Merry Christmas

“Oh!! We have a Christmas again!!” it was my reaction last week. “Man, the time is flowing so fast”. I even haven’t noticed that there is already December. There is not snow around, no Christmas madness. Nothing unusual happening. Only in office canteen they gave us a chocolate muffin as a special Christmas gift, for which we had to pay 5 dirhams more than usual and put some “Merry Christmas” decoration. Unusual wasn’t even the fact that I was working hard all day and I go to work tomorrow the 25^th too.

          But it doesn’t change anything on that there is Christmas at the rest of the world.

SO I WISH YOU ALL PLEASANT ENJOYING OF THE CHRISTMAS TIME, CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY, PRESENTS AND EVERYTHING WHAT MAKES THIS TIME SO SPECIAL J

          Even for me is special. Who can have a luxury of being productive on both Christmas Day and Eve J Maybe you don’t believe me, because basically I have nobody to celebrate with, because everybody left home to celebrate, when I get home today I have to finish that dammed drawing I was working on all day and tomorrow instead of still digesting Christmas dinner I have to wake up and go to fight with AutoCAD. 

But the other hand I will go on 26^th on the beach watch kitesurfers and hopefully find somebody who can teach me, I will give myself a Christmas present in form of visits to some showrooms and be enjoying the nice task of choosing a best car for me and I will go to play a couple of Magic drafts. And I save some holiday for the summer time J

          Could be better if I had internet connection at my place already to keep in touch with the atmosphere back in home, but this is a different story J

          So MERRY CHRISTMAS, ENJOY AND BE HAPPY 

Cause and consequence

As I wrote before, overall happiness here depends in 80% on a car. I had my international driving license from the first day I was here, but I always knew it was temporary, because the license and the resident visa cannot exist together. And because Sultan surprisingly kept his word I got my visa in ten days so I became an illegal driver sooner than I liked to. Illegal or not, I had still my car and still needed to drive at least to Dubai to move myself to the apartment. So I drove very carefully. Having a car is very tempting so I used it a couple more times, but then strictly forbid it and park a car for a last time in the garage, where it stays until now L

Knowing all this I had to finally face my destiny and I went to RTA (Road and Transport Authority) to see if I can transfer my license to UAE one. Confronting Arabic officials without Sultan was really uncomfortable. When I finally got to the desk and asked my question “Can I transfer my license to UAE one?” the white robed official with a smile took a paper from his desk, looked at it and with a wide grin replied “Your country is not on the list”!! “And can I see the list please?” I asked like drowning guy catching at a straw. He passed me the paper and I actually saw Czech Republic on the list!!

The problem was that somebody stroke it off along with some another countries so it was not there anymore. It was so frustrating and desperate. My world just collapsed and sadly looking to the ground was leaving the room with one thought spinning in my head “And now I am screwed!!”

And I definitely was, because had no idea how to get to Yas Island in the middle of the day. “OK, let’s get into the taxi and drive to the nearest bus station” I thought. Unfortunately the taxi driver told me that the only bus goes from Bur Dubai which is 25 kilometers in the other direction and it doesn’t make any stops until Abu Dhabi main station which is already 40 kilometers behind my place!! After some thinking I told the driver to make a u-turn and drive me back to Discovery Gardens. There I realized that there were only two options now. Go by taxi or hitchhiking.

And it wouldn’t be me if I wouldn’t have chosen the second option just because I was curious if it is possible and because I saw a lot of Pakistanis standing along the road waiting for something what couldn’t have been anything else than transport.

So on that beautiful sunny Sunday I was standing on the six lane Sheikh Zayed road in a yellow trousers and shirt, with an “AD” sign in one hand and smiling about the ridiculousness of this situation!!

First car stopped a taxi. I refused because just because of principal I didn’t want to pay 400Dhs when twice as long bus ride costs 15. And my patience paid off when after 25 minutes a white minivan stopped. It was this typical Pakistani minibus carrying them between worksites. “Mussafah, 20 dirhams” said the driver and I happily agreed. They were driving to Abu Dhabi so they could let me off on Yas exit. Next 20 minutes we were riding in circles around Jebel Ali industrial area trying with sounding a horn and shouting “Mussafah, Mussafah” on every guy around to attract more passengers. We were only half full when the van suddenly stopped and we were ordered to get out. First moments I thought I had got fooled but then I saw another same style minivan where we joined some others and filled every seat. The ridiculousness continued when I was sitting on a tiny Indian size seat in my shiny yellow work clothes in a dirty minibus along with 14 dark and equally dirty Pakistanis.    

I knew that as soon as I get to the exit to Yas Island, to get to the site office will be a piece of cake, because there are so many cars going to the construction site. And it was exactly as I expected. There is no need to explain how ridiculously I looked on a dusty road where there were passing tens of trucks. Fortunately right the first one stopped so I wasn’t feeling weird for a long time. It was a rusty old water truck with a Yemen driver who didn’t speak a word English, but he didn’t care and all the way he was explaining me in his language something about English, Arab and Yemen people by clapping himself to his forearms!!

