Road Trip to Al Ain

I know I haven't written anything in the past few days, but in all honesty, I haven't really done much other than take it easy with my friends and try to to get over my sinus infection.

That is, until today . . .

We were sitting around last night and I got the notion that we should get out off the island for a bit. So after a little brainstorming, we decided we would take a little road trip to a city about 2 hours southeast of Abu Dhabi called Al Ain.

So this morning, Jeff, Danielle, Danielle, and I got up and took a taxi to the bus station. Tickets to Al Ain were only 10 dirhams (roughly $3), and we only had to wait about 15 minutes for the bus to leave. Here is a picture of what is essentially my back yard here in Abu Dhabi (you can see Abu Dhabi Mall and some surrounding hotels) . . .


Before leaving the island, our bus passed the Sheihk Zayed Grand Mosque . . .


Once off the island, the scenery changed quite dramatically from big city to miles and miles of this . . .


There were some really huge sand dunes, which made me remember how much I'd like to try my luck and sandboarding (like snowboarding, but on sand dunes).


After a pretty uneventful 2-hour bus ride, we finally arrived in the city of Al Ain. There were a few things that I noticed right away about the city that made it seem a lot different than Abu Dhabi: (1) there was a LOT more green space throughout Al Ain, and (2) everything and everyone seemed much more laid-back in contrast to the fast-paced hustle bustle I've grown accustomed to in Abu Dhabi.

As we approached the Town Centre area of the city, I noticed the clock fountain they have instead of a clock tower . . .


After we got our bearings straight, we decided the first thing we wanted to do was go to the camel market. Apparently, if we were at market at 8:00 am, we could have seen hundreds of men buying and trading camels (along with some goats). At 12:00 noon, however, the place was much less busy, as there were only a handful of prospective buyers and a few tourists like us there. I had a few people ask me if I was able to ride any of the camels, and the answer to that is no. However, the owners had some fun teasing us about touching the camels. I got to pet some of them, and one in particular really seemed to like it because it kept leaning its head over and rubbing it against my hand.



One of the highlights of the day was watching some camel owners trying to break one of his younger camels. He had a rope tied around the camel's neck like a leash, and he was trying to lead the camel around this open area. But the camel apparently didn't like that very much, because it was jumping up and down, bucking it's hind legs much like a rodeo horse would. I was watching this for a minute, then turned away to look at some of the other camels. However, about a minute later, I hear all of these men screaming. I looked back over and the wild camel had gotten away and was running around loose all over the market. There were about 5 men chasing it around, and the camel kept looking back at them like it was having a grand old time playing this little game. Eventually, the men caught up with the camel and roped it back in . . .



After standing out in the sun looking at camels for about 45 minutes, we were all ready to sneak ourselves some lunch and water. (Recall that it is not allowed to eat or drink in public during daylight during the month of Ramadan.) So we went to the mall, where we had to secretly eat our lunches in the stalls of the bathrooms. What an experience that was . . .

After our less than desirable bathroom picnics, we were ready to head to the Al Ain National Museum. Here, we were able to read a lot about the history of the United Arab Emirates and what it was like here before oil was struck in the 1950s. In a lot of ways, the culture was still very primitive up to that point. I saw some pictures of the island of Abu Dhabi in the 1960s and 70s, and the island was still pretty much all sand with some buildings scattered throughout--nothing like the island today, which is covered by hundreds and hundreds of skyscrapers and many more being built as I write this. Here is a view of the front of the museum . . .


And a model of a typical home setting in Abu Dhabi prior to the striking of oil . . .



After walking around all the exhibits in the museum, we decided to go to the Al Ain Oasis, which was like a big forest of date trees with paved paths to walk through it on. Probably the best of this was all the nice shade. We walked around for about an hour, and Jeff and I were able to pick some dates right off the trees to eat.

Finally, we got tired of walking around outside in the 105 degree weather without being able to drink any water, so we called it a day. We went back to the Al Ain bus station, got our 10 dirham tickets back to Abu Dhabi, and headed home. Here is a mosque I saw on the way home . . .


Overall, today was a fun day!

Just a side note: Since we will have about 10 days off coming up in the next few weeks, some of us have tentatively planned on making a trip over to India for a bit (Mumbai is only 2 1/2 hours from Abu Dhabi by plane). I'll keep you posted as these plans develop further.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Being Sick

I came down with a pretty nasty sinus infection on Sunday. I woke up and had one of the worst head aches I have ever had, and my face felt like it was going to explode with all the pressure coming from my sinuses. I was also coughing and sneezing a lot too.

So when 8:30 came and I had to meet Jeff, Andrew, and Graeme downstairs to go to our meeting, you can imagine how much I did NOT want to go. But being that I'm stubborn and don't like to miss things like that, I pushed through it and survived through one of their boring meetings (barely though).

