Though I am about a month late in my follow up post about our new home, Al Rayanna, prepare yourself it will be a long one! We began our Al Rayyana adventure in early September when we were scheduled to meet the gas man at our new apartment for hook ups. We arrived a few minutes early and we should have known it wouldn't be pretty when we saw water running over the threshold. Upon entering we found our apartment flooded. There was about 3 inches of water covering the entire place. Many items had been moved from the hotel awaiting our arrival, several pieces of furniture and all our clothes in duffel bags. We immediately called maintenance who sent about 15 men with squeegees to push the water down the floor drains which had been closed. First lesson learned, NEVER cover your floor drains in Abu Dhabi. The apartment rep said to let them know about everything that was ruined and they would reimburse us. Well, we are still waiting and not holding our breath. We did finally get moved in though the water issues continued. We had water running from the ceiling in our bathroom continually and the air conditioning was a joke. Lesson #2, water cooling air conditioning doesn't work, at least not on the 8th floor in the desert. Many days the humidity in our apartment was so high that everything was wet, floors, sheets, clothes, paperwork ... I can only tell you that the management system was #1 on my speed dial and I prayed many times that we would finally get an answer to all our wishes for a nice place to leave. Well guess what, blessings come in mysteries packages!
This past Sunday evening after I arrived home from work and had a shower, Russ and I settled in for a night of tv and cutting lamination. Right in the middle of our show we heard a boom and the apartment literally shook. You have to understand that by his time, nothing phases me in AD. Russ got up and looked out the window but didn't see anything so he wandered out to check it out. You know me, I kept on working and kind of forgot about it. About 45 minutes later there was a knock on the door and a man yelled "COME, COME!" Obviously this was the only English he possessed so I slipped on my flip flops and grabbed my keys and headed out the door. After hitting the hall, the alarm starting going off which was an ever day thing so I thought it was another false alarm. I cussed the management all the way down the 8 floors of stairs. As I walked out of the building I was met by a huge hole in the parking lot outside our building. Several cars had apparently fallen in but our new/used Yukon which we purchased 2 days earlier was not in the parking space. Luckily I saw Russ at the corner and he hollered that he had moved our vehicle. He had been waiting for me to come down because once outside we were not permitted back in. Neither of us had a cell phone & I had no purse or undergarments. Lesson #3, never leave the house without a bra! Emergency services took about 50 minutes to arrive and everything was pretty chaotic but luckily no one was injured. We stood around for about 3 hours until we were finally bussed to The Viceroy Hotel on Yas Island. We looked like a crew of about 200 homeless people in our pajamas, house dresses, and slippers all wandering into this luxurious hotel. Boy did we look out of place. We were excused from work and met in the ballroom the next morning. The team from ADEC, Abu Dhabi Education Committee tried to reassure us but they also had very little information. We were given a cash advance on our next paycheck and everyone was allowed a few minutes back into their apartment to grab clothes and necessities. Questions flew during the meeting, especially from those who lost their vehicles in the collapse. When they announced "Raise your hand if your car is in the hole." everyone pretty much lost it. Where else in the world would this statement be made other than the UAE?
So long story short, we are blessed to be here at The Viceroy enjoying another little mini vacation. Russ and I are so fortunate to be here with the ups and the downs. We are experiencing things that would never have been available to us. Each day we talk about the rough stuff but marvel at all of the experiences we have been blessed with. As I sit here at the pool working on my blog I know that that huge sink hole was just another of many blessings to come!
I am attaching some photos of our hotel, excuse the personal items, we have obviously made ourselves at home!
This past Sunday evening after I arrived home from work and had a shower, Russ and I settled in for a night of tv and cutting lamination. Right in the middle of our show we heard a boom and the apartment literally shook. You have to understand that by his time, nothing phases me in AD. Russ got up and looked out the window but didn't see anything so he wandered out to check it out. You know me, I kept on working and kind of forgot about it. About 45 minutes later there was a knock on the door and a man yelled "COME, COME!" Obviously this was the only English he possessed so I slipped on my flip flops and grabbed my keys and headed out the door. After hitting the hall, the alarm starting going off which was an ever day thing so I thought it was another false alarm. I cussed the management all the way down the 8 floors of stairs. As I walked out of the building I was met by a huge hole in the parking lot outside our building. Several cars had apparently fallen in but our new/used Yukon which we purchased 2 days earlier was not in the parking space. Luckily I saw Russ at the corner and he hollered that he had moved our vehicle. He had been waiting for me to come down because once outside we were not permitted back in. Neither of us had a cell phone & I had no purse or undergarments. Lesson #3, never leave the house without a bra! Emergency services took about 50 minutes to arrive and everything was pretty chaotic but luckily no one was injured. We stood around for about 3 hours until we were finally bussed to The Viceroy Hotel on Yas Island. We looked like a crew of about 200 homeless people in our pajamas, house dresses, and slippers all wandering into this luxurious hotel. Boy did we look out of place. We were excused from work and met in the ballroom the next morning. The team from ADEC, Abu Dhabi Education Committee tried to reassure us but they also had very little information. We were given a cash advance on our next paycheck and everyone was allowed a few minutes back into their apartment to grab clothes and necessities. Questions flew during the meeting, especially from those who lost their vehicles in the collapse. When they announced "Raise your hand if your car is in the hole." everyone pretty much lost it. Where else in the world would this statement be made other than the UAE?
So long story short, we are blessed to be here at The Viceroy enjoying another little mini vacation. Russ and I are so fortunate to be here with the ups and the downs. We are experiencing things that would never have been available to us. Each day we talk about the rough stuff but marvel at all of the experiences we have been blessed with. As I sit here at the pool working on my blog I know that that huge sink hole was just another of many blessings to come!
I am attaching some photos of our hotel, excuse the personal items, we have obviously made ourselves at home!
That was some weird experience you had there. I am totally sure you won't be able to forget it easily. But it was good that you didn't suffer any injury at all.
ReplyDeleteproperty shop