Finally A Bank Account

At the start of the month I opened my bank account.

Not terribly exciting, one might think, but everything is kind of exciting here because it more often than not opens up whole new, hitherto unimagined, worlds of red tape, complications, form filling, pencil pushing, first born promising and frustration of the sort that makes you want to rip the skin off your face with your fingernails.

First I have to mention the unusual quirk they have here of wanting you to keep a substantial sum in your bank account at all times, lest they charge you for going under that amount. This sum varies from bank to bank and from account to account. I have noted a low of AED200 for a very basic account which is essentially keeping your cash under your mattress but without the convenience of having it so easily accessible, and a high of AED10,000 which, presumably, entitles you to bank statements printed on gold-leaf and having a unicorn nuzzle your neck to ease your tension whenever you grace the branch with your presence. This practice doesn’t make any sense to me, because surely, if you thought you were going to drop below the standing amount, the logical thing to do would be to take all your money out and close the account, rather than sit immobile while you get charged for daring to use your own money! You should be ashamed!!!!

Then, there are the women’s accounts.* Aside from getting to choose which pretty picture you want on your debit card, there are benefits to women only accounts – but it’s a shame the benefits are only for women. The premise is that a woman will either not be earning her own money, and instead be provided for by the significant male in her life at that point (father/husband), will be a secondary earner in the household and probably not earning as much as the significant male in her life and that the account holder may not have a regular amount entering the account on a regular schedule. In this country, all quite reasonable assumptions. What this means for the account holder is that there is often a much reduced standing amount (if any) though quite probably a reduced interest rate to go along with it.

There is no stipulation about who may open one of these women’s accounts, apart from that you are a woman. And so, due to my somewhat unstable employee status I opened one myself!

I picked a bank that seemed to be the least sneaky with hidden charges (some will charge you every time you use your bank card, either at an ATM or in a shop, they will charge you for using the counter service, they will charge you for having a cheque book and for using a cheque, they will charge you for daring to want to dirty up their nice clean bank by keeping all your filthy money in it and for merely existing… ok I exaggerate, but only about the bank being clean), but this came with a price. They are only open between 8am and 2pm. Bit of an inconvenience since I start work at 8am but hey ho, they are open on Saturdays so not too much of andrama as long as I don’t have any urgent banking matters that cannot wait until the weekend.

I digress. Never one to be daunted in the face of needing to make a little extra effort (stop sniggering in the back – I can hear you!) I tootled along on a Saturday morning with passport in hand to become a proper grown up person who can take charge of her own money! Woohoo!

It all started smoothly enough, although the nice woman who would ultimately open my account for me was adamant that she describe – in a not altogether descriptive manner – the different kinds of current accounts that the bank provides, even though I’d done my research and picked the kind of account that I want. She was most successful in confusing me and sending my little brain round in circles. That over and done with I filled in my forms, handed over my passport for photocopying, got myself a pay slip and handed AED150 in cash to the teller. AED100 as a minimum deposit to open the account and AED50 for my debit card… well you can’t expect something for nothing now, can you?! So simple, so quick. I was delighted.

With that all nicely sorted, I was a little surprised to get a call the next day from the woman who opened my account. Apparently there were some things that were neglected (I’d be raising an eyebrow now if I could) when I initially opened the account. Some extra information about me was needed and though she could take that information over the phone I needed to sign the form to authorize the amendments. Sigh. Also, for some reason I’m not wholly convinced about (she said something about her boss and audits), I had to provide a salary certificate. Oh boy.

It takes a couple of days but I get my salary certificate through from Dubai, and despite it having my title as “Miss” it refers to me using the masculine 3rd person singular throughout. It also is missing a rather essential decimal point resulting in my salary certificate certificating that I earn an absolute mint! Ha. I wish. Hoping for the best (and already regretting not using a little biro magic to address that decimal point issue) I take it to the bank as soon as the place opens the next day.

After more palaver involving trying to explain there aren’t “departments” in my four person office, pleading that the salary certificate be accepted even though it reads like it’s been written by a baboon that had a school-leavers diploma waved in it’s general direction, providing a full UK address and phone number (even though I DON’T LIVE THERE ANY MORE!) and my bra size I was told that, Insha’allah, my bank card would be ready for me by the weekend.

Ee gads. Luckily the card was ready by the weekend and I had my May wage paid into my account so I can now spend virtual money to my heart’s content. Whoop!