I don't usually go to the doctor (I haven't been in about 2 years), but after feeling more miserable than I have felt in a really long time and hearing about 20 people tell me how terrible I looked, I figured it was time to buck up and go. Luckily, there is a doctor's office about a 3-minute walk away from our hotel. I walked in, they asked me for my insurance card (which they had given to us at the end of last week, thank goodness), then they told me a doctor would be right with me. Less than 20 minutes later, I had seen the doctor, was diagnosed with a sinus infection, and received my medicine from the pharmacy (conveniently attached to the doctor's office). I walked home, took my medicine, then took a nap.

Two hours later, I woke up feeling like a completely different person. My headaches and sinus pressure were mostly gone, and my nose wasn't as runny either. I was really glad I went to the doctor, to say the least!

Sunday evening, I ate downstairs with Jeff. He had cooked some chicken fajitas, which were pretty good. We talked for a while, then he, Danielle, and I walked over to the mall to check out some of the Ramadan sales that are going on. We also went upstairs to the sports store to price out some pool, ping-pong, air hockey, and fooz-ball tables to fill up the big empty space I have in my living room. I think the pool table was the nicest option, but also the most expensive so we'll have to just wait and see about that.


This morning, I woke up feeling pretty much like my normal self. We went to a pretty boring meeting about using technology in our classroom. The presentation would be fine, except for the guy began by saying, "I know that this won't really apply to a majority of you who are in government schools, but I'll go ahead and give the information for those of you who are lucky enough to have computers and internet in your classroom." I'm not a professional on public speaking by any means, but I'm pretty sure that the one thing you should never do while giving a presentation is to tell 1/2 the room that what you are about to say is pointless for them to hear.

After a frustrating 2 hours of doodling pictures and passing notes back and forth with the people around me, err . . . I mean, listening intently to a great presentation about computers and technology, a few of us headed over to the Marina Mall to get a few things from Ikea. I ended up getting some tupper wear and a giant 8 ft x 5 ft canvas print of a photo of New York City to hang on my wall in my living room. It looks pretty cool and adds a lot of life to my living room.

This afternoon, I went to the Co-Op to buy a few groceries, as well as a printer. It turns out that you have to buy USB cables for the printer separately, but by the time I realized this the store was already closed. So I didn't get to try out the printer yet, but it seems like it will work pretty nicely.

Finally, tonight I stayed in and cooked some chicken alfredo pasta and watched a movie with a friend. It was nice to just sit back and relax by staying in for the evening.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Some Photos

I know it is not a lot, but here are just a few photos of my new apartment. I always forget to take my camera when I go places, usually because I am running behind and have to rush out the door quickly so people don't have to wait for me any longer.

This is the door to my apartment . . .

This is my hallway (kitchen is the first door on the left, living room is straight back) . . .


This is my living room (curtains lead out to the balcony). . .


And another view of my living room . . .


The view from my balcony mostly consists of this mosque and a very busy street . . .


And finally my bedroom . . .


I will try to start taking more pictures!


Today we went to the gym for a few hours (I am gonna be sore tomorrow!), went grocery shopping, then went out for some Indian food.

My fasting is going well so far, although I decided I would cheat a bit and drink water so I don't die in this heat/humidity. I got a bit hungry around lunch time, but I didn't really feel hungry again until it was dinner time. For Ramadan, even if you are "fasting," you are allowed to eat after the sun goes down only, so that is why I ate dinner.

I am feeling a bit tired and I think I am getting sick as well, so I'll be heading off to bed now.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

A Good End to the Week

After a short 4-day work week with relatively brief meetings each day, the weekend came very quickly.

Wednesday after work, my friend Audrey called me up to see if I wanted to ice skating. We ended up going with some other people I hadn't really met yet (Hector, Antonio, Margarite, and Serica) to a place called Zayed Sports City at the other end of town. The ice skating rink was really big, and everything was really fancy and nice (pretty much like everything in Abu Dhabi is). I wasn't expecting the locals to be very good at ice skating, considering that we are in a desert, but almost everybody there was really good! There were a bunch of guys zooming around, doing jumps and twists and all sorts of other crazy stuff. I had a good time meeting new teacher friends from near and far. Antonio actually was from St. Louis, so I finally met somebody else from the midwest. Hector is actually from Colombia, South America, and Serica is from Ireland.

After ice skating, we went back to our hotel to eat dinner together. I was in charge of making the appetizer so I cooked up some pita fajitas (basically a grilled steak, tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers and onions on rolled up into a piece of flat bread. Everybody thought they were really good, so I was pretty proud of myself. Hector (with a little assistance from me) made the main dish, which was a type of spaghetti dish that had beef, olives, and mushrooms in it. It was very delicious!

