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| Today the folks from the bed shop brough my bedframe by. |
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| Unfortunately, they didn't have all the obviously necessary pieces, so this is what I got. |
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| They are supposed to come back another day with the rest (thursday). |
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| I met a kid (don't know his name) in the elevator who spoke English and had fresh naan in his arms. I said it smelled good and he ripped off a piece for me right before I reached my floor. He quickly explained directions to the bakery (it doesn't have a name, its just a hole in the wall). |
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| So I had an adventure finding it and practicing what little language I have left. Naan was wonderful. Had a piece and some Ocean Spray cranberry juice for dinner. Success! |
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| post-bakery expidition |
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| So after the dishwasher debacle, I set about scrubbing my bathroom so that I could shower in the morning in a sanitized loo. Using copious quantities of bleach, I scoured my walls, bathtub, toilettes and floor. LOTS of brown gunk (probably sawdust) came off so it took more than 3 hours to clean. Then I went to bed, slept for 90 minutes and then took a cold bath. Of course the hot water heater wasn't working. So the bath was very short. Then I made the critical mistake of draining the bath. The bath water, mixed with all the dirty water from the day the men swished about the saw dust + six years of dirt and then crammed it down the floor drains ALL came up. At 5 a.m., I had no choice but to leave the water standing on the floor and go to work. Ick. My brand-new bathmats were ruined. I was cranky and headachy from the lack of sleep and all the stress. Wrote a nasty email to my apartment management company. Called. Hourly. No Answer. At 10 am they finally answered and said they saw my email and would forward it to the right department. Was not a very fun teacher. So several hours after I got home, they came to service the drains. At first they said there were rocks in the drains. I insisted that they do some common acid treatment and after tinkering for a while, they finally agreed. First, they pumped all the trapped water that had previously washed the floors out of the pipes. Then they did this acid treatment that snaps, crackles, and pops with puffs of smoke. Like fireworks fighting grime. I got them to do it in all my drains. That made me believe that the problem was solved and I left and slept on a friend's couch to avoid breathing in acid-smoke puffs. So after waking up the next day and running errands then returning to the apt, I commenced the bleaching-of-all-surfaces, part 2. Then I filled the tub with water and a quarter bottle of bleach so i could clean that (since it is there that the pumped-water-out-of-drains-that-was-used-to-wash-the-sawdust-into-them went). I naively pulled the tub plug thinking things would function as they should. Well, did I think wrong! This image is the start of the great flood of 2014, part 2. I called the emergency number for the apts. After 2 hours, the guy came. His suggest solution was this: Madam, you don't need to take showers. Just use the sink. I explained once again that I am a crazy american and that we wash ourselves everyday. Sometimes more than once a day. And I insisted that the pipes get fixed because drain water should always go down, never never never ever up. Not exactly how I planned to spend my weekend. The bright side of not owning a stick of furniture and sleeping on a foam mat is that clean up is manageable-ish. |
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| All my life, I've only seen white paper towels, the most exciting variant being white with prints. In diverse Dubai, that's just not how we roll, we don't discriminate. Paper products can be any color they ever wanted to be. They also come in orange. |
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| I have to say, I actually like these better than q-tips. |
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| So remember how all that saw dust, 6 years of dirt, and the previous tennant's filth all got squished around by men who were "cleaning"? All that dirty water was forced into floor drains in the bathrooms and kitchen. This clogged the pipes connected to the drains, which were probably not in good shape anyway. Turns out the solution to this problem is to pump out all the stagnant water trapped in the pipe system, then drop acid into the pipes. This sounds like fireworks and smoke billows out of the trains. It is not safe to breathe. So, I made a prompt exit and slept on a friend's couch. |
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| Pumping water before and after various unclogging efforts prior to the acid drop. |
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| The dishwasher is 3 inches taller than the under clearance of the counter. |
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| How many men DOES it take to install 1 dishwasher? |
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| And then there were 7. |
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| In the end, they took the dishwasher and left. They tried removing the feet and removing the top and nothing worked- and removing the top violates the warranty. So no dishwasher. I called the apt management company but no answer. I emailed them and 3 hours later they called and gave permission to cut a hole in the counter. Too bad the dishwasher left hours before. Now I have to go back to the store, return the first dishwasher, then buy the same one again to get the delivery rescheduled. |
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| The unit I am teaching this week is called Home Sweet Home. Timely, since I just got the keys for my apartment. |
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| This is a park at the Sharjah (my city) corniche (not anywhere near where I live). It is very lively at night because kids can play and it is less hot. There's also a water/lights show at the waterfront. Fun. |
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| Living/Dining room area, with balcony |
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| Kitchen |
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| Random guest bath I discovered near the front door. Its just barely big enough to stand in. |
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| Master bath |
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| Internet Installation Man |
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| "Cleaning" |
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| Repairs in the kitchen |
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| So the men working on repairs/cleaning use common methods of cleaning for this part of the world. Unfortunately for me, this system of cleaning causes a lot of OCD-ish panic. They fill a bucket with water, add a tiny splash of windex, a spoonful of bleach, and the swish the dirty water about to ensure all the grime is everywhere, then they squeegee it into a bathroom drain. Gag. After the poor guys were done "cleaning" I set about doing what I could to sterilize everything. Layers of nasty gunk came off nearly every surface and took a lot of scrubbing. I cleaned for about 4 hours, just attacking the surfaces (inside and out) of the closets and door frames, and my kitchen walls. I started the kitchen cabinets but didn't finish. I got distracted with unpacking boxes. Got 30 unpacked. The boxes (not collapsed) filled five tashbags. Still about 15 more to go, but everything takes time. |
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| spare bedroom |
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| 2nd bath, with shower. |
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| You could awkwardly climb out the spare bedroom's window to get to the balcony |
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| Master bath. Wondering if they will let me remove the bidet so I have a place to install a clothes washing machine. Apparently they are not common place in my area, people send their laundry out or wash it in their tubs. |
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| With all things in the Emirates, normally simple tasks and procedures are complicated by an abundance of unanticipated obstacles. This ranges from fees, to waiting in many lines just to ask questions, to being required to get documents, etc. Today my obstacle is students. In a literal way. Never a dull moment! |
