Together Again

Photo 1: 4 buildings on Saadiyat Island

Photo 2: The GIANT mosque

Photo 3: Aerial view of Emirates Palace

For the past month I tried to get Pete to add something to this silly blog...but I guess he has been too busy for that! So now that I am out here in Abu Dhabi, I thought I should get on here and write something.

My trip out here was long! My flight out of DIA was delayed almost FIVE hours... which caused me to barely catch my flight in London. Naturally, since I barely made the flight, I couldn't exactly expect my bags to make it to the plane. So when I got into Abu Dhabi at 2 am, I had nothing to bring back to the hotel with me. I didn't really mind though because it was nice to FINALLY see my husband again! ("Nice" is an understatement, haha) Anyway, they brought my bags the next morning, so it wasn't a big deal.

The first day I was here went by FAST because I slept for the entire time. When Pete got back from work that afternoon we headed to the GIANT mall down the road to go to IKEA for some hangers. Fun stuff really... 

--Side note here: You would NOT believe the malls here. I know I've said this before, but they are absolutely INSANE. Pete and I were at the mall at 11 pm and it was packed. There are kids everywhere, people with carts and numerous bags, teenagers out with their friends, men kissing and holding hands...the noise is pretty unreal. There are also grocery stores inside the mall. These are even crazier than the rest of the mall. It seems like everyone is out trying to find a deal. People are pushing carts around that are filled up with stuff up to eye level, and the carts have 4 pivoting wheels (unlike those at home that just have 2) so the carts are moving in all directions. On top of that, the grocery stores sell TV's and computers and radios and hairdryers...and all of these things are on and turned to full volume! On top of that, there is aguy driving around in a mini Zamboni looking thing that is cleaning the floors and it is just as loud as everything else! And he is just driving around through all of these people. Completely nuts! Funny thing happened there - we were looking for a blowdryer, and Pete went up to a guy to ask him where we could find one and the guy just busted up laughing and walked away!!! WTH!?!? -- okay, end of side note. 

The weather the past few nights has been brisk! I actually needed a jacket! Totally unexpected!! The wind has been blowing so hard and it's been really hazy outside. Today it cleared up, and I got my first glimpse of the water from our hotel window. We are situated right on the Corniche, which is one of the main drags in Abu Dhabi. There are a lot of stores, restaurants, malls, and mosques (naturally) around. It is a prime location, but we can't really stay in a hotel forever. Which leads me to our adventures of the day.

Fridays in Arab-land are awfully quiet. All the Muslims are in the mosques until 1 pm, so it's a good time to drive around without all the crazy traffic. We headed over to Emirates Palace (Wooooo, GIANT hotel!!) to look at 2 exhibits that they have there (giant hotel + museum!). One exhibit is of this island that they are about to start developing called Saadiyat and the Abu Dhabi people are really going all out with this one. They have commissioned all kinds of world-renowned architects to build these insane buildings and the exhibit had models of each of them. I can't even describe how crazy they were! Really, there are just no limits on anything here it seems. The other exhibit is from local artists. There were some really interesting pieces, especially a couple of collages that I thought were really cool. One was made completely out of rolled up pieces of newspaper that were put into a pattern and in the middle was a sheet hahaha! (a.k.a. one of those red/white towel things they wear on their heads here)...kinda cool. :-)

After that, we cruised down to Airport Road and Carrefour (That's the name of the area...no addresses in this town, and Carrefour is a grocery store - it would be like saying our house in Littleton was at Broadway and King Soopers). We were down there to look at an apartment. It was a nice 2 bedroom pad with a kitchen and 2 bathrooms, but it is about 10 paces away from one of the biggest mosques in the world! We told the real estate lady (who speaks some pretty funny English) that we might want to have a little distance from a mosque, but then she reminded us that there is a mosque every 500 meters in Abu Dhabi - no exaggeration, it's a government law. So it looks like we won't get that wish. But we are hoping to find a place that is somewhat reasonable to RENT - this place was ~$5,000/month, and you have to pay the whole YEAR in advance. I guess we'll have to keep looking.

I'll try to get on here a little more regularly, but forgive me if the stories are somewhat lame. Just trying to give everyone a little idea of our new expat lifestyle.