On Wednesday night, we (being the same people from above) went to a club called the Oceans Club at one of the hotels in town. Since it was ladies night, the place was pretty much packed from wall to wall with people (and this place wasn't small either). We pushed our way through everybody and met up with Jeff and Graeme. I also met a guy named John, who is from southern England, and he was hilarious. He and I decided that we are going to take turns hosting a weekly guys poker night. After chatting for a while as well as a bit of dancing, we called it a night.

On Thursday, we had a short seminar about the holy month of Ramadan. It was pretty interesting, and I think I am going to try to fast during the month as the Muslims do, both out of respect for their tradition as well as for the cultural experience. Then some of us went to the beach for a bit and I ended up just taking a nap there for most of the time.

On Thursday night, one of the teachers staying at my hotel hosted a little party, so some of us went to get to meet some of the other teachers. Everybody I've met here so far has been really cool and I am excited to have the chance to work (and practically live) with them for the next 2 years!

Today, I slept in, then went to watch a movie with a friend. I met up with Jeff and Danielle to go eat dinner at an Egyptian restaurant, where I got this really spicy sausage dish called Khoshkhash (and of course hummus and flat bread).

Right now, I'm actually a few minutes late for a movie night so I better get going!

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Taking It Easy

I feel like the past few weeks have been CRAZY! After Saturday, I decided that I really need to take the next few weeks easy and make sure I spend some of my time relaxing instead of being on the go all the time.

So, Sunday I really didn't do much of anything. We had a brief meeting in the morning, but then I used the afternoon to take a bit of a nap before hitting the gym with the guys. For dinner, I finished up my chicken spaghetti I made last week. Finally I went to the mall to enjoy some me time shopping for some new clothes.


This morning, we had a really pointless meeting. It was shorter than the amount of time it took us to get there and back in the taxis, and all the information was old news. We are starting to get the feeling that the Education Council is just having us go to all these meetings to justify our getting paid, because I haven't really found much of it to be very beneficial. Oh well. Life could be worse, right?

This afternoon, I went to the bakery to get some fresh flat bread so that I can make steak pitas tomorrow. Then Jeff and I went for a run to the Corniche and back, followed by a quick gym workout. I'm finding that working out everyday has really helped me feel more energized (it always does, so I don't know why I feel that surprised), and I feel like I'm getting into pretty decent shape. So . . . go me.

This evening, my phone stopped working so I tried to get that taken care of at the mall, but they pretty much sent me on a wild goose chase that resulted in 2 hours lost and a still-broken phone. But I think I finally got it sorted out where I need to go, so I'll do that tomorrow as well.

Finally, some of us decided we needed to go searching for a new restaurant to eat at. We ended up at a place called Al Qasr, an Arabic restaurant. They had really good hummus, and their kabobs were pretty awesome. Also, I tried the fresh strawberry juice that they made right there, and it was really good. The best part was that all of this was very inexpensive. I believe I may have found my new favorite restaurant.


My own internet will be fully up and running tomorrow, so hopefully I will be able to put some pictures up then.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

The 2 Week Point

Somebody told me when I arrived here that I would get homesick once I'd been here for about 2 weeks. I have officially been in Abu Dhabi for 2 weeks today, and while I don't feel like I'm totally home sick by any means, I did find myself thinking about home quite a bit more today than I have at any other point since I've been here.

Of all the things I miss, these are the ones that stuck out in my mind the most today (in no particular order):

1. Cooking with my sister: I bought some pasta at the store the other day to make spaghetti (comfort food), and since eating out is starting to get expensive, I decided I needed to make my own dinner tonight. The whole time I was cooking, I kept remembering all the fun times I've had cooking pasta (and other things, but mostly pasta) with my sister this summer.

2. Watching the Chiefs with my brother: I was able to call my brother Chris today, which was great. I can't remember how, but somehow it was brought up that the Chiefs have their 1st pre-season game tonight. Not only am I going to miss watching them play (even if they lose, I love watching), but watching the games with Chris was always the best. I can't wait until I get to do that again.

3. Being a swim coach: It's just a habit of mine that whenever I see somebody swim, I immediately start making a list of things that they could fix in my head. Well, today at the pool, I saw some kids who have obviously participated on a swim team at some point because they were swimming all the different strokes and telling each other "Take your mark . . . " and what not before they would push off the wall. Their mom was trying to give them some pointers with very little success, and the coach in me just couldn't resist so I went up and asked her if they were on a swim team anywhere. She told me how they had just started swimming that spring for a team just outside of London, and I told her about how I am a swim coach. To make a long story short, I had the opportunity to give the kids some pointers on their strokes. Doing so just made me realize how much I miss all of my swimmers back home in KC. :(

4. My nephew: There was no one moment that made me miss Tyler today, but I found myself talking about him 3 or 4 different times with various people throughout the day. I was getting his picture out of my wallet to show them and everything. I'm a proud uncle, what can I say?


