My Ikea furniture turned up in boxes on Saturday afternoon as expected. I had to go and meet the delivery driver at Panda to show him where exactly I lived but no major suprise there. The address system here has all the appearance of a system similar to the UK (apartment number, building numbers, street names and postcodes) but for some reason they aren't used as they should be and anything sent by mail is guarenteed not to make it to a personal address. For this reason I've now obtained the address of the ITC and will use that given that it will be easier to find for basic mail deliveries.
After sorting through and unpacking the boxes I noticed there was no dining table (despite two coffee tables). I'd only paid for one of the coffee tables but on closer inspection noticed the dining table wasn't on the bill in the first place. I mustn't have noticed at the time that the guy transferring my hand written list into electronic form had made such a number of errors - serves me right for not paying more attention. It just means next time I'm down that way I'll have to stop in again.
I made my bed and put together my sofa, all with the aid of a folding screwdriver on my pocket mountain bike tool which was a nightmare! I ended up giving in with the rest of it that evening and decided to buy a small tool kit I'd seen in Panda for £15 the day after to compelte the rest. I perservered enough to build the frames of the kitchen unit and bedside drawes just to get some of the food and other items off the floor, by which time it was fairly late and being up early for work again I went to bed.
The following evening after work (and having a nice new tool kit) I finished off the furniture assembly, most of which was the wardrobe taking about 3 hours on my own. At least now though my clothes aren't lying on the floor getting dusty! Unfortunately on my way home that evening the pedal had given way on my bike (being made of cheap plastic in China) and for some reason the rear brake was sticking making it ten times harder to pedal. As cool and funky as my $370SAR (£55) childs BMX from the kids toy shop is, it really isn't up to the job and I resoved myself to having to buy a new one.
As I said these other new guys turned up along with the guy from last week, who's name it turned out wasn't what I'd been told it was (I think there was confusion on the Senior Trainers part) so my mentor spent the day giving them the beginnings of the orientation I'd had two weeks previously. I wasn't really able to join them because I ended up babysitting a class for one of the Saudi trainers who hadn't turned in (a common event I've noticed) but to be honest I didn't really mind being out the way. Unfortunately my mentor was fininshed that day and with the other two remaining UK guys both teaching full time it's since been left to me to take them through everything and answer the hundreds of questions that I probably asked myself. With there being three of them though it has become somewhat tedious, imparticularly the new Romanian who, like Serban, is very highly strung and will definately need to relax somewhat before he gets into the classroom.
As much as possible I'm still trying to work through some of the refinery stuff but inevitably progress has ground to almost a complete stop with helping the new guys. I did manage to sneak away for an hour to put together a more comprehensive pacing schedule breaking down each module of each unit and allocating how many pages I'd need to cover each period of each day in order to achieve completion of the unit in time for the scheduled test day (which is effectively the deadline and being pre-set before the course starts and involving the coordination of test rooms, test analysts, protctors and several other factors isn't negotiable). It worked out on average about 4 pages for each 40 minute period with a few days reviewing for the tests and a number of other contingencies allowed for.
I went for a coffee and a doughnut with my mentor who ended up having to delay his departure another night due to visa issues which I was hlaf glad about because I'd previously said a brief goodbye outside Panda expecting to see him again over the weekend but hadn't ended up with the chance. At least this gave me the opportunity to tell him how much all his help had been appreciated and to wish him luck in Baku. It also gave me the chance on the way back to stop in one of the local shops and buy a couple of rugs. One was pretty big to go under the area where the sofa is so the guy ended up delievering it which also meant I could get a ride home rather than walk - two birds etc... I have to say that the furniture had been a massive enough transformation from empty rooms to livable area but the rugs add that touch of extra homeliness that was still missing. With the exception of my dining table and two A/C units I am pretty much complete with my furniture/appliance shopping spree. The only other thing I want really is an acoustic guitar which I'll have to go back to the Rashid mall in Khobar for.
As it happens, I got an e-mail this morning from Al Hoty requesting me to go back down there to sign my employment agreement so if I can also sort my sight test for my driving license at the same time I might be able to stop in at the Rashid mall and Ikea all in the same journey. Best laid plans of mice and men however... Around here there's no way that everything will go so swimmingly.
I bought my bike last night. Slightly kicking myself for not having just got one in the first place and wasting the original £55 yet on the otehr hand not regretting how fun the little thing actually was and the experience gained from making the mistake, I opted for an almost full size (it is an adult bike but feels small) full suspension mountain bike for $460SAR (£75). It's still pretty terrible, the suspension hitting the stops everytime you drop down a kerb (which are over a foot high most of the time here) and the gears not really being properly set up. I asked the guy if he would fix it if anything broke but he was adament there was no guarentee and although they would fix it if something was wrong, I would have to pay - probably a sound business policy with such poor product quality!
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