So after all the planning, we're here and the first week has passed! It already feels like we've been here longer, I would guess a month, but that's mainly due to the amount of things we've done and experienced. Before we came out, we and our friends/family speculated about how we'd feel and what it would be like. Naturally some of these things have accurate and others not, which is what you'd expect I guess. We need to bearin mind what our motivation was to do this in the first place. We weren't running away from anything in England, we were happy with everything we had there, however we were aware that we needed to work for another fifteen years at least and did we want to carry on doing the same thing for that period of time? I guess not! So that started our thought process on what else there was to offer and voilà, this is the end result. What have we been up to in our first week? Dubai twice, to visit three malls including Ikea and the aquarium. Taster session at the Hilton resort and spa, which we plan to join. A visit to the local dingy sailing club, which is a friendly and volunteer run organisation, very tempting too. We're visited our two local malls and been food shopping at Lulu's, Carrefour and Spinneys! Found the off licence, or 'powerhouse' as the local taxi drivers know it. Played golf at night, had one job interview Domi has completed her induction and started teaching. W've had the obligatory visit to the hospital with Amélie, who has now recovered but is still not happy in the heat :-( ! No wonder the week has flown by! One of our friends asked us on Skype (which works to a fashion most of the time unlike FaceTime which doesn't work at all!) what the best and worst things are about our experience to date. I think the best is the people that we have met, both existing staff and new arrivals. The existing staff are very understanding of how we feel and went out of their way to make us feel at home. Sharing how you feel with other new arrivals and finding out that they have the same hopes, fears, worries, excitement, expectations and optimism makeshift, you feel that you are not unusual in feeling how you do. The worst thing is the not knowing, and I guess you don't know what you don't know until you don't know it! Getting accurate information can be hard and even after just one week we would have changed what we've shipped and been better prepared for the admin when we got here if we had been pre-warned about some things! The big factor as to whether this works out or not is likely to be Amélie. If she settles in to school and a routine then we have a chance, if she doesn't it's going to be difficult. Domi and I can rationalise what we're all going through and clearly Amélie can't, everything is a reaction at her age so that has a big effect on our well-being. Ultimately we wanted an adventure and we're getting that! I have another job interview this week and for me that is the next key thing, finding work and getting an income. My 'to do' list this week includes sorting out a car, joining the health club, getting more passport photos done (we should have bought about 25 each!), starting Amélie off at schools, oh and maybe sorting out some tennis!