Still waiting!

Following an exciting three days I'm back in the apartment waiting for things to arrive! We finally got bank cards on Thursday (in fact John got two for some reason!) However, the PIN numbers are proving a little more of a challenge since a different courier company has promised to deliver them on three occasions and so far failed to turn up. Without a PIN mumber the cards are not much use and there's no sign of any credit cards though I don't think I can face waiting around for another week for those to show up!
I've pretty much given up on getting the broadband installed before the end of Ramadan but I did go and buy a handset so we could use the land line. However, the all important cable which connects the handset to the box on the wall was missing when I went to set it up so it's back to the shop with that one as well. SUCCESS AT LAST! I went back to the shop and got a handset with a cable and the landline actually works - it's a small victory but a step forward none the less.
I'm sure you'll be delighted to know that the courier finally turned up with 3 PIN numbers. However, after all this waiting, I discover that all we have are ATM cards as HSBC don't do debit cards here (the world's local bank indeed!) and they haven't ordered us any credit cards despite that being one of the main reasons for opening the account. So in banking terms I'm back to square one, without any way of paying for things out here with a Dirham account, so I'm still using my HSBC UK account which is a daft way to pay for things. However, at least I have that to be going on with.
I've discovered a bus service which goes directly from outside the apartment to the Marina Mall via various other shopping destinations. It costs 1 Dirham (there are 6 to the £) and goes every 10 minutes so I no longer have to panic too much about getting a taxi. Today I even managed to come back on the bus with 2 huge, wicker laundry baskets and no-one thought I was odd! Long live public transport. We admired the new Metro when we were in Dubai at the weekend though we didn't go on it. It would be great to have one of those in Abu Dhabi but even if they start on it now (they're waiting to see how well the one in Dubai works first) it won't be finished during our time here.