DAY TWO HUNDRED TWENTY SIX - Heading off to Spain!

I am very fortunate in that Doug has no issue with me taking Girl Trips. Not that I think he should, but I have known women over the years who needed "permission" from their husbands to go someplace or whose husbands resented the time they spent with friends and/or family. Doug and I have never had that kind of relationship. We spend most of our time together, but we both think it's healthy and natural that we do some things apart, either on our own or with friends. 

Still, taking a two-week trip to Spain is stretching it! Especially since I'm leaving on our 40th Anniversary.

Here's the thing - we knew in advance that he'd be very busy this Summer getting the NYU Abu Dhabi campus all set for the Fall when students and faculty arrive in force. The campus had a "soft opening" on June 1st, and we're all working out the bugs. The "hard opening" will be at the end of August, and Doug wants to be ready. We knew months ago that our Anniversary Celebration would be delayed till September or even October. 

So when the opportunity came up to meet up with my friend, Mary Catherine, in Spain, Doug could not have been more enthusiastic. "Go, go!" he said. And so I am going. First to Seville and then to Granada for a few days. The final week we depart from Palma, Mallorca, on a 50 foot sail boat with 8 others, and we'll sail around the entire island, mooring at a different port every afternoon so we can explore. 

This is the kind of sailing yacht I'll be on, a 50 ft. Bavaria. I've never done anything like this before! I'm excited and nervous all at the same time. 

I take nothing for granted. Not my family. Not my friends. Not the amazing opportunities that have come my way. I am blessed.  

I shall return in two weeks or so with Tales of Spain!

DAY TWO HUNDRED TWENTY - On Being a Very Willing Guinea Pig

There was never any question that we would be one of the very first people to live on the new NYUAD campus, and in fact we were the very first. Doug's mission here was to get the campus IT network up and running by the June 1st opening date, so he wanted to be here before people started moving in to be sure that all was working as it was supposed to work. We were to be the IT Guinea Pigs. As it turned out, we (quite willingly) became guinea pigs for much more.

One of the many challenges with this campus is that while it was under construction, no one but the contractors could have access to it. So while you knew that thus-and-such a system or doo-hickey or gadget or appliance or whatever was supposed to be in place, no one actually knew for a fact that it was till they were here and looking at "it" with their own eyes. There was not a lot of time to test things out. Mere days.

While Doug deals with all the campus technology, I have been dealing with the more mundane perhaps, but very important issues of "livability." Just how does one get along on this campus? Where is everything? How do I get to the parking garage from my apartment, for example? Or even more basic, how does one dispose of one's trash????

Our trash chute. Seriously, have you ever seen one like this with all the buttons? 

On our first day here I stepped out in the hallway in search of the trash room, or Refuse Room as it is called here. I opened a door and found this. Now I am used to a simple chute - you pull the handle, drop in your trash, and away it goes - but instead I found this.  I pulled the handle - it wouldn't open. I pushed some buttons (which were NOT labeled at that time), and they lit up but the chute still did not open. Stymied I left my bag on the floor but felt very guilty about it. I also didn't see any bins for recycling and wondered what, if anything, was recycled on campus because it's not universal in this country.

I looked up the email for the Help Desk and sent an inquiry asking about the garbage and recycling. About two hours later Louise, the manager in charge of housekeeping, was at my door with laminated signs in hand. My inquiry prompted her to make signs and labels which she put in each refuse room. In her very strong Irish brogue she explained how the chute works: green is for plastic, white for paper, and black for general refuse. If I have plastic to recycle, I press the white button on the right. A red button remains on while the chute shifts down in the basement somewhere and lines up with the proper bin. When the green light goes on I can open the door and drop down my plastic. Then if I have regular refuse, I press the black button, the red light goes on (door cannot be opened) and about 10 seconds pass while the chute chugs along and aligns with another bin. The green light goes on, I can open the chute, and there you go. Honestly, if Louse hadn't shown me how the thing works, I never would have figured it out, and I am quite sure most other residents would have been equally baffled.

