The First Week (August 20th-28th)

Dubai is awesome. Details follow, but for those of you who were planning on first scanning through this entry to find out how I am doing, I’ve eliminated the dirty work for you. I love it.

After finally getting my bags under the weight limit (or rather, right at the weight limit) and plenty of heartfelt goodbyes, I departed from Tallahassee Regional Airport on a little puddle-jumper of an airplane for Atlanta. After a two-hour layover, I boarded a Boeing 777 for a direct, 14-hour flight to Dubai. I was excited to find that we would be flying an elliptical route north across Europe, but alas, my seat was in the center of the center section, with no easy access to windows or aisles. I did get to see where we were via a screen that plotted our position (in both English and Arabic), and several recent (and free) movies helped to pass the time. Unfortunately, I was only able to catch about an hour of fitful sleep, but I would more than make up for that when I arrived in Dubai.

Upon arrival at the airport, my first impression was one of awe. Given, large airports and international travel are things I’ve been relatively inexperienced with, but this was something else. Actually, a display that I first saw when I excited my gate reminded me of the middle-eastern section of It’s A Small World at Walt Disney World. That Dubai was a tourist magnet was indubitable, but the veiled women going into prayer rooms, the dual English-Arabic language signs, and the truly international feel to the people walking around reinforced the feeling that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. But that was a good thing.

I made my way through the airport, got my first stamp in my new passport, grabbed my luggage, and met with some of the people from the school who were waiting for myself and another new teacher. I was then driven to my apartment, where I met the housing manager who showed me around the place. After halfway emptying my suitcase (for there were no clothes-hangers in the apartment as yet), I made up my bed and slept for about 14 hours.

I had a pretty lazy day on Friday (especially since I didn’t really get up until about 4 p.m.), but I did go to the local market to buy a few things, as well as eating my first shwarma (I was pretty addicted to shwarmas and dates for my first few days here.)

Saturday, the last day of the weekend out here, I hung out with a good friend of mine from FSU who first turned me on to Dubai. We went to Dubai Festival City, a relatively new community with an amazing three-story mall and a marina. As I would find out the next day, the mall was also within walking distance of my school.

Culturally, Dubai is at once very similar to the west, and very different. Our apartment is next door to a Mosque and a construction site (kind of a microcosm of Dubaian symbols, I suppose), and the call to prayer can be heard five times every day (and night…). The highway system is very western, though the postal address system leaves much to be desired (a result of absolutely explosive urban growth over the past few years, I suppose). Many foods and products are foreign to me, the outlets are European, and many people speak very little English, and thickly accented at that. But, strangely enough, I really have not had a single instance of culture shock yet. Culture "oh-wow-that’s-cool/neat/interesting/unique", sure, but thus far, everything here has been an incredible adventure. Given, if I were alone over here, or if I were in a place where no one spoke English, this would be much more difficult, but, luckily, I’ve already made a few dozen friends from school who are sharing this adventure with me.

Sunday through Thursday is the workweek here in Dubai, and my first one was amazing. I love my school. The philosophy, the facility, and most of all the people. It may be called Universal American School, but the staff is very international, from the U.S., Canada, Holland, Romania, India, Lebanon, New Zealand, Australia, Egypt, Spain, Peru, England, Belgium, Scotland, Japan, Ireland, France, the Philippines and beyond. More importantly, everyone is very friendly and personable. For some of us, this is our first experience teaching abroad; for others, this is their fourth or fifth country that they have taught in. I’m thinking I’ll be one of the latter before long. This whole international thing is really getting under my skin (in a good way). The administration is absolutely amazing as well, with openness, authenticity, and supportiveness in spades. Most of us new recruits are of the mind that we won’t be able to go elsewhere after teaching here, as conditions (including copious planning time built into the school day) seem to be almost ideal.

Perhaps most importantly (at least, outside of the classroom) is the social rapport that has already developed among our colleagues. Many of us live in the same apartment building, and most every night, we go out to eat and to explore the city together. This past Friday was certainly an excellent example of that, but now we’re getting into the second week, so I’ll save that for next time.

Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!