Since I’ve been settling in, I am trying to get out when I can. I’ve had a chance to visit some friends in Ruwais and Al Ain, see the Camel Track out in the desert and even just drive around Madinat Zayed to see what is on the outskirts. Recently, I booked a trip for India, with a stopover in Nepal. It is nice to get back into travelling and I am looking forward to seeing some sites.
My first excursion out, after moving in, was an impromptu trip to Ruawis to visit friends who were staying/living (whatever you want to call the bizarreness of the whole situation) at the Danat Hotel. The hotel is absolutely beautiful and makes up for the 1 ½ hour trek to school everyday, again--just bizarre the way things run. Heidi and Carrie are living out there and are some girls I met up with at The Yas (as it is referred to at this point) and have stayed in touch with. Carried teaches KG2 (5 year olds) and Heidi teaches 2nd grade boys. The Danat Hotel in Ruwais is situated on the beach, with agorgeous swimming pool out back. They have little palm umbrellas to sit under, on the beach, and the water was very nice. Super salty, but very nice. Ruwais is an oil-drilling twon, so there are a good amount of expats there, but that seems to be it. Their hotel has a bar, which is convenient as well.
After the two hour drive out there, we arrived and decided to grab a bite to eat. There was some live acoustic music, which was nice. We snuck into the bar/club for a few minutes to watch the belly dancer and the always fun-to-watch bar patrons and headed off to bed. The next day we hung out at the beach all day and ended the morning with a dip in the pool before heading home.
My next out-of-town excursion was a trip to Al Ain. Now, here is where it becomes difficult. For so many reasons, I cannot REAALY and FULLY tell you what happened in Al Ain. Now, don’t get all excited. Most of those reasons do not include me, but other people, who I swore an ancient Arabian oath to. I mean, it was fun on so many levels. I am laughing just writing this, but since you can’t partake in the ‘inside joke’ of it all, I will contain myself.
I headed into Al Ain (to visit Katrina and Kamaya) with my faithful friend Sue, who was going in to visit some friends of hers. It was a long drive at about 2 and a half to 3 hours. We arrived and after hailing a cab and having Katrina explain how to get to her apartment to the cab driver (that is ALWAYS fun in this country), I made it safe and sound. We swiftly sat down with some beverages, on her balcony, and enjoyed the cooler (notice how I did not say ‘cool’ as it is technically not cool here) weather. We had every intention of hitting a nice Indian restaurant for dinner, Coriander. However, her friend and building manager, Mohammed, talked us into having him drive us to the restaurant instead. Well, I was educated that evening in the different unknown time zones in the UAE that evening. There is Western time (on time), Arabian time (whenever we get to it-inshallah) and Egyptian time (I’ll say “15 minutes”, but really mean an hour or two, or maybe not at all). This evening’s time zone was Egyptian time. What, with Mohammed being Egyptian and all, we ended up staying at the apartment building all night, sitting and talking to friends, and not getting home until late in the evening (PG version, sorry!). The next day, we headed into Al Ain to visit one of the Malls. Man, do they love their malls! It is simply incredible. Imagine King of Prussia malls everywhere. Now, Al Ain is an owasis city in the desert, about an hour and a half outside of Abu Dhabi, but they still have three malls. Sorry, I digress . . . we went to the mall and hit the Ace Hardware. How sad is it that I was excited to go into an Ace Hardware?? Oh well, I admit it. I was. After purchasing a few things from Ace (it’s the place – haha), we headed over to Coriander restaurant for a nice Indian lunch. The food was great, the scenery even better (I swear, it is a requirement to be a hot Emirati man in order to live in Al Ain) and the conversation was refreshing. Kamaya met up with us after some shopping and we sat and visited. Well, I guess it would be considered visiting. I mean, we were at the same table, commenting on everyone else around us. So, that counts, right? Anyway, we sat at the Papa John’s like a couple of teenagers on a Friday night at the mall, looking at the boys. Luckily, we had a perfect view of the movie theater, so it was prime real estate (side note: Yes, there are movie theaters, but the movies are censored and they come out a few months after the U.S.). I mean, we could have charged admission for this experience. Seeing the local Emirati men in groups, the occasional Emirati woman covered in black or some with their hair showing (va, va, voom – only the single girls do that), expats sticking out like a sore thumb, Indian men staring back at us (I will never get used to that) and Phillipino girls with no concept or no interest in covering themselves up. We would see the same people walk by a few times, when they did catch a glimpse of us; they would do a double-take. Katrina even managed to get some video of the whole situation. Unfortunately, I can’t show it, but it is pretty funny. After the mall, we went back to the apartments, picked up one or two more people, waited for Mohammed (Egyptian time – one hour this time) and drove out to Jebel Hafeet.
