself and one of the things I learned is that academia is not the right place for me. Or rather, I am not right for it. All of things that I loved about being an undergrad were still there, but the more time I spent in the university system the more I came to understand how it really works.

The interesting colleagues and peers are also competitive and not exempt from office politics as I had previously fantasized. The students are very often there for the cool or because it’s what you do, innit? (apart from the Trustafarians who are going to save the world as soon as they finish this joint), not because they are on a quest for knowledge. The holidays are spent in the office, catching up on research and writing that there is no time for during term-time because of all the admin that comes with teaching. Then there’s the research. While the locations are exotic, you need a certain something to be accomplished when it comes to research. My sister told me that if you don’t have an axe to grind it will always be a struggle, and she is absolutely right.

I do not have an axe to grind, and that coupled with all the above eventually led me to the conclusion that academia is not the place for me. I loved the teaching, but I am simply not cut out for the rest of it. The revelation came to me about 2/3rds of the way in to the whole shi-bang – far too late to quit, after all the time and money, but too soon for it to be nearly over.

So there began the struggle to the end. I won’t go into how bad it was (very, very bad), but I will say that I’m amazed O stuck with me through it since he basically propped me up, emotionally and mentally, day to day and it was not an easy job.

I completed. The thesis was accepted and I got my diploma.

Looking for work before and after we moved to Abu Dhabi was a little… stressful. I hadn’t yet (and probably still haven’t) come to terms with the fact that I am not going to be using my degree. I am not going to go in to teaching/lecturing. It is difficult to let go of the plan that an 18 year old girl had and worked for, even though the girl is now 10 years older and in a different place in her life. It is difficult to let go of all the hours of studying, writing, wringing of hands, pacing of floors, tears, tantrums and little glories when a chapter/paper/article was finally finished. Lots of highs but so many more lows. All of this had to be put aside and I had to start thinking about what I could possibly want to do (didn’t have too much of a clue), what was I qualified to do (not very much) and what could I bear to do until I found out what I actually wanted/could do (my job search criteria included “job description doesn’t make me want to cry”).

We landed in Abu Dhabi and after a couple of months I landed in a job. It isn’t an ideal job *understatement* but it pays me a wage which is so vital out here. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life and I look for jobs every single day.

Nearly a year later and I returned to London to attend my graduation ceremony. As I said, the ceremony was much the same as the first two – overly long speeches, uncomfortable temperatures (too hot for this and the first, too cold for the middle one) but this one was without the sense of excited anticipation that the previous two had. Before, when I walked across a stage and shook a hand, I was about to enter into a new and exciting phase of my long-term goal. I had a goal! I was moving onwards and upwards and very much looking forwards. This time there wasn’t so much anticipation, excited or otherwise. I felt sad for what wasn’t right for me and what I wasn’t right for. I looked backwards at what I was leaving behind with a certain measure of regret but knowing full well that, despite any romantic notions I might still hold on to about being an academic, it is not the life for me. Full stop. So walking across that stage and shaking that hand wasn’t the start of a new stage in my life (as the inspirational speakers so often suggest). It was the end of an old one. The closing of a chapter. Maybe even of a book that I have to put on the shelf now, for once and for all.

Despite this sounding very maudlin, and for which I apologize but is the way it is, I had a wonderful graduation trip. I hadn’t seen my family or friends in an age and I got to spend four whole days back in my fabulous home city. I had a lovely celebratory dinner with the family (lovely in spite of the food I might add) followed by drinks and a little bit of dancing in my fancy graduation clobber – though I left the gown behind. The rest of the time I mooched and munched, went to the museum with my dad and shopping with my mum. Aside from the whole graduating thing I had a list of three tasks and I completed each with aplomb: I ate my body weight in dim sum, attempted to drink my body weight in Café Nero (but didn’t succeed, which is probably a good thing for my blood pressure!) and splurged in All Saints. However, I didn’t see enough of any body and cried my heart out on the plane home - which was doubly embarrassing because we had cashed in some air miles and got ourselves upgraded to business class baby yeah! (very nice, but definitely not worth the cash cost!) and I had wanted to seem terribly sophisticated and like I belonged there *sigh*

I am proud of my achievement – but I am also very aware of what I went through to achieve it, and I can’t help thinking that if it was meant to be it shouldn’t have been that hard.

Basically, what it all comes down to is that it is Dr. Foreigner to you – got it?

Absentee Note

Dear Internet,

Please excuse Foreigner for being absent for the past month.
Things have been at the same time hectic and slow in the land of sandstorms lately, and she has not been able to come up with anything interesting to say.

She is, however, cooking up a couple of things that might make up for it.


Yours truly,
Foreigner's conscience.


P.S. There might be something really, really, cool happening soon. But not wanting to jinx it, Foreigner kindly requests that you keep your fingers crossed for her for the next couple of weeks.
F.C.