Abu Dhabi

So, first day at work, first business trip ever.
I had a rough night sleep, waking up at 3AM and not falling asleep again until 6, just to wake up at 7 again. I got all dressed up and we headed to tour the health center. It is still in construction, there was no a/c, and tons of dust. The space is small in comparison, but will be nice. Each exam room and office has huge windows overlooking the city.

We then toured the student and faculty housing (it's in the same building). The two bedroom is pretty nice and roomy, but the building has NO character. It is my nightmare facility, so sterile and plain, but I think if we painted the walls, bought some cool rugs (there is an IKEA here!), and made some friends that it would be tolerable for the two years. I didn't have time to see the top floor pool or gym, but hear it is nice.

We had lunch with the AD team. They talked to me about life here. They said it is a comfortable life, that the crew is pretty tight and plan a lot of fun things together. A lot of them live in the building where we would live. They said the heat actually gets tolerable after the first few months. They also warned me that things you think should go easily, often take forever; and things you think would be complicated, are often quite easy.

We then went on a coffee run and I got a tour of Downtown. It is certainly a city, lots of tall buildings and an unbelievable amount of construction. Really, I can't even explain how much- there are rigs and half-built buildings everywhere. A lot of the tall buildings have small little mom and pop shops in the bottom floor (laundromats, "Fancy Fast Food", and coffee shops. There are tons of banks, and of course, Starbucks and McDonalds scattered around. After ordering and reordering our coffee three times, only to get one coffee less than we needed, I started to understand what they said about seemingly easy tasks feeling very difficult.

After our workday, I snuck in a 20 minute nap before we decided to take a 15 minute walk along the Corniche waterway to explore. Big mistake. It was so hot! I sweat through my shirt, my hat was soaked, even my hair. We were so hot, in fact, that we wet our arms in a fountain to cool off. It was still fun and beautiful, and nice to get out of the hotel.

Finally, we had dinner at Bice: an italian restuarant in our hotel. They have a branch in NYC, but the food was only okay. I got the handmade angel hair with scallops and mushrooms. The pasta was AMAZING, but the scallops were tough and the mushrooms were out of the can. Yes, you read that correct mushrooms out of a can for a dish that cost over $20. Thus far, you have not impressed me with your food Abu Dhabi. Let's try again tomorrow.