Visit to Al Ain

We have found our time on the weekends here to be, well, under-utilized. Without sports and other activities clogging the schedule and no projects to do in the flat where we are renting, we tend to bounce around the flat for much of the weekend. To alleviate some of the boredom, we decided spur of the moment last weekend that we would visit the city of Al Ain at the eastern edge of Abu Dhabi emirate bordering Oman.

So after church on Friday (yes, Friday) morning, we packed up and headed out to the desert for one night. As we do frequently, we based much of our activities on the recommendations from TripAdvisor.com. Our first stop was the Al Ain Zoo which is highly touted in the country. It is one of the few places that we have been affected by the country's conservative dress code. For the girls over 12 they were requested to have their knees and shoulders covered. Katrina was young enough to get in even though she was wearing shorts.

It was close to 100 degrees that day but we got there later in the afternoon so we were able to avoid the worst part of the day. I won't rave about the zoo because it was just an average place to visit. There were a few exhibits that we enjoyed a little more than others. We always like watching the small monkeys running around the enclosures and got to see a pair of white tigers up close. The exhibit that caught our attention most was the one with the African non-predatory animals (giraffes, zebras, etc). The background was the mountains that make up the border with Oman which made it quite memorable. Allison developed a fever as we trudged along so we ended the visit just a bit early to get her some rest.

Off we went to the hotel we booked for the night. The Grand Mercure hotel is perched at the top of Jebel Hafeet, the highest point in Abu Dhabi. The accommodations were reasonable but the view from the room was amazing. We faced out over the Al Ain and could see miles of sand dunes of different colors. Off to the one side we could see one of the palaces belonging to one of the ruling Sheikhs (at a higher elevation, of course). In the morning the girls spent some time playing in the hotel's water park and after we checked out, we went to the overlook at the end of the road just shy of the peak. I could have spent hours there looking at the formations but the kids wanted to move on to the next thing. Well, they wanted to leave that one at least.

The Sheikh's palace

There is a single road leading to the top of the mountain. A few magazines have called the road one of the best driving roads in the world and I can certainly see why. The girls were a little nervous going up and down, mostly due to the sharp turns and sharp drop offs, but we made it just fine.

The road to Jebel Hafeet

Our next stop was at Green Mubazarrah at the base of the mountain. There wasn't much to see and the warm springs were not very enticing due to the heat (107 that day). It was nice to see the greenery around all of the sand. Our last stop was at the Al Ain Oasis which was across the city. I imagine it was more of a place to see in the past but now it is just a bunch of palm trees, albeit a large bunch in the middle of the city.

View from within the Al Ain oasis

As we were walking back to our car, we encountered our only uncomfortable situation so far in the country. We were walking by a mosque and one of the locals tried to talk to us. He spoke no English and I speak no Arabic (I believe that is what he was speaking) so our conversation got nowhere.  He seemed agitated based on the hand motions he was making and there were not many people nearby so we quickly moved on to our car.

We took a different route back to Abu Dhabi and we are glad we did. It took a bit longer but it was filled with large dunes and scattered with roaming camels and a few camel farms. We never get tired of seeing camels and made multiple stops to take photos. Our last photo op was to see a group of camels that were starting to venture out on to the highway. After a minute, the farmer drove up on his very modern ATV and herded the animals back through the gate to the farm.

Pardon me!

Overall it was a nice place to visit and there are a few things we didn't get to see so we will go back at some point. The one thing we would change for the next visit is to do a bit more research and planning for which activities to do.

Note: I have discovered one of the limitations of using free blogging software. The images on this post are not particularly well arranged, but after fighting with the editor for a while, this is where I left it.

Grocery Shopping

Yes, I am writing a blog about grocery shopping. It may sound dull (and it may very well be by the time I finish), but as it turns out this is a good sample of the service-oriented society. Many places in this country offer assistance for almost any aspect of your daily life. Most of the restaurants offer delivery to wherever you are. This even extends to fast food establishments.

So back to groceries. At home in the US, we went to the store once every 2-3 weeks and did a monster load to restock the cupboards. With the smaller refrigerator we have here we need to replace that big trip with more frequent but smaller trips. The shelf life for perishable foods seems shorter as well. Our theory, at least for the local breads and such is that there aren't as many preservatives.

We went to the Abela store not far from our flat to get a load for the upcoming week. It is very much like the British stores (Spinney's, Waitrose) here with their selection of foods, meaning that we don't recognize many of the brands. There are enough familiar American names around to keep us happy, though. We even saw packages of Phillips Crab meat (a Baltimore brand). The label indicated that it came from Indonesia, though!

If you have read this far, you are probably wondering where this is all going. At the checkout line at the store, we pull our cart up and before we could start placing items on the counter for the cashier, one of the workers took over and emptied our cart for us. He then walked around and started bagging. That's service I have not experienced at home. On top of that, he pushed the cart to our car and loaded the groceries into the back seat.

