Ramadan Kareem!

Most restaurants -- but not all -- shut during the day for Ramadan.  The ones that look the least welcoming are actually the most likely to be open!  Here is one example in Masdar City, a futuristic eco-friendly zone near the airport.

Inside, it was bustling....at least by Masdar City standards.

Safa Park

Safa Park is one of the rare green patches that make Dubai a conceivable habitat for outdoor beings. From inside it, the metallic city glows gorgeously....

....until the occasional sand storm envelops all but the nearest towers. You can just barely see the Burj in this picture. 

What you can begin to grasp, though, is how many birds frequent the rare green spaces in Dubai. The park is full of birds (it is renowned for bird watching) in the sky, and soccer players on the ground, with field after field of games going.

As always, signage is ... curious. Someone managed to think up a fantastic term for "Parking." 

Skiing (inside) in the desert

A few months ago, we made a list of things to do in the summer in Abu Dhabi. At the top was "walk around Carrefour and find the weirdest food we can." We still haven't done that, or rather, we still haven't actually bought cassoulet in a jar, or samosa wrappers, or *all the spicy sauces* from around the world. 

But we can now say that we've accomplished the second item on the list, which involves less thought: Ski Dubai. The Mall of the Emirates, home of Ski Dubai, has long been an object of fascination for Margaret, who dreams of their après-ski, their hot chocolate, and their penguins.

But Ski Dubai is an object of much mirth, both in the Emirates, and beyond. Our plans to go ski a few weeks ago inspired jibes not just from friends and family back home, but incredulous stares from most expats, too. They don't understand: it is perhaps the only place on earth where we can consider ourselves competent ski-ers, and as a result, it is a ski Mecca of sorts for us. 

We went on a sleepy Saturday morning, hoping to beat the crowds. We did: at first, there were more slow signs than people.

And the slow signs, they were urgent, occurring once every thirty meters or so. There are lots of reasons to go slowly, apart from our skill level. There are plastic trees to see, interior decorating choices to critique, and there is even a halfway cafe, which we admit we frequented....

...but we have some standards. We didn't induulge in the après-ski fondue and hot chocolate. Their establishment failed to provide a real fire.

We did, however, consider dining at Mall View Palace, whose name caused us much joy. Only in the Emirates could a mall be considered view-worthy. (Its status as a palace is doubtful the world over.)

Tuesday nights at the track

On Tuesday nights, there are no Ferraris to be seen inside Yas Island's track. Instead, the public is invited in to bike and run around the 5.5 kilometer circuit. And the public comes out in full force.

Tents await outside. They (and Nick) are decked out as if for a race.

Here are the most famous members of the Yas Circuit -- infamous for doing up to five laps in punishing heat and humidity. Most slackers only do one or two. 

Afterwards, it is off to IKEA to feast. With signs like these, it is lucky we know how to get there.....

But we make it every time.

The unlimited lattes are calling.

Dubai Museum

Moving from the Bay Area to Abu Dhabi was a shock to the system.  However, Abu Dhabi is completely tame compared to the Dubai, the Wild West of the 21st century.  In Dubai, the buildings are taller, the traffic is worse, and brunch doesn't start until 6pm. We couldn't very well let our prized guests from Sweden, Katie and Nik, leave without a visit to this...place.  Here are they are, in stunned (and befitting) tourist mode. 

After a trip to the Dubai Mall (biggest in the world, of course), we took the Dubai Metro (biggest or most something, probably) to the Dubai Creek, home of the gold, spice, utensil, and textile souqs.  We found amazing jewels, including this very large bracelet.

The spice souq is on the Deira side; we rode an abra to cross Dubai Creek to get to the Bur side of the creek, where we stumbled into the Dubai Museum, which we had looked for but never found.

There were interesting exhibits of old boats...

...luxury desert housing....

...and signs we weren't sure made sense at a museum.

It was a surprisingly large museum, and we ended up breezing through the last few exhibits.  But we'll be back.  Once we made it out, it was time to grab dinner at Potbelly's (!) and retrieve our car at the mall, which doubtless is also the most crowded in the world.

National Day

Abu Dhabi takes its heritage very seriously. See, for example, these poems (you can visit them at Heritage Village).

This seriousness translates into what is surely the most overwhelming holiday we've ever encountered, National Day.

About a month ago, it began, with the first wave of decorations - lights everywhere proclaiming the nation's 42nd birthday (clearly not re-usable from year to year...). We can't remember if the cars, or the flags, or the air shows started next, but at any rate, there emerged cars covered in flags and the leaders' of the Emirates faces....(we must apologize - these photos are totally inadequate to explaining just how far drivers would go in their decorations)....

