More Apartment & Car Hunting Today

We're going to see a few apartments today as well as some car dealerships. Cross your fingers that we find both very soon. Without a car in Abu Dhabi it can get pretty frustrating to get around as the city was not built for pedestrians. We will see what we accomplish today...

Candid shots of Lea

Big foot!

I don't feel comfortable eating eggs with feathers on them!

That is what Steve said to me today. The eggs we bought still have some feathers on the shells. I guess I know what we won't be having for breakfast.

So Tired

Lea loves playing on her mat. She plays so much that once we caught her when she fell asleep with her legs in the air!

Our Hotel Room

Here are pictures of our hotel room so you all have an idea of where we are staying.

The Office The Kitchen

The Bathroom

The Bedroom

The Living room

The Morning Smiles

Here's what I get to wake up to every morning. Am I lucky or what?

Construction

They are building in Abu Dhabi at an unbelievable speed. Yesterday I took a walk with Lea and we walked by a construction site, here's the picture of it. The amounts of cranes they are using is crazy. I have never seen anything like it in Montreal. Construction usually starts very early in the morning and they go into late at night. Once the sun goes down all the cranes have lights on them and it creates a very pretty skyline. I'll try to take a picture of that one day.

Lea exercising on the belly

Here's Lea doing some excercising on her belly. She's getting real good at it.

Apartment Hunting

The hardest thing to do in Abu Dhabi is finding an apartment. We saw two places so far and are hoping to see more in the next couple of days. Apartments are very expensive and are hard to come by. It also doesn't help that the agent with whom we are dealing with seems to be working on a different concept of time. We had an appointment with him yesterday at 5pm and at 6:45 he still hasn't showed up!!! We finally called and told him not to bother. He promised to be here today at 4, so we'll see at what time he finally shows up.
We've also been reading that the rates will be going down as well because of the economic crisis and job cuts. We're now in a difficult position because we want to find a place asap, but at the same time we want to wait a little bit to see if the prices do go down. A 5 1/2 here will go for about $80 000 a year which is an insane amount of $$$ for an apartment.
I have to say the first place we saw scared me. It was in a great location right next to a large mall and to the beach, but the building was very old and shady. The way the sales guy was trying to push us into getting the place felt a little over the top as well and uncomfortable. Steve even said that he felt like it was an underground operation. The second place we saw was beautiful. Large, new and clean. The place is much bigger than our last condo in Montreal and it has a back yard, but it's a little outside of the city core which means that nothing would be within walking distance for me.
I'll keep you updated in what we finally find.

Steve's Work

Here are some pics of Steve's work. I only took pictures of the outside...sorry I haven't been inside his office yet.

Lea is 3 months old today!!!

I don't know where the last 3 months have gone, but Lea is 3 months today. She's growing up way too fast for my liking. Here are some pics of her right after her morning nap. She's one happy baby.

A Walk on the Corniche

Here's the famous Corniche! It is a beautiful and modern boardwalk along the sea side. It is perfect for jogging and walking especially with a stroller as Abu Dhab sidewalks are not made for strollers. We are hoping to find an apartment walking distance to the Corniche so that I can go for walks with Lea. The Corniche has also the public beach and very large children's parks. It's absolutely beautiful, clean and friendly. The amount of people that I saw walking, jogging and biking along the Corniche kind of reminds me of Central Park in NY except well it's not in a park, but along the water.

Our First Days in Abu Dhabi

We arrived safely in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday Jan. 21, 2009. It was a very long trip, but Lea was a superstar and slept through most of it. When we were boarding I could see the terrified look in peoples eyes when they saw an infant boarding with them, but most of them congratulated us on the amazing baby we have because she didn't let out a peep during the flight.

On our first day here we didn't do much except sleep and we took a walk to a grocery store that was closest to our hotel. Steve and I both didn't want to admit it at the moment but when we saw that grocery store we were both discouraged and overwhelmed how disorganized and crammed it was. The store was a like miniature version of a Wal-Mart but with the same amount of merchandise as a North American Wal-Mart. You had vegetables and suites right next to one an other. In the dairy aisle you had dairy products as well as bins full of underwear!!! One thing that was encouraging was that we could find almost everything in the store that we have back home in Montreal.

Our hotel is great and very spacious. We have an office, living-room, bedroom, washroom and a full kitchen with a laundry machine. They even provided us with a crib for Lea which is great! We were a little afraid of staying in a hotel for a long period of time, but they way we are set up right now we really can't complain. The hotel is walking distance to the Corniche and the beach as well as many stores. The picture above is the view from our hotel room.

We have visited every mall and most of the large grocery as well as furniture stores. We are happy to announce that we can buy everything here like back home. The furniture and appliances are much cheaper than back home. TVs, clothes and cars are about the same although here we have no taxes.

Currently we are looking for an apartment, we saw two places yesterday and we liked one of them except it's a little far from the downtown core. I think we might be visiting a few tonight. Apparently finding a place to live is the hardest thing to do in Abu Dhabi so we're praying to God and crossing all of our fingers that is not the case for us.

Lea is adapting well. I think she really enjoys being outside and it tires her out because she sleeps a lot more here. I don't think she's ever been outside so much in her entire life! I will post pictures of her soon.

That's it for now!