But he took me almost to the site office. I passed the security check on foot and easily stopped a SUV for the last kilometer. In the office everybody was knocking his forehead after hearing my story, but I had a sweet feeling of accomplishment J

The Swedish fairy tale

Once upon a time on the far north behind the polar circle there lived a man called Ike. He lived in a small wooden cottage with one hard bed, cranky chair and old table. He was a woodcutter so every day he went to the forest chopping down trees and changing the wood for bread and cheese with guys with big trucks coming to him. Every day this man dreamed about having his own truck and selling wood himself.

“But how can I earn money for a truck when I don’t have even for a new chair!!” he shouted and angrily kicked into a pile of wooden boards and poles. He did that with such a force so all the pieces flew high into the air. After long seconds first pole fell down and jabbed into the ground. Second one jabbed next to it. And then the third and fourth completed a square. Then came a board over them and another and another pieces were falling down and miraculously forming a perfectly looking chair.

“Holy Odin and all saints in Valhalla…I have an idea how to make money!! I will make furniture!!” cheered the poor man and started to look for something to fix the pieces together. He found four nails and a piece of rope. “It will be enough” he said conspiratorily for himself, “More important is the good look”.

And the first success came directly the next day when the truck driver was looking for a present for his mother-in-law and he instantly fell in love with Ike’s new chair. He didn’t even negotiate for a price and paid the man more than he earned in last month.

And there started the Swedish dream. The man kept kicking into poles and boards and with clever saving of connection accessories he was soon able to employ people to kick for him. He bought his first truck and was delivering chairs, tables and beds directly to customer’s homes. That was the biggest furniture factory in the world was born.

After several decades when Ike’s products flooded the world and he was peacefully resting in the wooden coffin which broke right after first dirt hit it at the funeral, there was another man. Let’s call him Jerry.

Jerry moved into a new town in the middle of nowhere. He was a mechanical engineer and had nothing in his room. He also every day dreamed about having his own truck, about his big transport company and about sitting in the truck cabin like Odin in Valhalla. But first he needed a bed to be able to dream his dream also in the night.

He was from a very small country but even there came the glory of Ike’s furniture so there was no wonder that his first steps went right to his shop. After two hours he was already looking at nicely polished metal grey bars and plates and was eager to start assembling. Jerry’s country was maybe small but people from there are famous for their golden hands, so Jerry wasn’t afraid of completing two-men assembly alone.

          He bought a loft bed, which actually had the mattress 170 cm above the floor. It consisted of four long legs, a railing on the upper part and four wire frames supporting the mattress. The front and back part he completed on the ground without problems. Some complications came when he had to fix it to lateral frames and put it whole to the vertical position, but he made it.

          Then the final part of assembly came. The wire frames. Still full of confidence in Ike’s fine manufacturing he fixed a reinforcement bar in the middle, just casually placed on it all four wire frames and he climbed up with a screwdriver in his teeth to fix them to the rest of the construction.

It was probably too much trust in his golden hands and in good luck which pushed him further and further not taking care about shaking bed under his feet and weird sounds of bending metal. He felt like on thin ice. In spite of moving carefully there came an instant where the ice broke and with a sound of a car crash Jerry landed to the floor together with all the frames. 

The reinforcement bar was bended, four screws were destroyed and Jerry was sitting on the ground knowing that his Swedish dream is gone, because he won’t be able to ever trust his bed and have nice dreams. Too much confidence and trust is dangerous.

P.S. What would you do to repair the bed? For example I would buy four new screws, bend the bar back and screw the frames together from below. It might work J

I do it the Dubai way

On the Friday I moved in I didn’t have time to fix all necessary things for my new but hollow apartment because we went to Rugby 7. I knew what rugby was and that the best is New Zealand but how they play it or what are the rules I had no clue. This was before I came to UAE. Fortunately I had a chance to see one rugby game in Abu Dhabi. It was after a company lunch in old British club where we were scoring from 2pm until I was left alone in a hotel sportbar somewhere in the city in the night. I was quite tired by that time so with a glass still full I fell into a comfortable chair, closed one eye to see only once and started watching football on a big screen. I didn’t feel like going home so I ordered one more and the program switched to rugby. Australia against Fiji. And that was my first experience with rugby.

The Rugby 7 is a smaller version of rugby only with 7 players. And because this sport is popular, sheikhs decided to make a tournament. They build a stadium in the middle of the desert 50 kilometers far from Dubai exclusively for that. Probably they were afraid of unsuficient parking places.  Because Envac was sponsoring this action a bit, we got tickets.