....flags everywhere - lit up in lights across whole buildings, hung meticulously in each and every window of the Adnoc Office building, on flag poles, covering walls....fireworks sporadically....no pictures of those....and air shows, air shows mid-week, mid-morning, when most normal people are at work, with tiny jets spewing smoke of all different colors....

 ....and Emirates Palace, our normally elegant little dive across the way, lit itself up in intensely bright colors, and flashed green lasers into the sky non-stop. You can only begin to grasp the terrifying glow in our picture. We were scared to get much closer.



That decoration is gone, (really, it's the only one we've noticed to have disappeared so far) and the night terrors in our living room have ceased.

We ran into endless celebration preparations on our rambles around town. An inflatable slide at least a hundred feet tall was erected, along with all sorts of lesser inflatables, covering the entirety of the very-large public beach. A cool display on Emirates history appeared outdoors near Marina Mall, with exhibits going all the way up to 2030 (always fun to read about the future). Guides specialized to each decade waited eagerly to walk us through it, mostly by reading the signage aloud. At the end of each decade, we were presented with yet another glossy pamphlet, documenting the array of growth statistics we'd learned. Some of it was really cool (their interactive statistical maps would make Bank of America sit up and listen), but the one statistic we wanted most was missing - how much the display itself had cost. 



And we're still wondering when (if ever) the flags will come down. It's been a few weeks now, and we're told some decorations will last much, much longer than that...

Heritage Village

Heritage Village is a free museum aiming to preserve traditional Bedouin crafts, and it's a lovely walk from our apartment along the waterfront. Why haven't we been yet? We aren't sure either. 

Perhaps it was the uncompelling signage that kept us away.

But we're glad we went in. We saw a camel....always a welcome sign to us...

...and a whole collection of swords. (In our endeavors towards furnishing our house, we've seen a lot of arms of various sorts prominently displayed on walls in people's houses. We have yet to buy any.)

There are boats being built...

...and pitchers for coffee (called Dallah, we think) being hammered. There are fewer and fewer people able to make the traditional Arabian pitchers, which require extensive handiwork for traditional shapes and patterns.

There was a room full of beautiful glass...

We especially liked the glass-animal bedecked perfume dispensers.

And there was a beautiful view of the Abu Dhabi skyline on a beautiful fall night. . 

Traffic Safety in Abu Dhabi

Drivers in the UAE are crazy.  The government has taken some steps to address the issue: there are sensors along all the major roads monitoring your speed, recording that you stopped at a red light, and so on.  Helpfully, they send you a ticket (and a text message!) when you are found guilty of an infraction.  This isn't a perfect system -- people who have lived here for a while know where the cameras are, and speed like crazy when unmonitored, then slow way down to pass by a sensor, and repeat.  To the uninformed, this just looks like erratic driving.  But in general, the roads seem pretty safe (especially after our visit to Nepal).

Also lending a helping hand is this gentlemen:

Have a closer look...

My new fav sign

At the Shangri-La Hotel Souq:

Signs Abu Dhabi

Different signs tickle us as we walk around town. The typos are frequent, but sometimes brilliant. Nick liked this one:

And I thoroughly enjoy the toilets that God seems to have created male and female.

There are others, of course. Here are some:
*Ladies Saloon 
*Life Line Hospital
            ....A bit dramatic, no? but even better....wait for it....
*Day Care Surgery 
                                ....and....a rather marvelous misreading of Texas meat culture....
*Texas Chicken 

And the sign to end all signs is the list of demands of those walking on the lovely waterfront, complete with pictures. Here it is:

Who are we to argue? The signs, they are so helpful. This one, most of all:

Dubai: Near the Top

We bought tickets to "At the Top," the observation deck of the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa. It was originally named Burj Dubai, but was renamed after the ruler of Abu Dhabi after Abu Dhabi bailed out Dubai in 2010. (Names here are super confusing. Most streets, for example, are named after Sheikh Zayed in one way or another.)






















Here we are "At the Top."

Well, near the top. Here's what we could see below:



And here's what we could see above:

Before heading to the top, we prowled the nearby Dubai Mall, the world's largest mall. The mall went on for miles. There is an ice rink and an aquarium; we gawked at the latter in great awe for quite some time.



Honey is sold much like perfume - in beautiful glass vats, at almost $100 a pound.



There is an impressive array of designer clothes, including baby lines for some of the major brands. For example:



But most of the miles are full of cake. One of us spent a lot of time gazing at the cakes. There were layer cakes, and cupcakes of all kinds.

 A branch of Magnolia Bakery (though *this* Magnolia will screen print your cake with Disney princesses, which we're pretty sure is a no-go at its big sister in New York).



And the loveliest and most wonderful bookstore in the world. Well, in the UAE. Here Margaret is, in delight. For what did she find? The complete work of Dickens in three different editions per novel, and a full stack of secondary Literary Criticism. Not bad.