Giving Thanks

We celebrated an All-American holiday in Abu Dhabi last week - Thanksgiving!!! Many of our friends here had never attended a Thanksgiving feast, so we thought we'd put on a good spread and bring some of our new "family" over for dinner. (Two things I'm thankful for: Pete's mom was in town to help with do most of the cooking. Thanksgiving fell on the first day of Eid, so it was a holiday for everyone else here too!)

The table is set...

One too many cooks in the kitchen?

The gentlemen say they are thankful they don't have to cook!

Getting ready to sit down: Pam, Mandy, Aitch, Jayne, Sinead, Dave, Katia, Jane, Walid, Maria, Pete, Me, Mark (and Erik, behind the camera)

Pre-carving - 19 lb turkey

I could be wrong, but I think Thanksgiving might be Dave's new favorite holiday - I swear the man has a hollow leg!

The aftermath

Privilege Parking

If I had one of these cars, I could park right up front at hotels in Dubai too!  

Crash

Poor abandoned car left on the side of the road near our house...

Pete's Mom at Emirates Palace

Pete's mom is in town visiting for the next few days.  One of the first places we went to see in Abu Dhabi was Emirates Palace. There's an exhibit there at the moment with models of the upcoming developments on Saadiyat Island (the Island of Happiness). But, there was also a short-term exhibit of art from India. Definitely glad I got to see it while it's here.

Maria - in front of the entrance

The main part of the lobby - looking up!

- - - - - Saadiyat Island - - - - -

Saadiyat Island Guggenheim

The Louvre - of course

The Marine Museum

- - - - - The Indian Exhibit - - - - -

I love this guy and his bike...

...all made out of watches

Traffic

Sometimes I like to take pictures when I'm sitting at stop lights:

Ferrari

Mercedes

Bentley

I like the license plate.

I was surprised to see this bumper sticker.

Surprise Visitor

This lizard somehow found his way into our villa this week. For being so small, he certainly had the ability to SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF ME! Luckily, Pete got home shortly after this pic was taken and carefully took the little guy outside.

Abu Dhabi Saturday Night

I snapped this (crappy) photo of 9 young men enjoying some tasty shawarmas outside our favorite Lebanese place in Abu Dhabi, Al Rousha. Looked like they were having a great time and enjoying the nice change of weather.

Muscat, Oman

The last weekend of October was dubbed Formula One Weekend by just about everybody in Abu Dhabi. I like to think of it as Halloween weekend. Or even, the weekend I can start the one-month-til-I-go-home-for-Christmas countdown. People from all over the world came to our little town to see the grand opening of Yas Island and all it had to offer - including a new Formula One race track and the Grand Prix on November 1. Pete and I had little to no interest in going to see the race, so we decided to head out of town for the weekend to Muscat, Oman. Including the time spent getting the proper slips of paper at the border, it's about a 6 hour trek from Abu Dhabs. It was absolutely wonderful to get out of town for a couple of days and just chill.

Mountains! As soon as you cross the border

The hotel we stayed at has its own little private cove on the beach. I was in heaven!

The view from my lounge chair :-)

The view of the cove from our balcony

Pete checking out one of the 2 brand new Ferraris parked in front of the hotel

The second night there we headed into the town of Muscat to go to the Mutrah Souk. There were loads of these little stalls selling frankincense. The smell was SO strong!

This guy was selling a variety of lentils, beans and kernel-y kinds of things.

The lights of a mosque we stumbled upon when we wandered out of the souk