One of my happy discoveries in our new apartment is that it has an excellent quality stacking washer/dryer. The real deal. Not one of those funky combination washerdryer machines like I had in the previous two apartments and which took half a day to do a minuscule load. I got in the habit, out of pure necessity, of taking all my laundry - clothes, sheets, towels - to a local laundry where they did it quickly, brought it right to my door, and it cost very little. Here on the campus I can now do most of my laundry, but I have decided I am done with washing and ironing Doug's shirts and trousers. So I pulled out my handy manual, looked up laundry services, and noted that a pick-up/drop-off service is available or laundry can be dropped off at the convenience store before 5:00 pm daily with a 72-hour turnaround.  

I am being very intentional about doing as much walking as possible these days especially since the campus is a pedestrian campus - no vehicles are allowed. And it's just so pretty out - I love walking and taking in the landscaping and seeing what there is to see. So I pulled out a large plastic bag and loaded in a bunch of Doug's shirts and some of my tops which needed dry cleaning, and off I marched to the temporary Convenience Store. 

I walked in and was greeted by the two, very friendly clerks, but when I presented my bag of laundry I could see their eyes widen. By the glances they exchanged, I just knew. 

"I'm the first person to bring in laundry, right?"

"Yes, Madam," (accent on the second syllable) the young woman replied. Then she shooed her assistant outside so he could call their manager on his cell phone and find out what to do.

The female clerk pulled out an order form which was half in English and half in Arabic, and we scrutinized it together. I could see it was the usual form listing shirts, trousers, t-shirts, skirts, and so on, but it looked like you could have shirts washed and ironed or ironed only..... but it wasn't entirely clear. The clerk also knew nothing about payment - could I pay on the spot if I wanted or only upon pickup? This did not surprise me because when we first went to the campus dining hall, the cashier was clearly learning the ropes as he consulted his chart for every little item. And the people at the little Starbucks kiosks are still learning how to make their drinks. It's a learning experience for everybody on campus, and everybody who is here (well, most everybody....) is being very patient and handling things with good humor. We're all in the same boat together. We figure the goal is to work out the kinks and glitches as much as possible over the Summer so that everything is up and running smoothly by the time the faculty and students arrive in mid-August. 

Finally I wrote down all my contact information and left my bag of laundry with the two clerks. I told them I'd stop by this afternoon and find out the story. I trust by then they will have spoken with their manager and learned how to handle a laundry drop-off. I know some people can be cranky and impatient (I've encountered enough of them in my lifetime!), so I am actually happy to be the first person to bring in laundry. I'm not in a rush - let them learn the ropes with me. I'm sure when the next person comes in bearing laundry, they will handle it quickly and professionally. 

I think for everybody who chose to live on campus over the Summer - and it was a choice - that this is part of the mission, one of the points of  being here. Yes I do get frustrated now and then, but mostly I am having fun trying out things, and seeing how they work. When I chat with the other residents here, we share stories and we laugh. We're all very willing guinea pigs. 

And fussbudget that I am, I think I make a darn good one. 

DAY TWO HUNDRED FIFTEEN - We move into our new apartment on the NYU Abu Dhabi campus

Thursday was moving day. The movers arrived as scheduled at 9:00 a.m., and I had everything except the items in the fridge packed and ready to be loaded onto their truck. I could not get out of this place soon enough! Living in an apartment of boxes is not fun.

Our old apartment at Sama Tower - all is packed and ready to go!

Doug was frantic with meetings and getting all the IT "stuff" ready on campus, so the move was left to me. Once everything was out of the apartment, I got into our little rental Jetta and took off for the campus and what would be my first look at our apartment. You may recall that I'd seen the floor plans but not the actual furnished apartment.

It's kind of funny sometimes how you get an idea in your head and then things turn out completely different from what you expected. Case in point: I envisioned the movers carting over my boxes, dropping them off, and then I'd have all afternoon to myself to unpack in a focused but leisurely fashon. I saw it as a Zen kind of day, actually. But in fact when I walked into the apartment I found a small army of facilities guys making adjustments to the blinds in the windows. Moments later a maintenance worker came in with a step ladder and began patching a small area above the kitchen island. Apparently there had been a leak (repaired), but now the ceiling needed patching and painting. I barely noticed this chaos because to my chagrin I saw NO furniture - not a stick! After the workers left more people started stopping by - the guy in charge of the furniture (it was on its way), a cleaning crew who told me they would provide a complementary cleaning (I told them to wait till the next day when my boxes were unpacked), the guy in charge of the facilities team making sure all was well and who handed me an enormous 3-ring binder with emergency contact numbers, manuals for all the appliances from the fridge to the toaster, and even take-out menus. 

