My New Place

Wow, I really am behind in blogging - as best exemplified by the fact that I haven't even said anything about my new place. I really liked living in the Radisson Blu out here on Yas - very posh - but when you're going to be someplace for a year, simply living in a hotel isn't a good fit. So, around a month ago I moved to the Staybridge Suites, which, actually, are only around fifty meters up the road from the Radisson. I talked to Zayed about moving and they were very cool about it and made all the arrangements (when you teach at Zayed they pay for your housing, or at the very least give you a housing allowance). There are six hotels out here on the Golf Plaza, and they are tied together in pairs. So, the Radisson Blu was tied to the Park Inn (posh and not so posh). The Staybridge is designed more for long-term stay and is tied to the Crowne Plaza, which is next door. This means I can use the Crowne Plaza fitness centre and also I get a discount of eating at the restaurants there. We don't have a restaurant in the Staybridge, which I actually quite like - it makes it a lot quieter because nobody who is not staying here would be stopping by.

It is still really nice, just not as posh as the Radisson Blu. We still get complimentary breakfasts in the morning and a happy hour. That said, it is decidedly less spectacular than the Radisson. Ours is only four nights a week, but is more family-friendly (as you might expect, there are a lot more kids here) with dishes like pasta (which, again, I find preferable) and the drinks are just coffee or fruit juice. The hub is open twenty-four hours a day and is stocked with a coffee-maker (passable lattes) and fruit and cookies. The lobby is quite nice with big comfy chairs for reading and there is a little side library. Sometimes I just come down of an evening, grab a latte and sit in the lobby or outside and read. The rooms are smaller than the Radisson, but also a lot brighter (the RB is a lot darker). I also only have one bathroom now, as compared to having two bathrooms for some reasons in the Radisson. I am most excited (and I know this sounds really pathetic) to actually have a kitchen and a washer/dryer. It means I don't have to do laundry math anymore (at the RB I had 14 free items of laundry a week, which meant that every Friday morning I had to lay out all my dirty clothes and decide which ones were going to be laundered and which ones were going to be cleaned in the sink and hung out to dry on the balcony). Having a kitchen is really nice, even if it is for nothing more than making myself a cup of soup. After some extensive shopping around I bought myself a new slow cooker (my old one is in storage back in VT). Who knew it would be so hard to find a slow cooker - apparently they are not popular in the UAE - and the one I bought it pretty huge, but it was the only one I could find. Plus, I will be leaving it here when the year is up if I come back to VT, because I certainly am not going to ship it and the plugs are completely dirrent. So far I made a very good batch of chicken soup and a blisteringly hot batch of chili. The problem with the chili, which I am still eating on, is that I was working with new ingredients - and the chili powder was incendiary Indian chili powder and not the usual American chili powder I am used to. It is pretty brutal, but I am eating it nonetheless because I am stubborn. So far I am really enjoying my stay here, although I miss my friends back at the Radisson Blu. It does feel very homey here. I was tossing my dirty clothes into the corner of my bathroom because I had not managed to buy a clothes hamper, and I came in one day to find that the Staybridge folks had given me one. Occasionally I will come in of an evening and the dishes, wish I had left out to dry have been put away - always a pleasant surprise. I have one of those combination washer/dryers, which means that it is fairly small and doesn't dry completely, but there are also free washers and dryers downstairs. Yes, very nerdy, but even the washers and dryers make me happy.