Three days before Rune called me that I should be at 11am at his place, because we are going together 18 people in a special mean of transport. “Bus is nothing special but it will be cheaper than go by taxis” I thought, but all the bigger was my surprise when Rune explained to me that he rented a limousine. And I immediately remembered those long Hummer limos riding in Las Vegas.

And it was true!! It wasn’t a Hummer though, it had been already booked, so we had to settle for a Chrysler limo J But it was equally great…like in a club from 80’s with all the tiny lights, leather seats, glasses and loud music. So in fancy Envac t-shirts and bags full of cold hop drinks we boarded this monster and went cruising through the city picking up more people on the way. Just great!!

And in the same spirit continued the whole day at the Rugby 7. We just changed our bags for very useful and loaded cooling ones from Heineken. At the end we were quite short of will and ideas how to get home, so we just called the limo again and had a real party on the wheels on our way back.

He next day we agreed that we probably haven’t seen a single game from the beginning to the end J

The great apartment search: Early final

Wednesday was far from over after the blood test. Actually it was just the beginning. Just after Nilo took us back to the office I drove to see a place I’ve heard and read a lot about and during last two days it was my ace in the sleeve in this tricky game of “Where should I put my head”. That location was called the Discovery Gardens.

Discovery Gardens is one of many newly built residential areas in Dubai. It’s four kilometers long and one wide rectangle filled with buildings divided into almost only studio or one bedroom apartments. The fact that it is new means that it’s a western style living and the fact that it is in Dubai means a reasonable price, because there are newly build flats everywhere. That brings a question…is there really a demand for such living capacities? And that is not all by far. They started building huge projects in Abu Dhabi like Al Raha Beach or Saadyiat Island and in Dubai they started Dubai Waterfront which will be twice as big as Hong Kong!!It seems to me that now almost everybody who rents an apartment is working in a business related to construction of those projects and when they finish one day all the people will go back home and there will be nobody left to live in all those buildings. Already now the residential towers seem empty. And the prices are high enough that the regular Pakistani workers cannot afford it and those are a majority of people here!! But I hope that he sheikhs have some aces in the sleeve as well how to prevent the country from becoming a ghost town. It would be such a shame J

So when I drove in the area it was immediately clear that this place is what I was looking for. New, clean, spacious, green, maintained…beautiful. Area is great let’s go see the flats. I had some directions from agents and I had to go on my own there and see if I like it. All opened apartments are free, the closed ones are gone. Fair enough.

First I went to the Mediterranean cluster. The houses really looked like from Croatia or Italy. After I saw like four of them it was clear that they are all the same design and size around 55 sq/m with nice kitchen and bathroom and completely unfurnished. But there was one thing I was missing…a balcony. I think the balcony is an essential feature of all apartments. Thinking and considering hard I moved to Zen cluster. Different color and architecture, different style and size of buildings, but with apartments same as before. With one difference…all had balconies!! And there I got cracked and started weighting pros and cons. 

Basically there was only one big minus that I would have to travel 100 kilometers every day to work and back but It would be only on highway and driving 160km/h it would take 40 minutes. On the other hand there were several positives…it was cheaper, exactly what I was looking for, nice view, friends living nearby and a lot of possibilities what to do when I came back form work like tennis court, swimming pool a huge shopping mall in walking distance with cinema and in Dubai in general there are more things to do than in Abu Dhabi.

What would you choose? I think it’s obvious J Then it was a quick procedure. I negotiated with the managers of the real estate agency even a better price, paid the booking deposit and all the next week I was praying for them to keep their word. Fortunately they did and on Friday morning on 28.11. I moved my hockey bag into my new home, stepped on the balcony and started enjoying the view which will be pleasing me hopefully next several years.

I do it the Arabian way

     On Tuesday I had some work in Dubai. Exactly it was a blood test. Everybody who wants a work visa has to pass through chest x-ray and gives blood sample to test it for HIV and other sicknesses. So we drove with Elsa my Filipino colleague to Dubai office from where Nilo took us to the clinic in the old town. There we should meet Envac’s local sponsor Sultan. Basically his function is artificially created for local people by the government. A person like him is needed to have a company in UAE and he then acts as a contact person between the company and the government in things like visa, labor cards and another state related documents.

            The appointment was at 10am and he wasn’t there. But we didn’t expect him to come on time. He is an Arab, so it is absolutely unthinkable that he comes on time. We also saw a huge crowd of Pakistanis and Indians waiting in several queues for registration, x-ray or the test. “Better to wait an hour for him than be waiting six in the line with others” said Nilo and that was a clear sign of something Arabic in the air.

We were lucky. At 10:45 he came typically dressed in white robe with those two black rings on his head holding the hood and winked us to follow him outside on the street. I was always wondering what they do in a shop where is written “Typing” on a signboard. After passing several of those unidentified shops right next to the clinic, Sultan lead us to the last one, gave them some forms and our passport copies, they immediately stopped working on the other’s forms and started filling every detail into our forms. Now it was clear what they do. They earn their living by filling various forms for lazy or maybe illiterate people.