In case any one was wondering what has been happening to my salary before this momentous occasion… I had it paid into O’s account, which meant that I regularly felt like the little woman saying something very much like “Darling, I need to buy some frivolous women’s things like kittens and parasols – hand over the ATM card!”

Adventures in banking this certainly was not. But I was very, very excited to have that little text telling me I’ve been paid.



*Don’t even ask about the accounts that conform to the Islamic code of interest/profit earning. I just cannot get my head around them at all – but they do exist and indeed entire banks operate based on it.

Foreigner's Adventures This Weekend

Cast your mind back a wee while, if you will, and recall our last adventures at sea.

Ah it seems so long ago now that we traipsed across the sea bed like some ancient mariners walking forth into the unknown after the tide betrayed us leaving our trusty vessel sand-banked, avoiding the urchins and me trying not to lose my flip-flops. All fun and games.


This past weekend saw us on another adventure, only this time it was more… prolonged.


It started innocently enough (as these things so often do *sigh*). It was proposed that a bunch of people get together and camp overnight on one of the islands surrounding Abu Dhabi. Nothing is ever really far away in Abu Dhabi so if the worst came to the worst we could always just hop on the boat and be safely back on terra-firma within half an hour, max. Mmmmhmmmmmm.

O, being the BBQ king that he is, was persuaded to deal with the food so our weekend began with four hours in the kitchen preparing and marinating 8kgs of meat and sundries (the sundries were my job – salads basically). All well and good, there were to be 16 of us after all! Plus the destination island comes complete with a public grill. Sorted.

We were a little late in leaving the dock in the first place, but it wasn’t too much of a problem in the grand scheme of things since we were spending the night. Anyhoo – we arrive at the island-with-grill only to find it is overrun with jet-skiers! This will not do since we wanted to swim and it is hazardous to ones health to be swimming where there are jet-skiers about. So we push on and find ourselves a nice little deserted island (I say deserted but there was a permanent camp a little way down the beach, lights, air-con, satellite!) and proceed to unload our stuff. A minor problem arises when it dawns upon the group that there is no grill on this beach, but “not to worry!” cries our captain – we have disposable BBQ thingies a-plenty. A-ha! Disaster narrowly averted.

While the captain went back to fetch some other soon-to-be-islanders, the rest of us proceeded to make camp. Having selected an area that was out of the wind, flat enough for our stuff to stay where we put it and far enough away from the apparent tide mark we happy few set out tables and chairs and some beach mats, constructed a tent or four, laid out the food, opened a bottle of sparkling grape-juice (ahem) and began the chilling out process.

When the captain finally came back (complete with one islander who brought a suitcase with wheels in which he had packed a shaving kit, cologne, pillows and a duvet – yes, there was much sniggering behind hands as we watched him dragging his case across the sand) it was getting dark so it seemed wise to get on with the BBQ. Two small disposable BBQs materialised. Allow me to remind you that we had a hella lot of meat to cook. O gamely gave it a shot but we realized after about an hour that it really wasn’t going to work. Added to the distinct lack of decent heat source was the issue of there being no light source! There were a couple of lanterns, but no wicks. There were some of those tiki torches, but not enough lighter fluid to keep them alight. While a giant search light was charging on the boat we had to make do with a little torch with dying batteries being shared between the BBQ and the camp-fire construction.

In the end it all got to be too much of a faff so we wrapped the meat in foil and threw it on the camp-fire to what it would. Turns out that you can cook alright food using this technique, but it doesn’t rival a good grilling.


After eating, the captain had to disappear again as there were a number of people not spending the night. I’d say, ooooh, maybe an hour after he left is when we noticed that the tide was coming in. And I’d give it maybe five minutes more before we realized that we were going to get flooded. Yup, flooded. The tide was coming in at a ridiculous rate and because we were on a flat there was no question of what the inevitable outcome would be if we didn’t act quickly.

I would not recommend having only two people while trying to shift the camping gear of seven people up a sand-dune* with the tide biting at your heels. I would suggest having at least twelve people to do that job. Sadly there were only five of us on the island at that stage and three weren’t at camp when the tide arrived. So O and I shleped as much as we could up the beach before the other three raced back and we all got it up the dune just. in. time! The camp-fire was gone, but the night was warm and we five waded out into the – now much nearer – water to wash the sweat off and play with the phosphorous. (My theory is that it is water angels and I do not want to be told any different thankyouverymuch.)

Four hours after leaving us, the captain and two other islanders got back and I promptly went to bed.


