1st Week

Arrived at our beautiful hotel late Friday(?) night..days are hard to understand because it is 11 hours ahead of Arizona here. The flight was long...13 hours..but fine. Very nice airline, we were served 3 meals!..but little leg room which was hard on such a long flight.( http://www.etihadairways.com/)
The hotel is great. It is surrounded by a race track, where they have the Grand Prix in November. It has 2 rooftop pools, many restaurants, and a gym. ((http://www.theyashotel.com/)
 We are the first group of teachers, I think there are 400 of us. There will be 2 more groups later this month. We will stay at this hotel until we are placed in our apartments which could be many weeks, but probably the end of the month.  So far we haven't had much for orientation, just one meeting and had to set up our bank accounts, get health screenings, and fingerprinted at the police station. Otherwise, we are on vacation! Everything does take a little longer here...I think because there are so many of us too. Our health screenings were a full day event.
So far, I have been to a few malls, restaurants, and Ikea! Many places are closed during the day because of Ramadan. It is a little hard to get use to not drinking, eating, chewing gum, listening to music, and many other restrictions during the day light hours. It is so hot and humid here, you want to carry around a water bottle, but can not during the day because of this. Right now, there is no one, but us visitors/teachers, out and about. I guess everyone stays in for the holiday, or sleeps during the day, because they eat very late.  The whole city is accustomed to this culture. There are even prayer rooms at Ikea. Also, if you are watching TV during a prayer time, it is interrupted for a prayer. It is very beautiful, sounds like music.
The food is good. Very light, lots of vegetarian, similar to Middle Eastern (Greek, Mediterranean, Indian) food in the States. We are served breakfast (vegetables, salad, eggs, potatoes, meat, pastries, coffee) in a banquet room off to the back of the hotel, because normally can not eat breakfast when the sun is up during this holiday. Then all the other meals are on our own. The restaurants are not open until Iftar (which is when the sun goes down, and people eat a big feast during Ramadan). The grocery stores are open until 1pm and after 7pm, so you can get groceries and eat in your hotel room.
It is so nice to be around people from all over the world!  The group of teachers here are from many different places in the world. Many from Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, all different English speaking countries. Everyone is also so well traveled. Many teaching in all parts of the world....seems to be the trend.
I will update you more later if I can get this blog thing down!  Definitely not my strength.  Hope all is well...Salam.