After ten minutes there we moved back to the clinic and show started. First we went to the registration room. Imagine a huge room with many rows of chairs for waiting people, in front of them like ten counters with an Arab behind the glass and a big display with the sequence number. Behind the chair lines a desk with another Arab giving such numbers. Sultan picked one and I saw with the corner of an eye 2000 something. I looked on the displays where there was something around 1300. “Oh no…we will be here forever” I was thinking when I for a first time heard mysterious and whispered “COME”  from Sultan who seated us to the first row. Before I could have looked around what was happening on the display in front of me blinked 2066 out of nothing and I saw Sultan going to the window. After a minute I heard another“COME”  spoken in the same cryptic way and we followed the white robed figure.

We shortly stopped by an importantly looking uniformed policeman. There was a line too to him, but Sultan just come to him, told him an obviously funny joke, they both laughed, he got a stamp and we moved again. “COME”  and we followed Sultan like in trance along a looong line of poor black moustache laborers directly to the x-ray door. “YOU GO”  said Sultan to Elsa when the door opened. Nobody said anything and whole the line was just silently watching how they are being jumped. I tried to avoid angry looks saying “Without him you would be so dead” and felt so small and bad. “YOU GO”  like during an airborne invasion and I was inside. Imagine being there as a doctor and doing the same chest x-ray the whole day in frequence one per minute. I would go crazy!!

“COME” sounded in my ears again and with eyes downcast to the ground I passed once again the voyage along the waiting unfortunates. At least at the blood test I waited humbly with six others. But there were also six doctors so I didn’t wait at all. Damn:) “COME”   and we were out. The whole procedure took about 20 minutes and I felt like after a rollercoaster ride.

Now I have to wait two weeks until I get my visa stamped in the passport. Hopefully and assuming that I don’t have lungs cancer or AIDS. And after that I can go try to get other documents necessary like the labor card and the identity card. But I can’t imagine myself doing it without Sultan :)

Chapter 1: The great apartment search - Third round

  On Monday I left the site office around 3pm. Kamil had work to do, so I drove alone full of thoughts about that the whole apartment issue is more complicated than I had expected. I placed a high hopes in this tour and also during daytime it is better and more positive to see the houses and my budget rose by another 10000!!

            Ali came on time so I joined him and the same property owner like yesterday in his mafia SUV. The presence of the owned should have been a warning, but I didn’t care and was enjoying the ride through a beautiful and quiet villa neighborhood. First visit didn’t work because the guy who should let us in was sleeping and not even multiple calls woke him up. So we moved on to the next house.

            Same nice neighborhood full of beautiful new villas. But there was also one which even from big distance was clearly old, uglier, broken and obviously didn’t belong there. And guess what? We stopped directly in front of it!! Through rusty broken door in a peeling white wall I stepped on a big yard full of construction material and broken furniture. Good for children to play football, but for me there was no use of it. What a surprise!! Inside the building was a construction site too. Ali explained me the problem then. People owning villas in the city buy a new one somewhere out of the city and divide the old one to small apartments for renting. They are no architects so sometimes they build weird things like when you have footsteps in the bathroom, or balcony with no door to access it.

            So the first apartment that day was far the best I’ve seen. OK room with normal bathroom, kitchen ready in three days in the corner and one small window to small balcony without access. But still I felt like I wanted something better. Things improved when they shoved me a common roof space. There were chaotically placed air conditioning devices and satellites, so there were no big free space, but I started thinking that I could actually live here.

            In positive mood we moved to another house. This one looked very promising. But when we entered it was a huge construction site. Bricks and mortar everywhere. We almost got dirty when passing through freshly rendered corridor. Again one of the home-made villas. There were like ten different studios available and among them one was a hit. In third floor they had a nice room with small balcony to the garden, one extra window on the other side and big bathroom. There was still a wall between the room and the bathroom and the door was to the corridor. “In three days we break that wall, put new door instead and wall up the old ones” ensured me the owner so that I was not worried!!

The roof space was nicely stair-step with even more AC and satellites even more chaotically placed that there was barely a space for a deck-chair. But I liked the place and it actually was what I was looking for. The price 95000Dhs was negotiable so I was really considering.

            Unfortunately for Ali I had one more ace in the sleeve before I wanted to make a final decision. Anyway…We woke up the first guy and went to see his place. The same construction site and one apartment for rent with a weird architectural invention. Corner kitchen created by building a 1,5m high wall in the living room so badly that when you put a kitchen unit in, there won’t be any space for a cook. “People from Bangladesh have never seen a kitchen in their lives so they can’t know ho to build one” joked Ali. “If you take it, we tear down the wall for you. No problem. In three days” seriously added the owner. Very funny company :)

            With better feeling of at least some sureness I went to the hotel.  The next round of apartment sightseeing is awaiting tomorrow so better to sleep well.