The next morning was early. At about 6am I awoke to find myself a sleeping bag wrapped dim sum in a tent-shaped bamboo steamer. Luckily there was a flask of coffee (vanilla and hazelnut flavoured!) and water that wasn’t yet at an undrinkable temperature. I was looking forward to a quick swim and then packing up to go home. Surely no one would really want to hang around after the farce of the night before.

From our vantage point on top of the sand dune the boat was clearly visible. As was the water. The boat. And the water. Or should I say:

The boat <-----------------------------------------------> And the water.

With the boat moored in sand and the sea somewhat further away from the boat than would be useful to facilitate us going home there could be only one conclusion. We were beached. Again. Only this time in a slightly less than fun manner since we couldn’t walk across the sea bed and we’d spent a night on the island and wanted to go home. Plus it was getting hot and it was only 6:30/7am.

Fret not however, for I am writing this to you from a lovely comfortable air-conditioned room and not using smoke signals to get the message to someone who can post it for me. At about 8:30am one of the fishermen from down the beach wondered over to tell us that the tide probably wouldn’t be back in until 3 o’clock that afternoon. We elected to have breakfast then call the coast guard to rescue us.

Perhaps inevitably, breakfast didn’t happen (I can now firmly attest that you cannot cook scrambled egg in a tin-foil tray over a butane burner) and neither did the coast guard. The local fishermen from down the beach did, however, and they sped us back home with all our stuff while leaving the captain and his loyal wife with their ship – or more accurately in the air-conditioned tent of the fishermen where they got to play with some puppies for a few hours, by recent accounts.

We made it home by midday which was nice as we got to sleep a lot and still have a bit of the day left to eat, shower and unwind our nerves which were like corkscrews by that stage.

Sadly, it was a less than happy ending for the captain. The previous nights tide was a “spring” tide which only occurs once a month when there is either a full moon or new moon – we had the new moon one – and is unusually high for only one night. Even though he anchored the boat quite far out from the beach, it was dark when he did so and was not quite far out enough. The kindly fishermen told him to go away for the night since the tide wouldn’t be coming back in for a looooong while, after dark they called some of their friends out and they dragged and floated the boat while the tide was just about high enough. The next day after work they called the captain to say his boat was in the water, cooked him supper when he arrived to pick it up and sent him on his way again.


I may complain on occasion about this place and the distinctly odd way in which things are often done. One thing I will never be able to praise enough, however, is the incredible generosity and hospitality of the Emiratis. Especially when it comes to stranded strangers.




*I use the term “dune” loosely, it was more like a sand-shelf but it was high and difficult to climb while pulling a tent so “’dune” will suffice.

The art of delivery

One thing they do really well here in Abu Dhabi (apart from hummous and manicures) is lazy.

There was once a suggestion that they should introduce self-service petrol stations, but a poll revealed that no one would use them even if it was a little quicker. It is the expected and the standard that someone will come to your house and put your Ikea furniture together for you, no matter what it is. No one seems to wash their own car, but will stand by watching the man they are paying to do it, to make sure he is doing it properly.

So now, indulge me for a moment - if you will - and make a quick mental list of the things that you have delivered, but not posted!, to your home... it's ok, I'll wait...

...

Goodness me but I need to get my nails done again...

...

Got it? Ok. I think this sort of list will vary depending on where you live so I'm going to go by where I used to live, the UK. I'll hazard a guess that most of the things on the list will be food related:
Pizza
Indian food
Chinese food

Sushi - if you live in that sort of town
Erm.... well I'm out. I think that's pretty much all I ever had delivered to me while I still lived in the UK.

Here? Well, there's most of the above, although I've not seen a sushi place that delivers yet, and we can also get every type of fast food you can think of (KFC, Maccy Ds, Subway), but it doesn't stop there - oh no!

Forgot to get some coriander for that curry or ran out of limes? Call the greengrocers round the corner and he'll send a guy.
Need some cigarettes and some mobile phone credit? The shop under your building will speed it over.
Bread, milk, water, chocolate bar, shampoo? See above.
There are people who knock on your door with sacks full of fake DVDs.
Dry cleaning? Ironing? Not only will they bring it to you when you ring, but they'll pick up the stuff that needs doing as well!

The only thing I wish I could have brought to my door, that isn't, is the post. For that they make me go to the post office and open my post office box.

Really, once you step inside your door there is precious little to force you out again. It's a good thing the weather is nice.

Whirlwind trip to Europe

Ok, so I know that doing that whole "Europe" thing is annoying in an I've never left my own country before way, but really that's the only way to describe it!