This is just one example of how there are people all over the place here to help us through any task that requires effort. There are some people who are quite happy with this level of service, but we are much more of a do-it-yourself family so we are still getting used to this.

Spring Break

We are in the middle of the school's spring break which lasts for 2 whole weeks. Initially, that sounds great but in reality the kids have got pretty bored already. The thing to do here is to take off for a vacation or a trip home to visit family over the break. We were busy getting settled here at the time we would have had to make travel plans so we missed out on an exciting spring break trip this year. We wanted to take the kids to Atlantis in Dubai over the break but we changed our mind after looking up the prices online. The normal rates are something like tripled during the break. It's not worth $3000/night! When break is over, we will get to hear from friends who have been in: the US, Oman, Paris, Sweden, Egypt and various other places.

Diana, Allison and Katrina got to take a mini-break of their own. The church we attend here planned a retreat for the past weekend in Al Ain. The retreat was for 12-14 year olds and Diana went as one of the chaperones. They were gone from Thursday morning to Saturday afternoon. Al Ain is on the far eastern end of the emirate of Abu Dhabi and borders Oman. It features the only mountain in the emirate, Jebel Hafeet which the girls got to run around after dinner the one evening. Megan and I got to spend the weekend together. Our activities featured time on the beach, splashing in the sea water and lots of time in the pool.

We are looking forward to our next break which is at the end of the school year (at the end of June). We are trying to work in a few days in London on the way home.

School and Activities

After two full months in Abu Dhabi, the excitement of exploring a new culture has started to give way to the routine of life again. Our days are starting to resemble a normal schedule and some of the new activities are filling in our free time nicely. We still have plenty of family time and most of it is quality time. There are five of us in the flat and we can all test each other's patience once in a while. Well, maybe a little more frequently than that.

Weekdays start by driving Katrina and Megan to school by 0730. They like to get there early so they can spend a little time with friends. Their school day starts at 0745 with "the anthem." I was only there for it once, but it surely was not the American anthem, so it must be the Emirati version. You can see the video with lyrics on YouTube:

We occasionally get to hear Musical Megan singing it as she tries to memorize the words. Katrina gets to do some singing herself as she has a choir class. They are singing the anthem from the 2010 World Cup. It is called "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)" and we hear her singing around the house, too. I didn't know World Cups had their own songs, either.

We are not terribly impressed with the school the girls are attending. It is a for-profit, private American school and for the amount of money we pay I would expect a level of education close to what I would assume McDonough or Gerstell would provide. Based on our small insight to the happenings at the school, it seems more like the average American public school. Overall, the girls are happy there and Diana is adjusting to the swap of having Ally at home and the others away during the day.

While Ally enjoyed being in high school, she has embraced her homeschool work here. She gets up early and does her work and then is free for the day when she and Diana get to spend some time together. As part of her homeschool "curriculum", she is taking tennis lessons once a week and she and Diana signed up for a once a week cooking class at the culinary institute in Dubai.

Katrina gets horse lessons once a week and has joined the Thistle Football Club U14 girls team for the remainder of the spring season which lasts another month or so. We have been looking for a convenient gymnastics program for Megan but have not signed her up yet.

The girls have been making almost daily visits to the pool and Diana and Ally have been using the community gym to get some exercise and I have been looking to purchase a kayak. Ally would also like to get a stand up paddleboard (aka. SUP) since she enjoyed it the first time she tried it a few summers ago. We live on an island so water sports are pretty convenient.

The less fun part of the routine involves sharing one car to get to school and work and an almost daily trip to the market. Appliances here are on the small side so we need to replenish the refrigerator frequently.

We are in the process of scheduling our home leave. Diana and the girls will be home for almost all of July and August and I will be visiting for a week at the end of July. We are working on the travel plans now and are trying to work in a few days somewhere in Europe on the way home at the end of June.

Grand Mosque

It's like a dream, walking up to it-more enormous than you can imagine.  The domes give it almost an unearthly look, as if it is from some futuristic movie.  I've been meaning to tour it, but we always seem to think of it too late or at a bad time, so this evening I just decided to grab my camera and walk around a bit, scope it out without the whole family.  I'm so glad I did-evening is a wonderful time to see it, all lit up.  It's perched on a hill and I didn't even go in, it was just enjoyable to circle it, admiring the archways.  I've always liked arches-I'm adding keyholes to my favorites list.  Definitely want to see it in the daytime, too. It is a very peaceful, amazing place.  

Playing on the beach(again!)

So lovely on the beach in the late afternoon

Shoe shopping here is awesome!

Just some silly pics

Being silly in a Belgian cafe