Saturday, October 12th - Greetings from Dubai!!

Our day started early. Wake up at 3, cab at the door at 4h10, at the airport by 4h45, and with boarding passes and thru security by 5h15. Pretty short flight to Dubai (approx 1h30m), then through their passport verification, security, bagage claim, duty free, and finally out the door. Did I mention duty free? Ah, yes, I did. Guess what; we stopped and shopped! We got to our hotel by about noon; I had a beer and Jacqui had a glass of wine. Actually, I drank as much in 90 minutes as I had in 7 weeks (yup, two beers!). We then went out to Dubai Mall for a bit then joined a friend at her hotel. From there, all three of us went to Dubai Marina for dinner. It was very nice, even though they do not serve drinks at the restaurant (actually, we've been told they don't serve drinks in any restaurant, just in hotels). We got back around 10, both of us a little tired. But it's been a fun day; hard to believe we're in Dubai. It's a long ways away from everyone of you, but we still think of you on this Thanksgiving weekend (well, we always think of you but maybe a little bit more on this holiday weekend). Enjoy it, be grateful for what you have, and make the most of every opportunity (have an extra piece of ham for Jacqui and I, and maybe a cold one too!). Cheers!

Marina Dubai - check the building on the right!

It would be cool to see how it is inside

Part of Dubai, by night

Your neighbourhood Timmy's. Double double??

They even light it up!

Friday, October 11th - 1st day of holidays

We started our first day of holiday on the beach at The Palms. We were there for about three hours then went for lunch at Olive Gardens (they still exist). We then went back home, stayed there for a few minutes then went to Fahahell (Al kout mall) to get some UAE (United Arab Emirates) dirhams - the money used in Dubai. We had a quiet evening and went to bed early as we have to get up at 3 am to catch our morning flight.

Marina by Al Kout mall

Same place, different boats

Jacqui by the beach at Al Kout mall

Richard, with the marina and mall behind him

Thursday, October 10th - Holidays are here!

Jacqui went in this morning to tell her new principal that she will not continue with CES, as it doesn't seem to be a right fit for her. It just didn't feel right. She will therefore take some time off, as I am now on holidays for 10 days, and we'll see what happens afterwards. I had a PD day today. Some things don't change; we worked on something that we know will not happen.

Speaking of holidays, we will be travelling to Dubai for a few days. We're leaving Saturday morning and coming back on Tuesday evening. The break will do us good; things have been pretty hectic basically since June.

After school, we met with another teacher and visited the Grand Mosque. It's a landmark in Kuwait City. The mosque holds up to 10 000 people inside, 50 000 outside plus another 100 000 when they close the streets around it. It was very impressive. We had a private tour as we were the only three to visit at that time. The two ladies had to wear an abaya (see pictures below). We had dinner after that at a local restaurant downtown : 2 schwarmas, fries, 10 balls of falafel and one soda for about 2.40 CAD. It was very good and fed all three of us!

Inside the Grand Mosque

Our tour guide - very interesting

Walls and ceiling of the Mosque

Wall inside the Mosque

Jacqui wearing an abaya inside the Mosque

Ceiling of the Mosque

Jacqui and I, after the tour

She's still the same Jacqui we all know!

The Grand Mosque, at night

For the price we paid ($2.40 CAD for all three of us), what'd you expect?

Wednesday, October 9th - The grass isn't greener ....

Jacqui went in at CES for her first day of work this morning. She was a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. The classroom is small and messy, there are 26 kids who haven't really had a real teacher since the start of the year, therefore behaviour is an issue, there is no EA, ... Basically, the school wasn't really up front with her during the interview. So tomorrow might be her last day. She's not ready to go back. She needs more time off, and to maybe look at different options other than the typical classroom setting. We'll think about that after the holidays.

Speaking of holidays, we have to travel somewhere as Jacqui's work visa will expire in less than two weeks. She therefore has to leave the country and come back on a visitor's visa, until she gets her residency as my spouse (if we're here long enough for that). So we'll look at possible destinations tomorrow. The week off will be more than welcomed.

