THE CITY: Abu Dhabi is a magnificent city, from the Corniche with its view of the clear-blue waters of the Arabian Gulf to the towering and often fantastically-designed skyscrapers to the many green spaces.
OUR APARTMENT: Our home is nice. It's on a corner two blocks from a major road, with all sorts of little shops and restaurants on the first floors of all the buildings. We're on the third floor, and there's a Domino's Pizza (of all things!) across the street from us. There's a mosque behind our building where we can hear the calls to prayer, but we've been sleeping through the 5:00 am call most mornings. The above pictures (from top down) show: our bedroom, the front of our building, the living room, kitchen, and one of our bathrooms (the one without the shower).
THE SCHOOL: AISA is k-12, single-gender with a boys' side and a girls' side. I teach 5 classes, eleventh and twelfth grade English, both sexes, and Christine teaches eighth-grade math and physical science, both sexes. The kids are mostly from the Middle East, with nearly half of them Emirati, but there are a few Westerners, mainly Germans, Brits, and Canadians (according to last year's figures). Tuition is $12,000 a year, so our students are a bit different from the ones we had in South Carolina. Despite our name, most Americans actually go to our rival school, the American Community School.
THE FOOD: Yum. You could go to McDonalds or Fuddrucker's or TGI Friday's, but we prefer the little Indian and Lebanese places in our neighborhood. It's cheaper than buying your own food and cooking it! (But rest assured, I HAVE been cooking).
SHOPPING: There are several malls, including the massive Marina Mall which has a Carrefour Hypermarket in the basement; it's basically a Super Wal-Mart on steriods. The mall also has a food court with a little roller coaster--and some indoor snow skiing. For a simpler life, numerous little grocers and markets are in our neighborhood. It makes life a bit easier.
GAS: About a buck
OUR APARTMENT: Our home is nice. It's on a corner two blocks from a major road, with all sorts of little shops and restaurants on the first floors of all the buildings. We're on the third floor, and there's a Domino's Pizza (of all things!) across the street from us. There's a mosque behind our building where we can hear the calls to prayer, but we've been sleeping through the 5:00 am call most mornings. The above pictures (from top down) show: our bedroom, the front of our building, the living room, kitchen, and one of our bathrooms (the one without the shower).
THE SCHOOL: AISA is k-12, single-gender with a boys' side and a girls' side. I teach 5 classes, eleventh and twelfth grade English, both sexes, and Christine teaches eighth-grade math and physical science, both sexes. The kids are mostly from the Middle East, with nearly half of them Emirati, but there are a few Westerners, mainly Germans, Brits, and Canadians (according to last year's figures). Tuition is $12,000 a year, so our students are a bit different from the ones we had in South Carolina. Despite our name, most Americans actually go to our rival school, the American Community School.
THE FOOD: Yum. You could go to McDonalds or Fuddrucker's or TGI Friday's, but we prefer the little Indian and Lebanese places in our neighborhood. It's cheaper than buying your own food and cooking it! (But rest assured, I HAVE been cooking).
SHOPPING: There are several malls, including the massive Marina Mall which has a Carrefour Hypermarket in the basement; it's basically a Super Wal-Mart on steriods. The mall also has a food court with a little roller coaster--and some indoor snow skiing. For a simpler life, numerous little grocers and markets are in our neighborhood. It makes life a bit easier.
GAS: About a buck
