Monday started in the bus. I was lucky enough to go on as third person, so after my turn (I got the Corniche and the Landmark) I could just sit back and relax for the rest of the tour. I actually got to listen to the others rather than sit and frantically try to prepare for my turn.
After lunch we did the oral presentations. We had been given a list of 40 Abu Dhabi subjects we were to be able to present. One tourism information item, and one culture and heritage subject. They got given out at random, and we had three minutes to present each subject in front of the group. Here's my Turkish friend Ayçe, talking about the history of the oil industry in Abu Dhabi:
I was so lucky to manage to avoid the few subjects I was unsure of and instead I got to talk about Arabian Coffee, the Date Palm, Yas Waterworld and Zayed Sports City. Easy peasy!
We didn't get any results after the first day.
Tuesday morning we were back to sit the written exam of 100 questions, and after that we got to anxiously wait the results. We all got called back in one by one, and found out our fate.
Quite a few got "Fail" actually. All of them for messing up their bus exam, which seemed to be the bit the examiners really focused on the most. A few of the "fails" were rather surprising, so all of us ended up getting really nervous while waiting our turn. The atmosphere in the waiting area was tense!
But - I passed!
I am now an officially licensed Tourist Guide in Abu Dhabi! Yay me!
It's been over 20 years since I last worked as a tour guide (by the way --- OMG how time flies!!), but I guess some of it was still there. It certainly feels like I've come full circle, and gone back to my roots! It's been a long, tough training to get through; especially since it had been a while I had been focusing, concentrating and learning at that pace... - but now I just can't wait to get started! Wii-hoo!
Way to go! Verkligen bra jobbat.
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