Jebel Hafeet is a beautiful mountain that sprouts out of the desert floor right outside of Al Ain. You can hang out in the park at the bottom of the mountain, or drive up the winding pass to the top. I found this interesting tidbit about the mountain: ‘The Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road extends for 7.3 mi (11.7 km) up the mountain, rising 4,000 ft (1,219 m). With 21 corners and three lanes (two climbing and one descending), the immaculate road was called the greatest driving road in the world by Edmunds.com. The road scales the mountain and ends at a parking lot with only a hotel and a palace belonging to the country's rulers.’ After arriving at the jam packed parking lot, we snaked our way through the cruising strip. That is where the fun began. Me, Katrina and Mohammed were in the first car and Kamay, BJ and her son were behind us. Katrina, in all her excitable glory, started snapping pictures like crazy. Hollering at guys (yes, it was 99% men—shock and surprise) so they would look and get a picture. It was Crenshaw, High Street, and any other strip imaginable, wrapped up into one cute Arabian package. Guys driving by with their tinted windows (locals love tinted windows), super tricked out vehicles (some of which aren’t even available in the states) smiling at Katrina while she snaps their photo. I’m sitting in the front taking it all in, getting the occasional phone call from Kamaya behind us, laughing at Katrina. It was a sight. On the grass, groups of men are sitting having picnic dinners, at 10pm at night. I see a random pony tied to a concrete block for the children’s riding pleasure (there was an occasional family here and there) and after an hour or two or driving around in disbelief, we head up the mountain. The drive is beautiful and the scenery is spectacular. From a distance, the mountain looks like a ski slope with the lights creeping up the middle of it. When we get to the top, we park and sit by the edge to admire the beauty of Al Ain and the desert at night. After an hour or two of breezy summer winds and chatting, we head down to the base where we continue to check out the sites at the springs. We watch the Herons picking off fish and Katrina and I even managed to find the world’s most disgusting bathroom (I am not EVEN exaggerating). By 3am (again) we decided to head back and sleep, even though there were still cars of teenagers driving around like knuckleheads (no wonder they don’t want to do anything in school). The next morning, Sue was kind enough to pick up me up, and headed straight for Lulu’s before going back to Madinat Zayed. Lulu’s is a super-supermarket with everything and anything an expat could desire, so it was nice finding all of the ingredients I’ve been wanting over the past few months. We got home around 5:30pm and called it a weekend!
Another weekend, I decided to be lazy and just hang around the area. Some girls I've become friendly with, asked me to drive around with them to check out the area. We saw a lot of camels and well, that's pretty much it. I didn't include all of the pictures I took, because a bunch of them are in my blog about my town, Madinat Zayed. Here are some I found as well.
My first excursion out, after moving in, was an impromptu trip to Ruawis to visit friends who were staying/living (whatever you want to call the bizarreness of the whole situation) at the Danat Hotel. The hotel is absolutely beautiful and makes up for the 1 ½ hour trek to school everyday, again--just bizarre the way things run. Heidi and Carrie are living out there and are some girls I met up with at The Yas (as it is referred to at this point) and have stayed in touch with. Carried teaches KG2 (5 year olds) and Heidi teaches 2nd grade boys. The Danat Hotel in Ruwais is situated on the beach, with agorgeous swimming pool out back. They have little palm umbrellas to sit under, on the beach, and the water was very nice. Super salty, but very nice. Ruwais is an oil-drilling twon, so there are a good amount of expats there, but that seems to be it. Their hotel has a bar, which is convenient as well.
After the two hour drive out there, we arrived and decided to grab a bite to eat. There was some live acoustic music, which was nice. We snuck into the bar/club for a few minutes to watch the belly dancer and the always fun-to-watch bar patrons and headed off to bed. The next day we hung out at the beach all day and ended the morning with a dip in the pool before heading home.
