Traveling Around: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (The life of an international school teacher is good!)

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Traveling Around: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Can you relate?

• Realizing that the expat life there can be very, very nice!
• Enjoying the Middle Eastern cuisine and wishing it was the cuisine where I live.
• Going to mall after mall after mall after mall.
• Feeling jealous about how big the grocery stores were there compared to my host country, so many products that I would buy if I lived there.
• Walking along the corniche.  Corniches in the Middle East are just cool places to walk around, especially during sunset.
• Stopping many times in a taxi as my taxi driver asks stranger after kind stranger if they know where to go to find my friend’s house.
• Checking out the new, modernized souk and conversing with a souvenir store manager about where I could find original artwork. (Fail)
• Pulling up to hotels and restaurants and there always being a valet person to park our car for us.
• Meeting expat after expat and asking them many questions about their lives living in Abu Dhabi.
• Thinking how interesting that all the restaurants have a mock-tail menu rather than a regular cocktail menu (alcohol is prohibited in this country).
• Getting accustomed to taking taxis around town or driving in my friend’s car around town.  Still a bit strange sometimes when many international school teachers live their lives abroad car-less.
• Hearing all about the different customs related to the clothing of the UAE man and woman.
• Being amazed at how diverse the city is. The majority of people here appear to be from India.
• Choosing almost not to go into the grand mosque because I wasn’t dressed appropriately. (I did end up going in and wearing the free robe on offer at the mosque entrance)
• Having a moment of surprise when finding out that the weekend here includes Friday and Saturday, not Saturday and Sunday.
• Taking a trip out to the desert and doing a dune bashing ride as our driver drove crazily around and on top of really high dune hills.
• Buying some excellent dates at the date market.  Felt happy about my purchase until somebody reminded me that I should have bargained down the price!

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Currently we have 14 international schools listed in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on International School Community. Here are a few that have had comments and information submitted on their profile pages:

• Al Raha International School Abu Dhabi (5 Comments)
• American Community School Abu Dhabi (12 Comments)
• American International School (Abu Dhabi) (11 Comments)
• Sheikh Zayed Private Academy (7 Comments)
• Glenelg School of Abu Dhabi (10 Comments)
• Institute of Applied Technology (Abu Dhabi) (12 Comments)
• GEMS American Academy (Abu Dhabi) (37 Comments)
• Horizon Private School (10 Comments)

If you are on a trip right now, away from your host country, write to us at admin@internationalschoolcommunity.com with your “Can you relate?” traveling experiences.  Tell us where you are traveling in the world, what you are seeing and how you are coping with any culture shock.  Once your Traveling Around experience is posted on our blog, International School Community will give 6 free months of premium membership!

Video Highlight: British International School Phuket

There are so many international schools to work at in Thailand!  How do these schools stand out from each other?

British International School Phuket

It is not so surprising that an international school celebrates “International Day”, but how great that they have such a grand entrance to their school to display all those national flags.

They even set out a red carpet for the event!

What a great idea to have all visitors, important people, etc. sign their name on a huge map stating where they come from. That map could be a great addition to a front hallway display at an international school.

The school population does look rather diverse, even though around half of them are Thai.

Did you hear when the host mentioned about the Prefects at this school?  That seems to be a Harry Potter reference.  Do all British international schools have prefects?

Cool and colourful presentations!  Those costumes looked great, and so did the Michael Jackson impersonator!

How interesting that the more “important” people at the celebration get to sit in comfortable lounge-like chair in the front of the auditorium?

The student band looked and sounded great too!

It is great when a school has a history that started with a “dream”.  And it appears as if this dream really did come true because when you look at this campus in the video, it basically looks like some amazing castle.  Who wouldn’t want to work at British International School Phuket or attend here as a student??!

Currently on www.internationalschoolcommunity.com we have 46 international schools listed in Thailand with 4 of them being in the city of Phuket.  The number of comments and information that have been submitted for each school is listed to the right the link to each school.  Here are a just a few of them:

• British International School (BIS) Phuket (8 Comments)
• Phuket International Academy (11 Comments)
• Concordian International School (15 Comments)
• St. Andrews I.S Green Valley (10 Comments)
• St. Stephen’s International School (Khao Yai) (12 Comments)
• Prem Tinsulanonda International School (18 Comments)
• KIS International School (Bangkok) (39 Comments)
• Harrow International School (Bangkok) (16 Comments)
• International School Bangkok (16 Comments)

If you know about what it is like working at one of these international schools in Thailand, log-on today and submit your own comments and information.  For every 10 comments you submit, you will receive 1 month of premium access to International School Community for free!

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