Chapter 1: The great apartment search - Second round

I was hired because of the Al Raha Beach project, which is the biggest project in Envac history. But like all projects also this one needs a signed contract. When I was visiting UAE in July the Al Raha Beach contract of Envac pipe installations for the whole development was about to be signed. As time was flowing I heard several guaranteed rumors about the project signature. In August, in middle September, when I was in Sweden, last week and yesterday. But it is probably nothing strange when you are dealing with sheikhs. Today I’ve heard another guaranteed news. It will be next week. Like every week J And because I was sitting in Yas Island, I wasn’t assigned to a specific task, so I was just going through drawings, studying and waiting for the contract to be signed.

It was good because could focus on finding an apartment and be ready for work in Al Raha. So it wasn’t surprising when on Monday called a property agent, because I had called to so many of them. I with Kamil we arranged a visit of the apartment on 6pm after work.

After the first experience with Abu Dhabi properties I lowered my requirements. Now I was looking also in outskirts in Muroor area and I rose my budget to 70000Dhs in order to find something prettier and more human.

It started very well. An agent with shirt and tie in black SUV came and took us to see the apartment. His name was Ali and he was born in Pakistan but lived long time in Italy. Actually he wasn’t a Pakistani anymore, because all the time he was complaining about habits and life style of his fellow brothers. How they are slow, lazy, how they take prayer as an excuse to not work or how they are dirty and lousers. Very nice man and he seemed to understand our wishes.

A bit lulled we stopped in a nice and quiet street close to 23rd street in the location he promised. But the bigger was the surprise when we saw the house. Exactly the same style as the previous one. But after the big white wall there was a construction site. They were renovating the villa and there was mess and dirt everywhere. A bit preoccupied we stepped into the apartment that was like 2 meters high, 4x3 meters big room without windows with miniature bathroom and probably no kitchen. Fortunately there was another apartment in that building. With expectations of an improvement we stepped into high and big room, but also without windows!! It has a bathroom but there were nothing. “Three days sir” said the villa owner. Anybody even after only one week in this country couldn’t believe this man. Nor did we. The price of 80000Dhs was just a last nail into the coffin of this man and whole journey. When we left Ali was calming us and promised to give us a tour tomorrow around some apartments with windows.

Chapter 1: The great apartment search - First round

You know this feeling when you wake in the morning with the head burning from inside, with eyes scanning the unknown environment around your bed and erased brain trying to slowly put pieces of yesterday puzzle together. I bet you do. And you probably also know what usually happens when there are two dance clubs in 17^th floor, Arabic and African discotheque in 2^nd and Irish pub in the basement of your hotel :)

This happened to me on Saturday around 12am. Few minutes after my awakening rang the door bell and room service wanted to take my laundry that I didn’t have and even if I did, I wouldn’t have remembered at that time that I had it. But he also gave me a newspaper with property classifieds pages. I though that it was a kind of sign pushing me into action in The Apartment problem solving and I started to read what is available.

My first intention was to find a studio or one bedroom apartment as close as possible to Al Raha Beach where I will be working for maximum price 5000 Dhs a month. The day before Kamil told me that usually they want to pay one year rent, which means 60000 Dhs a year. Quite a surprise, because 60000 Dhs is a hell lot of money!! Locations were that set to Al Shahama or Khalifa City A or somewhere close.

After ten minutes of staring into the newspaper I found one according to my requirements. I called the guy and he told me that we meet at 2pm at Abu Dhabi International Airport and go see the flat. Great!! First try, first hit. A called Kamil, who was in the same situation as me and we drove to the airport.

 I am a patient person. The fact that I knew that I would need a lot of patience here made me even more patient. At 2:45 I had to admit that this quality makes me a perfect person to this environment, at least for now because I don’t know what kind of elephant patience I will need in the future. After those 45 minutes of waiting at the airport and trying to reach him he finally answered. But as a professional property agent he told us that he didn’t have the car and we should meet him at Mafraq Hospital!! OK than, what should we do. We drove there. After a couple of circles around the terminal and forced turns because of roundabouts under construction we reached the right highway but in wrong direction. “Doesn’t matter, we go that way and turn here to this highway and we are there” I said. The problem was that the highway crossroad was under construction too and in such a ingenious way that it was completely impossible to get to the other. So we had to drive another five kilometers to the next exit, do the double roundabout trick of getting from A to B and return five kilometers back to finally drive where we wanted. One more DRT and we stood in front of the hospital. After five minutes called that agent that he is here and we should follow him, after which came a car, made a fast 180° turn and started leaving again. We followed him. After a missed turn to the highway I started to doubt, that we are going where I though the apartment was.

There we met one of the exciting natural phenomenon. A sandstorm. Everything around got compactly orange and yellow and the visibility was around ten meters. Actually it looked very similar to a snow storm.

