Apartment Living in Dubai

This is a view of our foot tub in the master bathrm. Strictly used for washing the feet before prayer time. Ever bathrm has a sprayer but the master bath has the foot tub.
This is the half bath off the livingrm. Notice the sink....cool. The toilets are all solid on the bottom of the tioilet, not the squiggly stuff we have and the flusher is a button on top of the tank.
This is the condensor dryer....not vented...the plastic white thing poking out from under the dryer is what catches all the moisture from your clothes drying (took all day to dry towels). You have to empty that after every load and also the lint trap of course.

Well.... I had my first experience with maid service today. 2 guys. They didn't speak English and called me ma'amsen. I just let them in and they started right away. Washed the windows, all of them, and since the flooring is all tile throughout the apartment, they mopped and buffed them. I had done the dishes earlier, (we don't have a dishwasher yet) and placed them in the drainer, but one of the guys rewashed and dried them. They cleaned all 3 bathrooms and floors and made the bed, (I had napped before they came). They did a great job and will be doing this every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Lucky me! The only thing they don't do is laundry. Good thing, wouldn't want anyone handling my undies. No No No
They came at dinner time which is the only problem, 6pm, (hubby is going to try to get that changed since he doesn't get home until 6) so we went out to dinner at the Hilton Hotel, which is within a short walking distance from us. The food was very good. They spoiled us, as we were the only ones in there. Dinner here doesn't really start until 8-9 pm. We were like the 4pm Early Bird Special back there. LOL They were great and the food was wonderful. The portions are European, 1/2 the size of American, but still the same price. Actually, that isn't a bad thing. We ordered ribeye steaks and were expecting 2 inch thick steaks....they were probably 1/2 inch, but very tender and cooked just the way we wanted. They were Argentinian beef steaks. Very good. They also had USA Angus beef, but since we grew up on that, we tried the other and were very pleased. Also grilled asparagus and new baby potatoes. For dessert we shared what they called an Argentinian Souffle....right... it was a small lava cake with a scoop (little one) of ice cream, but still was wonderful. My first taste of chocolate since we got here. Then we sat and enjoyed a bit of the Brazilian Trio they had for entertainment. Cigars and pipes are allowed at the bar only and smoking cigaretts is allowed in the smoking sections of the restaurants. By the way, they just now stopped smoking in the malls and grocery stores, but it's allowed in the airports. They are learning.

We gave granite countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms. No vinyl countertops....nothing that will grow mold. Which might be why the maid guys come so often. We are going to try to get another dehumidifier. I am emptying it every 6 hours. I think 2 of them would really do a good job. The sweating of the new cement from this building is making it pretty damp in here. I can stand the air, but the clothes are still damp. It's even worse when there isn't anyone here to empty the dehumidifier, like when Paul came home to the states to get me. Eight days, yikes! it was like a sauna in here. It's actually more damp in here than it is outside.


Now for T.V....I watch The Young and the Restless when I can, and enjoy it. Well here they are 4 years behind....so now I can catch up on the time I missed when I was working! Yippy! They have Jeopardy, Prison Break, CSI Miami, CSI NY, Rachel Ray the cook show, Ugly Betty, Desparate Housewives, all reruns from the States and a few other shows too. We have cable, 150 channels with mostly nothing on them that we can understand. We probably should have gotten the Dish but we are locked in for a year with the cable. Oh well, I can think of other things to do rather than be glued to the t.v.

Doesn't look like there are any yarn shops here, so I may have to order from Joanne's from home. LOL I can order from Australia or England, maybe Italy, but it'll be expensive I'm sure, we'll see. I'll use what I have and go from there.

Our beef is mostly Australian or Brazilian. Tastes a little different, yet is very good, I think. They farm fresh fruits and veggies here believe it or not. A lot of varieties of vegetables. Mostly the same as what are in the states, but some different squashes, I will have to try them. The lettuce isn't cleaned well before being individually wrapped in cellophane. So one does have to wash veggies well before eating them.

Oh, we are having a drapery company come in to do our windows....it echos really bad in here with 12 foots ceilings and no carpet. So we need something on the windows to absorb the sound....pictures and rugs too, but that will happen slowly. Must find the right things, right?

Well, I think that's it so far. I have to experience the malls and grocery stores more. A couple hours in each isn't enough. The malls are so big that it would take a few days to go through them all I think. And there are all the little shops around and just think, it's rumored there are going to be about 400 new shops around this Jumeriah Residence area soon and I'll have to get through those too. Phewwww I'm going to be so busy!