Big news - new digs!

We have BIG news!
We are moving house!

Yes, can you believe it, after almost 9 years now in the same house (which we love... by the way...) we are getting new digs. We are moving to an apartment, in the Al Zeina community.

Even though we have discussed moving at almost every contract renewal, it actually wasn't really our decision this time. Something is going on in our compound and everybody is getting evicted. At first when they told us (they gave us just short of two months notice), we thought the owners were just changing management company, and probably were going to come back to us with another contract, on a higher rent. But as time went by, nothing happened, and in the end we couldn't wait anymore, so had to start to look for a new place, with only two and a bit weeks to go until end-of-contract date...

The past few weeks have been such a roller coaster ride, visiting endless apartments and houses - none that were right for us, at all. We found one apartment that we liked, but as we spent too many days thinking about it, it was already rented when we wanted to take it.
The panic started to set in, and we almost resigned to just taking any place - and then, we found it!

We are moving into a 4-bedroom duplex apartment in the large community compound that is Al Zeina, by the beach on the other side of the highway, opposite Yas Island. Our new place is located on the first and second floor, but it is actually rather light and bright thanks to the partial sea-view (!) through the buildings in between ours and the sea. AND, it has a layout that I really like (there are so many different layouts of the apartments in this compound), with lots of storage space and one bedroom downstairs, and three bedrooms AND a big landing upstairs.

The only drawback is that the kitchen is really small, and has no space for sitting. We are going to miss our big kitchen here in the villa, we have spent a lot of time out there. But hey, you can't get everything.

Linnea is very very happy as she has several friends who live here; and she is looking forward to being able to pick up some babysitting and maybe dogwalking gigs. There is a gym in each building, and each block also has a private pool. Plus of course, there is beach access, and shops and restaurants in the area, all on walking distance.

I'm sure we will be just fine in our new home, even though it might take some getting used to apartment life, and neighbours... Now we just need to survive the move itself, next week. Wish us luck!