After 15 minutes in the storm we stopped and I knew that something was wrong. We definitely weren’t in Al Shahama where we were supposed to be, the house wasn’t how I wanted it to be and even the agent wasn’t like an agent should be!!. Fat black Indian with black dirty shirt and slippers. From outside the house was a typical white Arabic one-floor house with white wall around. We stepped in through broken rusty door and came to a small hall. Actually the door to the apartment were new plastic ones, but behind it, it was a complete mess. Low room without windows full of broken furniture and dirt in the floor. Kitchen was even dirtier with questionable cooker and with a thick layer of black dried oil all over. I don’t remember how was the bathroom, but imagine something in that style. I wouldn’t take it for free, but I am no Pakistani but European so I was offered a generous price of 50000Dhs!! I am so out of here!!

Here is a link for the bigger image

In cases of a great despair often comes a great laugh and we were laughing all the way back :)

Chapter 1: Hotel hopping

Let’s see…Count for yourself in how many hotels (no hostels or another cheap accommodation) you have stayed in your life. I in my case it can surely be counted on fingers of one hand. But thank to last three weeks this number at least doubled. Two weeks in Spar Hotel in Gőteborg, one night in NH Hotel in Vienna, three nights in Premier Inn in Dubai and finally yet undetermined amount of days in Howard Johnson Diplomat Hotel in Abu Dhabi. 

The last one is certainly the best one. 15^th floor with a great view, spacious two-bed room with kitchen and bath. More than enough. Only disadvantage is everyday party 17^th floor dance club, but I am fine because during an excursion to pipe bending workshop in Gothenburg they provided us with ear plugs J But on the other hand the breakfast is very very poor and a ride to work takes almost same time as from Dubai.

Yes, the Arabian traffic. I had to deal with it sooner than I wanted to. Right on the second day I picked my “sport” car at the Dubai office and had to drive to Yas island site office. I was not scared, only a bit worried. But I was there once in July and I had a map, so no problem. And I missed a turn right on a first highway multilevel crossroad.

But before I continue, I let you solve this puzzle. Try to count how many kilometers I have to drive from A to B? The fastest correct answer receives a special reward that can be picked up here, means here in UAE :)  P.S. Be fair and do not read further until you solve this puzzle :) 

Here is a link for the bigger image

It was just for a small illustration of how is the driving here. So I missed a turn. But nothing was lost. At the next crossroad I proved some knowledge of Arabic driving habbits, made a U-turn and hooray to the highway to Abu Dhabi. The Sheikh Zayed road or The Sheikh Rashid bin Maktoum road is a main 4-6 lane arterial UAE highway. I don’t know where it actually begins or ends, because either Sheikh, Zayed or Maktoum is every second structure here. Everything that I know is that it connects Dubai and Abu Dhabi, that in Dubai is almost always jammed, that it has no curves, that the speed limit which nobody cares about is 120 km/h and that it changes shape and parameters because of road works that often like Czech government its heads.

But this basically I described every road here. Everything is huge, magnificent, but usually kind of hasty. The road system is a bright example and I think you will hear about it a lot here!!

Anyway…I made it on a first try to the site office, picked up a Singaporean colleague Kamil and at the evening we drove back to our hotel in Dubai. It was dark already and few kilometers before Dubai the traffic was denser and denser. I was driving slowly and looking for a right exit which I remembered was somewhere near a main port highway. I saw a lot of signs indicating an exit to Jebel Ali free port zone, but I wasn’t still sure so I kept driving. Suddenly I saw a right sign and shining highway bridge in front of us told me that I had to exit. I was in the lane most on the right so next to me on the right was only the exiting lane and it was almost at its end. Fast indicator light, and before I could have looked to the mirror and turned as a lightning passed on my right in the exiting lane a car and returned back to the highway directly in front of me!!! Shit!!! Dammed bastards!!!

In here is completely normal to overtake cars from the right, because the roads have so many lanes and everybody is driving in whichever one of them. It is not rare to be overtaking from exit lanes or emergency stopping lane. But this was caused probably with a law, that if a local Arab driver has an accident with a non-Arab driver, it’s always the non-Arab’s fault whatever happened!!!

Never mind…I made to the other highway and was approaching the eye of the storm. Imagine two frequented multi lane highways crossing each other. What is the worst thing you do to make a crossroad? Yes, correct….a roundabout!! And because they are big highways we need even bigger roundabout. This one has a diameter about 500 meters and is actually elliptic. And what happens when you built a roundabout connecting two roads 24 hours full of trucks? Yes, correct… you create 24 hours long traffic jam. And if you want to redone the error you’ve made? Yes, correct…you put traffic lights there!! And what happens if you put traffic light on a roundabout? Congratulations…you’ve just created the worst crossroad ever :D

Terrifying view. From miles away we could have seen lines of blinking orange truck lights going to infinity on all sides. We joined the show about three kilometers from the eye and started to watch a light play of AWDs, which were like a chaotic cloud of fire-flies trying to find a shortcut through the desert. Hospoda hořela hodinu. No, seriously, we were there like an hour. And if you think that I was stupid and didn’t take another way, be sure that there is really no other way and everybody has to go through the eye.

