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.