We flew out of Abu Dhabi to London last Tuesday. I got to spend a fabulous day shopping with my mum and had a fantastic dinner with my dad, mum, sister and brother in law before we had to catch a flight to Glasgow on Thursday.

The flight to Glasgow was pretty groovy - for only £20 extra each we flew "business" on BMI which was fun, but not all that much to write home about for a 1 hour flight. We did have Russle Brand sitting behind us on the flight though - and I pretended I didn't know who he was *evil grin*

Some dear friends of ours from Derby got married in Glasgow on the Friday. The wedding was beautiful and I shed a little tear. We walked from the church to the reception through Glasgow led by a piper - it was a wonderful experience marred only by my heels getting caught in the cobblestones everywhere! He he he.

The reception was fantastic. We were sitting at a table with all our Derby friends, the food was delish and the band which came on after lunch was simply brilliant. We danced the night away, shedding more than a little tear when it came to saying goodbye to everyone again.

On Saturday morning we flew to Paris (somewhat less glamourously on easyjet) for another wedding, this time a cousin of O's. This affair was rather more extravagant than the previous day. Evening gowns, fois gras and flowers is how I will remember the evening. The bride was beautiful and the groom looked happy, if a little overwhelmed.

We then spent another two days in Paris seeing some of the sights and utterly catching the Paris bug, ensuring that we'll be back again and for longer.

The trip was very tiring but very enjoyable. It's nice to be back.

Here comes the sun...

After two weeks of nothing but sandstorms and the occasional downpour the sun finally showed his face today. Hooray!

It was a perfect day, no humidity (oh thank you Little Miss Downpour last night), clear blue skies and a deliciously cool breeze wafting in from the sea.

O and I decided to take full advantage of the weather and headed for our first trip to the public beach that is, fairly, new to the Corniche.

For a mere 5 Dirhams (about £1) you can chose between the Ladies and Families Only section or the Manly Man* section. Unless of course you are a single man/group of men in which case you may not venture into the ladies section - naughty naughty!

The beach is superb. Beautifully done with lots of facilities (by which I mean toilets, of course), showers and large beach umbrellas, some of which have seats and a little table underneath for picnicking purposes.

We camped out and ventured into the water straight away. It was still a little chilly for my liking but was so refreshing after an hour or so baking in the sun.

The beach is clean, the water is clear, the lifeguards actually pay attention to what is going on and I felt totally comfortable leaving our stuff unattended while we went for a dip. Not all that usual for me, on holiday I'm often anxiously glancing up the beach in the direction of my towel to make sure no one is hovering around with intent to snoop or loot, but not here!

I can see us making full use of that beach in the years to come, it's fabulous and so close to home - plus it doesn't come with a hefty membership fee that the other hotel resort clubs do.

Two thumbs up and a strong recommendation. Now we just need some visitors to whom we can show it off!

*Not the real name, but far more fun.

Busy busy busy!

Even though we finally have the internet now - which is fabulous! - what with working and everything I've been completely cream-crackered and have not had the energy to come up with something interesting to write!

Yes, I be working now - after a good few months of nothing at all and spending my savings up a storm I am in gainful employment. It is very nice to know that there is a wage coming in and to have something to do each day! Although I must admit, I'm not overly fond of having to get up at silly o'clock every morning and I do miss being the mistress of my own time. But as I've said, what is the point of having all the time in the world if you've no cash to do anything with it? And believe me when I say that out here, without the moolah you are really stuck for things to do.

In recent news, we've had horrible weather lately! Lots of rain and there's been a sandstorm hovering over the whole of Abu Dhabi for about a week and a half. So it's been a week of gritty teeth and the glorious balcony is now somewhat less than glorious. I just haven't had the inclination to get my bucket and giant squeedgie out to give it a good ole' clean. Will have to tackle this at some point after we return from The Weddings (TM) - more on that another time, with photos I'm sure.

I am on a quest to find the perfect pair of shoes to go with the perfect dress (for which I paid £70 more than I would have in the UK!) which is proving fruitless so far, and there is only one more mall to try - will it have the shoe of my dreams? Or will I have to risk it and drag my poor, long suffering mother out on a mammoth shoe shopping trip on my one day in London next week?

I almost can't bare the suspense!

The long silence has been broken...

...we have the internet! Woohoo!

I will now upload some entries I've written while banned from the virtual world and come back to a proper update after that.



Update: I have since learned that I can actually back date my entries so that they appear on the day they SHOULD appear. I've never claimed to be terribly quick. So the entries referenced above are now on the dates they should be.
Woohoo!