Out of the Hotel and Into Our Villa!

Finally! In the end of March we were able to get out of our hotel! Now, don't get me wrong, the dragon was amazing, especially the part where I got to eat a breakfast every morning of fresh fruit and I did not have to do a damn thing to make it! Ha! It was great but it was also nice to move into our new villa and start making it our own.

To move out of the hotel and into our villa we had to pack up all our stuff from the hotel, both what we had brought with us and what we had acquired since getting to Bahrain. We had to load it all up into the car and the van hubby brought from work. Then Bill follows me to the villa because he has never seen it! He trusted me to find something we would love. We get there and pull up to the villa and before we start unloading, of course, he wants to see the inside. I show him around and he loves it! I'm so happy that he likes it!! 

After Bill's little tour of the place we have to bring in all our stuff. It is a crazy amount of stuff that we have amassed since we got to the hotel. SO much stuff! Seriously, because even our express shipment had already arrived while at the hotel. We carried it all in and then collapsed onto the couch. 

The day before, I had gone to the Al Jazira complex to get internet. I ended up going with Viva because it seemed like the best deal at the time. However, I had managed to somehow forget about the Zain tower RIGHT NEXT to our darn villa. Dang. Anyway, we had internet so we could at least use the computers and not be completely bored out of our minds.

I also had to schedule our HHG delivery once it finally arrived. Fortunately, it was not too long after moving in.  Our stuff actually arrived before a friend's stuff that had even been packed BEFORE ours! Certainly do not know how it worked out that way but, hey, I'm not complaining.

From there, the movers unpacked and re-assembled EVERYTHING and even got it to the correct room (for the most part.) Wow. We always knew they could do this but had never taken advantage of it with stateside moves. Now, our movers will never be getting off easy again! I don't have to un-pack anything and it will be even more glorious than not having to move ourselves! They took the boxes and packing material when they left and while our house was definitely dirty and needing cleaned again, our stuff was there and I could begin to make it feel like home.

Planning Our First Dinner Party!

For Navy Officers there is this thing called the ward room. It is to keep morale up and get these crazy people to socialize in something other than a work setting! (There is SOOOO much more to it as well but, eh, we will go with basics (off ship) here.) It allows them to relax and have a good time and hopefully not have to talk or think about work! This, of course, doesn't always happen but they can still have a good time.

Getting a Place to Live......It Doesn't Always Work Out as Planned!

So, as it sometimes goes, the first place we had chosen to live fell through. This happened for multiple reasons:

1. I was never truly in love with the whole place, just really the master bedroom closet =)
2. The landlord was not only not willing to negotiate almost anything on our list (which we were fine
     fine with), but he also did not want us moving the furniture around. Um, hello? Who does that?!
3. Our realtor showed us two perfect places after we found out about the "no moving furniture" thing!

So You're Going to Live in Bahrain....? You Can Negotiate Your Lease!

So before we ever got to Bahrain, I had been told how renting here was different than in the states. You can negotiate what a landlord provides for you! Now I’m not talking, ‘Hey, we lived here for a year already and if you make our rent go up $100 then we are leaving,’ type of negotiating. No. I am talking, ‘Hey, a 55-70” LED HD SMART TV would sweeten the pot,’ kind of negotiating. Crazy, right? I think it might be because so many people decide not to bring their entire household with them an just put a good amount into storage. Unfortunately, for us, we did bring almost our entire household and only put a few things into storage. So we will have lots of extras that we either can't use because they are not dual voltage or just won't have room (unlikely though). We mostly asked for stuff we don't really have anyway.

Moving to the Middle East: Manama, Bahrain!

So we knew when we got to San Diego that we would both eventually be PCSing to Manama, Bahrain. Both my husband and I were very excited for this because this now meant we wouldn’t have to spend 6 months together and 6 months apart. Much better that I get to stay with my husband and only miss him a few weeks at a time rather than several months.