Growing Up Fast

Look who's not a baby anymore!

Atlanta vs. Abu Dhabi: Cost of Living

I happened upon an interesting site today, Xpatulator.com. I was intrigued about their views on the UAE, and thought I'd do some comparisons to home. This landed me in Microsoft Excel, which happens a lot in my life. I think in spreadsheets...I can't help it.

So the way this works...each category is rated from 1, being the most expensive, to 300, being the cheapest. There are 300 countries in the study, with Tokyo, Japan being the number 1 most expensive overall, and Sanaa, Yemen being the cheapest. (Of note: they do not cite resources!)

Overall, Abu Dhabi ranked 27 and Atlanta ranked 225. New York City ranked 33.

Then, they ranked spending areas in each city. Remember 1=most expensive and 300=least expensive, so Abu Dhabi's clothing cost is really expensive!
So then I made a graph, because who doesn't love a graph? You can see that the two cities meet in the middle for Communication and Transportation, and that Atlanta's household prices are super inexpensive compared to the rest of the world!

I feel the need to comment on some of these...

If you divided up Alcohol and Tobacco into two categories, you'd see that Abu Dhabi's Alcohol number would fall drastically and their Tobacco level would rise.

As far as Clothing...it's hard to score well when you fill all of your malls with BCBG, Burberry, Dolce & Gabanna, Emporio Armani, Gucci, Juicy Couture...and the likes.

In terms of Education, they must be referring to free public schools reserved for Emiratis. To give you an idea, the nurseries I've seen here cost 8,000-12,000dhs (about $2K-$3K) for a 3-4 month term. A common education allowance for employees seems to be 25,000-40,000dhs ($6K-$10K) per year starting at age 3. I think nursery is way above what I know in Atlanta, but the private school seems pretty close to average at home.

Household seems accurate to me - with Abu Dhabi being REALLY expensive and Atlanta being really cheap. This includes rent/mortgage, real estate taxes, and utilities.

The Restaurant/Hotel speaks for itself...this isn't a cheap vacation spot!

Well, that's the end of our lesson today. Hope you enjoyed my nerdy presentation :)

Christmas Eve!

Our little elf is all dressed up in his Christmas pajamas.

We both read stories with him before bed. So excited for Christmas tomorrow!

We hope you will have yourselves a merry little Christmas this year!

Our Christmas Card

These are in the mail as we speak, but if you don't get one, here it is! (Please excuse the fuzziness)

Hope you all have a blessed Christmas!!

Carluccio's

Joe and I found an excellent restaurant - Carluccio's in Dubai Marina Mall. It's an Italian cafe, restaurant, and store (as you can see on the sign below...) The store has lots of high quality oils, vinegars, and other cooking yummies.

Sitting indoors, you will have a view somewhat like this:

Or, if you turn your head, a view like this:

Isn't it beautiful? It opens right onto the Marina Promenade overlooking the water.

Joe & Colin had chicken, and I had prawns (= shrimp). Very fresh and tasty. Joe had an after dinner coffee (+ chocolate & cream) and I just had chocolate!

We'll definitely return to Carluccio's in the near future. Colin even liked it! Score one for us!

Friday Brunch - Villa Style

My friend Yasmijn invited us to a Christmas brunch at her house on Friday. She lives in a villa...so she has a yard....with grass....and flowers! Colin acted like he'd never seen a flower before. Then his little friend Nicholas came over to see. I know Yasmijn, her son Devin, Nicholas, and his mommy Jessica through the Baby Angels Class we attended on Tuesdays at Dubai Marina Mall. Sadly, the class is over until further notice while the owner heads to South Africa to have her baby boy. (That reminds me, I need to post some pics from Baby Angels Class!)

The Colin took a liking to climbing up and down the steps. Over and over. And over.

He got so sweaty from all that climbing!

The food was absolutely delicious, but I forgot to take a picture, of course.

Colin and the kiddos (Devin's wearing the white top) painted Christmas ornaments after the meal, although Colin swiped it with the paint brush about 2 times and then ran back to the stairs.

Here's what was left of my fruit trays with maple whipped cream. Yummy.

See that? Right there in the middle of the bar? That's eggnog. And I had some, and really liked it! I get it now :)

We're so appreciative to Yasmijn and her husband Pawan for having us over. It was a nice way to start Christmas.

Welcome to the Jungle

The Guns N Roses jungle, that is. I (sorta) surprised Joe with tickets to the GNR show last weekend. He'd been hinting for months, so I was going to just let him show up from work and turn him back around to go to the concert. However, I had technical difficulties so he ended up buying the tickets. Go figure. The show was at Yas Arena on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. It's a pretty popular venue, hosting the likes of Norah Jones, The Jonas Brothers, Bryan Adams just in the last month, and I think Kanye West will be here soon if he isn't already.

Guess what...the picture below is the fastest roller coaster in the world. (They aren't impressing me anymore). It's called Formula Rossa, is part of Ferrari World, and goes 240km/hr, or 149 miles per hour. You have to wear goggles.

Back to the show.... this is a picture of the outside of the Yas Arena.

And here is Joe with Pete's friend Ryan and his buddies Wesley and Chris. Each with two beers...hmmmmm...

Chris wanted to be in a picture with us.

The inside of the venue is sort of like Lakewood (HiFi Buys...whatever it's called now) Ampitheater but without the seats in the front. They have a VIP section, a Golden Circle, and then General Admission for us lowly expats.

There were a LOT of people at this show! Joe took this of crowd behind us once we got settled in.

While we were waiting for GNR to take the stage, they played "...standin' in line to see the show tonight and there's a light on...heavy glow..." by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And I had just taken this picture. Thought it was kinda neat :)

Here's Axl on the big screen:

True to tradition, their last song was "Paradise City." During the song they blew out TONS of red confetti which was awesome.

I think Joe liked his early Christmas gift :)