Fortunately I drove there only two times so the theater didn’t get that boring. On Friday, which is along with Saturday a weekend here, I packed my things, said goodbye to Dubai and did my hopefully last hotel hop. 

Chapter 1: First steps

First of all thanks for a positive feedback I am receiving from you. I was writing a lot lately because there were things to write about and I had time for that. But as you certainly anticipate, and anticipate right, I finally reached my goal and arrived to UAE and therefore I don’t know how the frequence of next posts will be. But I will try to keep up the good work and style and write about everything that I will think is worth of telling. This is what blogs are for, right? So let’s kick it off!!

Previously on JIRI….

Like an empty beer can floating in the vast ocean of faith. Like a toy of an evil puppet master, JIRI has been played hard. But he was never broken. His iron will and steel determination let him crack the chains and overcome all obstructions. But as he finally reaches the dreamed but unknown shore, new ones are rising. Will he fall down while climbing them and his will get rusty? Will he overcome these also and find eternal happiness? Let’s find out….

The day D, hour H and minute M. These numbers were changed like hundred times, but after more than three months of counting the timer stopped on 11.11.2008 at 7:55 am. At this particular moment I finally stepped on hot Arabic soil in Dubai international airport. But I felt no extreme joy. More than that I felt worried, because in next weeks or months there will be a lot of unpleasant things to do and problems to solve. But after that the plan is clear. Enjoying the life on the sun :)

Right after my arrival there was a first problem to solve. I didn’t know if somebody is coming to pick me up or not. It got worse when the only person in Envac I was able to call wasn’t responding, so I waited 45 minutes and than took a taxi to the Premier Inn hotel. Problem solved.

There were many other problems to solve and still are, but right during my first day I managed to solve two of the three most important ones, The Car problem and the Phone problem. With the phone it was very easy. I just went to the biggest mall in the world and bought a prepaid Etisalat SIM card. There for a first time I got caught by the prices of things. I always thought that because here I get the same salary like in Czech Republic but in dirhams (5,1 CZK= 1 DHS), I could determine if the price is high or low just by comparing it with the price in Czech Republic. First days I definitely acted like that. The card cost me 160 Dhs that was cheap. I also bought 100 Dhs credit because I thought 10 included in the card price, was too few. Cheap. Than I realized that one minute of calling is 0,45Dhs!! I definitely didn’t need that much credit. I also bought a good map of Abu Dhabi and Dubai for 45Dhs each. Nothing. I dined a pizza with Sprite for 31Dhs. Zero. But if you calculate how much is it in Czech crowns, is not that cheap anymore. Now after a week I know that the level of cheap and expensive is somewhere much lower and with this attitude I would live like a celebrity, what I don’t want to.

 With the car problem I got a bit lucky. I tried to investigate whether I could get an UAE driving license by transferring the Czech one. I called the Traffic department and they said no. Fortunately the Traffic department was across the street so I went to ask them there. They closed in the meantime, but in a small side office a guy told me that as soon as I have my visa stamped in the passport I can get the license, which should be in two weeks. One on one. It was looking grim, because without a car you are like without legs and one arm and without a car you basically can’t start solving the third essential problem, The Flat problem. But you have to get a car from a car rental agency, so they have to know if my Czech international driving license is enough for driving UAE roads or not. So I picked one, picked a cheapest car they had (2050Dhs a month) and asked. Luckily they were fine with documents I had and they even had the car I chose. So now I am driving silver Mitsubishi Lancer and feeling free as a bird. I still don’t know if I am really permitted to drive here, but as soon as I don’t have an accident, it should interest nobody :)

Very fertile day.

Chapter 0,5: The Luck Pool Theory

Magic players, we have a theory. It’s called The Luck Pool Theory and I will explain it to you. Every game of Magic is influenced by two factors, the player’s skill and luck. There is an eternal discussion how much each of the factors influence the game, but this is not a topic now. The Luck Pool Theory says that every player has an imaginary pool where luck is stored like gasoline. During every game that player plays, he is either filling the pool by having bad luck in the game or emptying the pool by having good luck. If there is a serie of games where that player is having bad luck, his pool is filled up to the edge and in the next games he will have good luck because the pool cannot be filled more. And on the other hand after a set of lucky games, the pool will be empty, so he will have bad luck in the next ones because he cannot draw more from the pool. I think this is a very wise principal and works also in the real life and I will show you how.

I can say that I’ve been flying a lot during last years. To USA, Barcelona, San Jose de Costa Rica, Las Palmas, Madrid and I don’t know where else. One would say that is a lot of kilometers for some trouble to happen during the flights. Lost baggage, missed planes, natural disasters, etc. But no. Not a single problem during all of them.