Yet another person dropped by with the Welcome Basket shown above which contained Tide, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste, garbage bags, tissue, toilet paper and more. Nice touch. By the end of the day I estimate a good 50 people had breezed in and out of the place. My day was anything but Zen, but it turned out to be fun, exciting, and beyond anything I could have imagined. Everybody was incredibly friendly, welcoming, and they bent over backwards to welcome us and make us feel at home.

Doug and I were literally the first residents on the campus by several days. He wanted us to be his IT guinea pigs so he could be sure the WiFi, phones, and TV were working in the apartments before other people moved in and, well, freaked out.  We turned out to be guinea pigs for the Facilities people too and in a fun way. They wanted us to let them know if we found any issues so they could make corrections in the other units too if needed.

I worked like a crazy person and unpacked almost all my boxes before I hit the proverbial wall. The furniture was delivered and set up, and I made our bed so I could fall into it and sleep. The next day the unpacking was complete. Now I need to decorate - hang pictures, buy accessories like toss pillows, and I definitely need a tree of some sort in my sun room of a living room. 

More pictures will follow when the place is together, but this will give you a sense of our apartment...

In this shot the place is still a mess as I try and figure out where to put things. The new apartment has an open-concept layout as did the Sama apartment, but the cabinetry, the appliances, the finishes, well everything is so much nicer. The quality is excellent, and there is such attention to detail such as under-the-cabinet lighting, and the dishwasher that is faced with a cabinet door so it "disappears".

Doug didn't realize we had a dishwasher till I opened the door and showed him.

Now I've cleaned the place up, and I am standing in the living room with my back to the window. The door on the back wall is our front door, and the double doors to the left open to a small room with a stacking washer/dryer and enough extra space to store things like my vacuum, mops, and step ladder. The cabinetry in all the rooms goes to the ceiling, so I absolutely need that step stool! Out of frame to the left is the hallway which leads to two bedrooms and two full baths.

The view of the kitchen from the hallway. I like the little bookcase on the end of the island. See that thick, white notebook? That's the one with all the appliance manuals and information. And you thought I was exagerrating ;-)

I really need to figure out how to take a better picture of the living room/dining room. Even though the light-filtering shades are pulled down, the light is still strong enough that it back-lights my photo and makes things look dim. Trust me, with all those windows, I have plenty of light! As for this room, I have already purchased a replacement coffee table (yet to be assembled) as Doug hates this one, and I am in search of an area rug. One was provided but it was in shades of brown and black, and I really want something different. I have yet to hang pictures.

Looking down the hallway: the master bedroom with en suite is straight ahead, the guest room/office is on the left, and the second full bath is on the right.

Here's a corner of the master bedroom, and you can see the hand-tied rug I purchased in Istanbul. 

Each bedroom has this desk area, but there are no drawers. It's the one very puzzling omission to the apartments as far as I'm concerned. In any case, I decided to use the smaller desk area in the guest room for my home office space and am using the one in the master bedroom as a vanity. I repurposed the empty gift basket to hold my hair blower and curling iron.

The guest room is almost as large as the master bedroom, but the closet space and desk area are smaller. That is not a problem for me at all. As for the desk, I bought a 2-drawer unit from IKEA which will slip under the counter/writing surface (still needs to be assembled). I bought a small book case as well which I assembled all by myself, and you can see it to the right of the photo.

We have two full baths, each of which is larger than any bathroom we've had ever. The sink and toilet area look the same for both. This is mine (the en suite).

I claimed the en suite because of this. I dearly love to soak and relax at the end of the day. And boy this tub is deep!

Doug's bath (the one off the hallway) has a large shower stall plus a small linen closet. Opposite the linen closet is a very wide and very deep closet where I've stored a whole host of things including our suitcases.

And that's the tour! Like I said, now I need to accessorize and add some character to the place. But it has great bones, and we already feel very comfortable and at home. 

Next time, I'll walk you around the campus......