Home Sweet Home

Wow! What an adventure yesterday was!  Now I'm in my new home, sweet home (for the next 2 years!)

I left home around 10:30 in the morning to allow lots of time for checking in baggage and having one last lunch with Kim before saying goodbye for 2 months. Check-in went successfully and the plane only took off 40 minutes late, which was fine because I was very comfortable up in my big leather seat! Landed at Concourse 3 in JFK around 6:00 and was told Etihad was located on Concourse 1, so I headed that way .... out the security doors into the street, down the sidewalk, into another building ... and, oh no !..... I realized my laptop was still in the overhead bin on my earlier flight. Ran frantically back down 2 concourses and huffed and puffed my way to the security guard who told me he couldn't let me back out. Went to talk to the man at the Delta desk and he kindly printed me a security pass to get back through. He also called the airplane and asked them to locate my laptop. Then had to go through the whole security clearance and head back to my gate. They had my laptop waiting for me - thank goodness! You would not believe all the information and teaching materials I would have lost because not only was my laptop in the bag , but so was my external hard drive and 2 flash drives! NEVER put all your eggs in one basket!!

Then I went back to Concourse 1 and tried to find the Etihad counter, but was told it had moved to Concourse 4. Now, I headed to the AirTrain to get there. Once at Concourse 4, I still couldn't locate the Etihad line . Asked numerous people and found out that they took over the Singapore counters AFTER 7:30, so I waited until about 7:10 and headed back to the lines. Uh-oh! Apparently they opened at 7:00 and now the line stretched for about 2 loops around the lobby area! I checked with a lady on duty, and yep! The end of the line was WAY back there! She asked if I had transferred from another plane, so I showed her my ticket. (Um, yes, it was first class!) SO she told me to go straight to the counter and they would take care of me ...... yippee!!! I did feel bad about all those other people waiting in that long line ..... but I still took advantage of my first-class status since I will probably never be in that category again!!

The lady at the Etihad counter was terrific. She double-checked that all my luggage was being transferred onto the next flight and I was good to go! The actual flight will not be mentioned in detail. Suffice it to say that it was a LONG flight sitting beside a man who apparently has different standards of hygiene than I have. The attendants were very attentive and friendly. The food was good (but I decided not to eat but 1 bite of the spicy vegetable curry gobi mattar. (That was the first meal.) The second meal was Vegetable Ravioli with spicy chicken bolognaise sauce. It was delicious! All during the flight they kept offering drinks, sandwiches, and snacks (including ice cream).

Flying in over the Arabian Gulf was beautiful, but dark. The lights along the shore lit up just enough of the scenery to make me anxious to see it all by day. Once we arrived in Abu Dhabi, we were handed a red rose and welcomed to the UAE. ADEC representatives met us right off the exit ramp, handed out our visas, took us through the eye scan, through passport control, and then to the luggage area. After waiting for quite some time, we realized my luggage would not be appearing! As everyone else headed to the bus for the hotel, another teacher and I headed to the counter to describe our luggage. By the time we finished, I believe there were only 5 people left in the entire airport! I wondered how we would be getting to the hotel.

Not to worry: the ADEC representatives were with us every step of the way. They took the carryon luggage we had and then put us on a bus for the hotel. We're staying at the Park Rotana, a very new hotel. I ' ll be posting some pictures on here, but they don't do justice to the luxury and beauty. They already had us checked in, so all we had to do was get our key and head to the room. Heather met me and we were excited to see we would be in the same hotel and the same orientation training! I went to sleep around 12:00 and woke up at 7:00 am this morning feeling very refreshed!

Today has been mostly taking care of a few things like exchanging US dollars for dhirams so that I can tip, copying passports and visas so that we'll have them when we have to show them to get a phone and car, and then lying by the pool to chill. It is extremely hot to lay out, but the pool guy brought a large umbrella over to set up so I could have shade. The pool was very refreshing: they must cool it because otherwise in this heat, surely it would be lukewarm!

Tonight we have scheduled a hotel car to take us to the Marina Mall so that we can buy the few necessities we've realized we don't have. We heard from a group who went last night that the best way to get there and back is to reserve a driver so that you don't have a long wait for a taxi. We also plan to eat dinner over there once sunset has arrived. That means it is time to "break the fast" of Ramadan so that we can eat and drink in public. During the day you cannot have food or drink unless you are in the privacy of your room so that you won't offend anyone. So far that hasn't been a problem. After eating a big breakfast, I'm not too hungry for lunch.

I've taken a few pictures, so I'm going to try to post them on here. Hope to take lots more! 

My hotel room

The pool

Hotel Lobby

View from my room