Until this July when I flew to Dubai for a first time. I didn’t tell you the story, but the essential visa to UAE I got not until Istanbul, where I was changing planes. If I got it one hour later I would have missed the plane and stayed with nothing in Turkey. I got it in time so nothing happened at all, but I should have remembered this theory and it would have been more than clear to me that my luck pool was empty and something bad was about to happen.

And it did, when I canceled my first flight to Dubai, because of the visa. It continued by canceled flight to Gothenburg due to fog. Nevertheless I made it with the second, which was nothing more than emptying the pool to the bottom again. So with the empty luck pool I boarded the flight to Vienna. I landed in Vienna without any complications. So far, so good. In a good mood I spend eight hours waiting at the airport, happy that my wireless card worked again. About 10:30pm I said “See you tomorrow in Arabia” to my friends on ICQ and headed to the gate.

“Where is your visa sir?” asked me the guy at the check desk. “I have it at the Dubai airport” I replied with confidence. Then like an ice cold shower hit me his answer “You need to have a copy of your visa or you cannot go!!”.

And because I didn’t and the guy was relentless, I am writing this from the Airport Hotel in Vienna, drinking beer from the minibar, waiting for the visa copy to arrive  at the morning and with the luck pool already half full hoping, that the next flight to Dubai tomorrow at the same time will take me finally there.

Chapter 0: It's over ....man!!

The second week here in Sweden, was about lessons and trying to do something for the individual design mission. Days were only with small variations basically like this: I woke up at 6:45. Stayed another 10 minutes in bed partly dreaming, because in the room was so cold. After some necessary morning routines around 7:15 I left the hotel towards the pier from where a boat at 7:30 took me three stations to Lindholmen to our classroom. I had my first cup of coffee.

Yes, A CUP OF COFFEE!! I never drink coffee, but because there was no possibility to buy Magic Man energy drink for 30 euro cents, I had to somehow inject myself to stay awake during the long day. Actually that was not a real coffee. It was half coffee and half milk and a lot of sugar to taste as much as possible like cacao. There was a free supply of this delicious drink during the whole day so I had several ones. But it wasn’t without consequences. After like four big cups my heart rose on frequence and I felt like a heart attack was trying to steal my life. I don’t plan to commit suicide, so after that I started to drink water.

Lessons started at 8:00. Some of them were really interesting, some of them less, but one thing they had in common…first coffee break around 9:30. My breakfast time, because when I had found out last week that in addition to free coffee they served free sandwiches and cookies, I gave up hotel breakfast to sleep 20 minutes more.

12:00 and lunch time. We had a free lunch at a restaurant downstairs. I was kind of fast food, but a very good one, every day offering a soup, a fish meal, a meat meal and a vegetarian meal. And to that you could take any amount of various vegetable salads. Light and healthy. But this was nothing unusual. Swedes seem to like a healthy life style. You can always see them running on the streets or at least riding a bike and low fat vegetable alimentation fits perfectly to that style. Typically nice, slim and good-looking Swedish girls are the proof :)

Good food is one thing, but this does not entitle them to steal in the restaurants!! And it’s legal!! OK, it is not exactly stealing, but it it’s a very big minus for Sweden. What it is about? When you go to the restaurant, basically in the center and a better one, you HAVE TO put your jacket to a cloakroom and you also HAVE TO pay for it a price of a half of a beer. Even when I am writing this at the Vienna airport, I am getting angry. So nasty!!

Lessons ended around 4pm and then I took a boat back to the hotel switched on the TV and spend two hours either with writing, slowly progressing with my mission or watching stupidities. Then with the classmates living in the same hotel we went to have a dinner to some restaurant nearby. After that I went back and keep working or watching some TV crap. Whole my life I don’t have a TV at home and I am so happy about it. These two weeks proved that TV is an evil hydra trying to steal my time and somehow I am weak to resist. Only solution is to throw that infernal device away. Only then I can be free.

Day by day the week was passing and suddenly there was the end of our training, final test, mission presentation and course evaluation. The day before somebody came up with an idea to go for a dinner to the city, because it was our last day. So we went to play pool and had a hamburger in an Irish pub. Bar hopping is for previously stated reasons very expensive fun, so after the second pub we all went home to tune our missions. Like always it would have needed a couple more hours to finish it to perfection, but at 2am I had to switch the TV off and go to sleep.

But on the Day D everything went smoothly and I was told that I did a great job. Very well then :) Mission accomplished.

As Randy, my colleague from Dubai told me “Here in Sweden everybody is so cool and nice”. And have to agree with him. All of the Scandinavian classmates, teachers, Envac colleagues or people around make kind of friendly environment that pushes the others to behave in the same way, to not spoil it. If not the cold and jacket fees, great country with great people :)   

To be continued…