Driving in a land filled with drivers from everywhere.(with lots of different opinions on how to get from one place to another...)
Eating new foods
Making new friends, then saying goodbye one or two years later
Attending church with believers from all over the world. One Friday when the visitors were introduced 12 different countries were represented..Nepal, China, South Africa, Philippines, Myanmar, Nigeria and more
Learning how to communicate in English with people who speak English but don''t understand it, because there are so many different people who speak different languages and work here that English is the working language.(If this sentence confuses you..welcome to our world.)
Having Burger King, Chilis, Texas Chicken(Church's Chicken but name is changed..:).. and others deliver to the door
Dry cleaninig delivers too. Good thing cuz Mike wears a suit every single day to work.
Parking at home in Texas was easy with at least 12 choices on any given day. For the last three years we have parked on barricades, by dumpsters, in major intersections, on crosswalks, up on sidewalks, and down the middle of street . Sometimes we just throw the hazard lights on and leave a phone number in the window to call. (Update on parking.Now it is all paid parking. Can't do any of the above mentioned parking solutions where the paid parking meters have been introduced. Problem is there aren't enough spaces for all the cars. Hard to explain. Very frustrating. All would be solved if the apt. buildings had parking garages. We have one but it only has 10 spaces....)
Adjusting to a landscape that looked pretty much like Mars. When Mike arrived by himself in July of 07 he really felt like he had landed on another planet. Maybe Tatooine or something. Lots of desert and sand and then pockets of trees and lights. Then you come over the bridge and see one of the biggest mosques in the world sometimes lit up in purple. Takes some adjusting.
Obviously I could go on and on..but you get the picture. Or at least some of it. Our lives changed a lot. Perhaps one of the biggest changes is in Mike's world, though. The professional, "try and get a job done", world. It is definitely not limited to the construction world, though. The challenges facing any professional are immense. It is way too complicated to explain here, and really, you wouldn't believe me. I'll just give you one example of how it is. Our friend mentioned that on his job sight they were having a rodent problem. Those large box traps were places all around the wall perimeter of the building. The men came to lay the pavers for the sidewalk. They cut each paver to fit around the mouse traps. All around the building. Hmmm...It is not easy to do things here. From the top executives to the paver guys, you could say there is something lost in translation. :)
As I close, I want to tell you about the most recent great thing about living here. It's being closer to Russell. He just spent 10 days here with us. His office had some training in Dubai so he came early. He attended the training and then came back to our place for a couple more days. We all got to hug on him and hear his story. We were able to meet his coworkers and have dinner with them. What a blessing. Now, were we still living in Dallas with our 12 parking places, and green grass and trees, we would have missed that. Somethings are just irreplaceable!