Tuesday, October 8th - From CBS to CES

Jacqui left around 7am to go visit the school where she had an interview, and a fire alarm, yesterday. She then visited another place, some kind of daycare/school for kids aged 3 to 8. They offered her a job as well, but her mind was pretty much made up; she likes the school that she visited yesterday afternoon. So she came back home, went for a massage and waited for the offer from Cambridge English School to come in via email (ya, you can take the girl out of Cambridge, but you can't take the Cambridge out of the girl!). She accepted that offer, and starts work tomorrow. She will be in class for the next two days with the teacher that is currently there. It will surely help with the transition for her and for the students. This new school seems to be a big improvement compared to where she was before. She will be teaching a grade 1, with 25 or 26 students in it. It's a british school, therefore following the british curriculum. I'll have a lot more details tomorrow night, after her day at work.

I am now officially a resident of the state of Kuwait. I don't have my civil ID card yet, but I'm allowed to travel in and out of the country at will. However, there are two problems with travelling next week for our holidays. First, Jacqui is not a resident yet and we are not sure what leaving the country and coming back in on a visitor's visa would do to her residency application. She will inquire at school tomorrow. If we have to start the process again from square one, it's not worth it. Secondly, this is very last minute and the cost of flights is ridiculously high. I haven't had time to really shop for flights, but what I've seen so far is not encouraging. We might also be moving during the week, as CES offers lodging, just like CBS does. However, moving wouldn't take very long; all our stuff could be moved in one trip with two cabs! We will have to look at the apartments that they have and make a decision; their location is probably better than where we are now. That being said, they would charge us a certain amount of money per month to live in one of their apartments because only one of us is working for them. So we'll have to figure out what is better money wise and time wise (ie travelling to and from school).

The adventure continues tomorrow!

Monday, October 7th - How many jobs do you want?

Jacqui had spent yesterday making phone calls to various school, looking for a job. One school had made arrangements with her for an interview on Monday afternoon. So this morning, she got into a cab and started delivering CV's (she had the cab driver for over 6 hours!). She had a couple of interviews "on the fly", including one where there was a fire alarm while she was there. But at the end of the day, she winds up with THREE job offers! One will surely be turned down as the school seemed to be worse than the one she's leaving behind. She'll go visit the second one tomorrow morning, but she is very interested by the third one, the one that gave her the interview in the afternoon. However, she still has another interview tomorrow morning at 10, so we'll see what comes out of that. We also haven't seen any offer packages yet (just verbal confirmation that there will be an offer). Hopefully, a final decision will be made by this time Tuesday.

For my part, I've discovered how to make Monday mornings more bearable, and I will share my secret with all of you. Here it is : work Sundays! This way, Mondays are nothing to fret about. It makes all the difference in the world. The second day of the week is a lot easier than the first one back after the weekend. (Thinking of you all on this Monday morning!)

We're still hoping to travel next week. We hear we might get our papers tomorrow, but then again, we hear many things. So we'll see.

Tuesday could be an interesting day!

Sunday, October 6th - Job Hunt

What is wrong with this picture : the retired teacher gets up at five on a Sunday morning to go to work, while the "three years away from retirement" teacher stays home? I must admit, though, that she was up at the same time I was, and that she started checking schools web sites very early. Jacqui contacted a bunh of schools by phone or email during the day. She will visit some schools tomorrow where she will drop off her resume (they call them CV here, just like we do in french). She already has an interview for Monday afternoon and another one for Tuesday morning. We'll see what happens with those.

Jacqui went for a walk in the morning and bought a newspaper; the first one since we've been here. Most of the news were about the middle east, with a decent section for international news, but what caught my attention was their sports section. A lot of soccer, handball, but then, this.

Who would have thought?

They also had news about the baseball playoff. Everything was about Friday's games, but considering that those games end at about 5 am local time, it's easy to understand why they don't make the "day after" paper.

We went out (again) for dinner as Jacqui has to get out of the apartment after a while. It was kind of nice; we ate outside. She managed to skype with family and friends in the afternoon and early evening. She's now looking forward to the next few days.