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| Carrie and I |
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| Heidi and I |
I headed into Al Ain (to visit Katrina and Kamaya) with my faithful friend Sue, who was going in to visit some friends of hers. It was a long drive at about 2 and a half to 3 hours. We arrived and after hailing a cab and having Katrina explain how to get to her apartment to the cab driver (that is ALWAYS fun in this country), I made it safe and sound. We swiftly sat down with some beverages, on her balcony, and enjoyed the cooler (notice how I did not say ‘cool’ as it is technically not cool here) weather. We had every intention of hitting a nice Indian restaurant for dinner, Coriander. However, her friend and building manager, Mohammed, talked us into having him drive us to the restaurant instead. Well, I was educated that evening in the different unknown time zones in the UAE that evening. There is Western time (on time), Arabian time (whenever we get to it-inshallah) and Egyptian time (I’ll say “15 minutes”, but really mean an hour or two, or maybe not at all). This evening’s time zone was Egyptian time. What, with Mohammed being Egyptian and all, we ended up staying at the apartment building all night, sitting and talking to friends, and not getting home until late in the evening (PG version, sorry!). The next day, we headed into Al Ain to visit one of the Malls. Man, do they love their malls! It is simply incredible. Imagine King of Prussia malls everywhere. Now, Al Ain is an owasis city in the desert, about an hour and a half outside of Abu Dhabi, but they still have three malls. Sorry, I digress . . . we went to the mall and hit the Ace Hardware. How sad is it that I was excited to go into an Ace Hardware?? Oh well, I admit it. I was. After purchasing a few things from Ace (it’s the place – haha), we headed over to Coriander restaurant for a nice Indian lunch. The food was great, the scenery even better (I swear, it is a requirement to be a hot Emirati man in order to live in Al Ain) and the conversation was refreshing. Kamaya met up with us after some shopping and we sat and visited. Well, I guess it would be considered visiting. I mean, we were at the same table, commenting on everyone else around us. So, that counts, right? Anyway, we sat at the Papa John’s like a couple of teenagers on a Friday night at the mall, looking at the boys. Luckily, we had a perfect view of the movie theater, so it was prime real estate (side note: Yes, there are movie theaters, but the movies are censored and they come out a few months after the U.S.). I mean, we could have charged admission for this experience. Seeing the local Emirati men in groups, the occasional Emirati woman covered in black or some with their hair showing (va, va, voom – only the single girls do that), expats sticking out like a sore thumb, Indian men staring back at us (I will never get used to that) and Phillipino girls with no concept or no interest in covering themselves up. We would see the same people walk by a few times, when they did catch a glimpse of us; they would do a double-take. Katrina even managed to get some video of the whole situation. Unfortunately, I can’t show it, but it is pretty funny. After the mall, we went back to the apartments, picked up one or two more people, waited for Mohammed (Egyptian time – one hour this time) and drove out to Jebel Hafeet.
Jebel Hafeet is a beautiful mountain that sprouts out of the desert floor right outside of Al Ain. You can hang out in the park at the bottom of the mountain, or drive up the winding pass to the top. I found this interesting tidbit about the mountain: ‘The Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road extends for 7.3 mi (11.7 km) up the mountain, rising 4,000 ft (1,219 m). With 21 corners and three lanes (two climbing and one descending), the immaculate road was called the greatest driving road in the world by Edmunds.com. The road scales the mountain and ends at a parking lot with only a hotel and a palace belonging to the country's rulers.’ After arriving at the jam packed parking lot, we snaked our way through the cruising strip. That is where the fun began. Me, Katrina and Mohammed were in the first car and Kamay, BJ and her son were behind us. Katrina, in all her excitable glory, started snapping pictures like crazy. Hollering at guys (yes, it was 99% men—shock and surprise) so they would look and get a picture. It was Crenshaw, High Street, and any other strip imaginable, wrapped up into one cute Arabian package. Guys driving by with their tinted windows (locals love tinted windows), super tricked out vehicles (some of which aren’t even available in the states) smiling at Katrina while she snaps their photo. I’m sitting in the front taking it all in, getting the occasional phone call from Kamaya behind us, laughing at Katrina. It was a sight. On the grass, groups of men are sitting having picnic dinners, at 10pm at night. I see a random pony tied to a concrete block for the children’s riding pleasure (there was an occasional family here and there) and after an hour or two or driving around in disbelief, we head up the mountain. The drive is beautiful and the scenery is spectacular. From a distance, the mountain looks like a ski slope with the lights creeping up the middle of it. When we get to the top, we park and sit by the edge to admire the beauty of Al Ain and the desert at night. After an hour or two of breezy summer winds and chatting, we head down to the base where we continue to check out the sites at the springs. We watch the Herons picking off fish and Katrina and I even managed to find the world’s most disgusting bathroom (I am not EVEN exaggerating). By 3am (again) we decided to head back and sleep, even though there were still cars of teenagers driving around like knuckleheads (no wonder they don’t want to do anything in school). The next morning, Sue was kind enough to pick up me up, and headed straight for Lulu’s before going back to Madinat Zayed. Lulu’s is a super-supermarket with everything and anything an expat could desire, so it was nice finding all of the ingredients I’ve been wanting over the past few months. We got home around 5:30pm and called it a weekend!
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| Men dipping their feet in the spring waters |
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| Is that a Sponge Bob shirt? |
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| Did they actually think that pony needed a concrete block? |
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| Jebel Hafeet |
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| The scene at night, half way up |
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| At lunch . . . |
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| The girls |
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| Just wanted to share this, because someone thought this was a good idea. |
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| Camel racetrack |
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| Guess it could be compared to a 'Beware of Deer' sign |
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| I mean, c'mon. Never going to get old. |
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| Local supermarket/target-ish place |
It has been tough not having a car in such a remote place, so when I return from my trip home, that is on the agenda! Anyway, it has been nice feeling normal again and I am looking forward to more normal moments. Enjoy!