To be honest, I love it here in Abu Dhabi, as well as all the wonderful people I have met thus far, and I don't want to go home anytime soon. But if you'll allow me to be a bit cliche, I will say that distance and time definitely do make a person realize which parts of their life they treasure the most.

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Thursday is the New Friday

In the UAE (along with all other predominantly Muslim countries), the work week is Sunday through Thursday. And yesterday, being Thursday, felt every bit like a Friday from back home.

We had our last day of orientation with the Abu Dhabi Education Council, which was nice. I actually left for most of the day to go with all the other people who haven't done their medical and police checks yet. My medical check = not fun. First of all, when we got there, they told us all to take a number at this machine. My number: 492. The number they were calling at the time: 356. So after waiting for about 90 minutes, they finally called me. They had me fill out this form (that had a bunch of typos on the English side), and they told me I would need to do a blood test and an X-ray. So they led me back to this hallway, where about 30 other people were waiting to do a blood test as well. So after waiting for another 3o minutes, it was finally my turn. I was a little worried before, but when I got up to the little room where they took our blood, I could see that they were using clean needles and everything looked super sanitary so that was a relief. Also the nurse was extremely nice. However, she did a horrible job at actually taking my blood sample. First she started out with my left arm: She jabbed the needle into my arm, dug around for a vein for about 2 or 3 minutes (I'm not even exaggerating), then finally made the observation "I can't really seem to find a vein, maybe we should try the other arm . . ." Gosh. Ya think? So she then (a bit more gently) put the needle in my right arm, and began looking for a vein there. Just when I thought it was going to be a repeat of my left arm, she finally found the spot and took my blood. Needless to say, I hope I don't need to go get any more blood taken while I'm here!

For the X-ray, I had to get back in line in this waiting room with about 15 other men. They told us we needed to have our shirts off to be ready for the X-ray, so I had to stand in line shirtless with a bunch of other shirtless guys for about 5 minutes. Pretty awkward, I know. Then, when it was time for me to go get my X-ray, I realized that they didn't have any lead vest-thingies to wear. But I guess a little X-ray radiation to all of one's vital organs never hurts, right?

After we finally got to leave the wretched medical center, we headed over to the police headquarters. Once again we had to draw a number and wait, but this time it was a much shorter wait. I got called up to this huge, scary guy's desk, where he asked me some basic questions about where I was from and who my employer was and what not, then he sent me to wait in a chair to get my fingerprints taken. The guy at the fingerprinting station must have been having a very bad day, because he was extremely impatient and rude. He would put my fingers on the machine and roll it really quickly, and most of the time the print wouldn't register on the machine the first time. Each time that happened, he kind of scowled at me like it was somehow my fault. The teacher in me wanted to tell him that "haste makes waste," but luckily, the rational person in me kept my mouth shut.

When we returned to our meetings, they were on their lunch break. Then, we had our final meeting, where basically all of the people in charge just told us how awesome we are and how excited they are to see us get in our schools and begin working with the other teachers and our students. Before we left, they gave us a nice little gift, which included a leather note pad, a pen, and a USB memory stick thingy (I can't remember what they're called, but you know what I mean).

From meetings, a few of us went to a new mall, the Khalidiya Mall, to go to a place called LuLu's Market. We had heard they have the freshest groceries in town. When we got there, I noticed an athletic apparel store, so I went in there to get some clothes for working out in. Then I joined the group in LuLu's to get some grocery shopping done. I got some steaks and chicken, along with some fruits, vegetables, and fresh flat bread from the bakery.

After we got back to our hotel, Jeff and I went for a run to the Corniche and back (about 2 miles). Normally that would be nothing to me, but since the temperature was roughly 105 degrees with 95% humidity, it was a bit rough. By the time we were done, we both were drenched in sweat and looked a lot more like we had gone for a swim than a run. Good times.

For dinner, about 10 of us decided to go to a British pub called The Captain's Arm. I got a steak sandwich and fries, which were okay. My British friend Graeme thought it was really good, but I told him I'm used to the best in Kansas City. After dinner, we met some other people who are living at our hotel and we all had what Graeme calls a "proper pint."

After talking for a while, I invited everybody over to play some Wii. So about 15 of us walked back to my apartment to hang out. We ended up taking turns playing from 10:30 until about 2 in the morning, and everyone had a lot of fun. We all decided that "Wii at Matt's" should be a regular occurrence. Also, in talking with one of the girls that just arrived here on Wednesday, I found out that she just started learning to play the violin last year. I told her I play the violin, and so now I'm probably going to be giving her violin lessons. Ha.

Finally, Jeff, Adam, and I decided that we were a bit hungry so we decided we would walk around and try to find a restaurant that was open. At about 2:30, we found KFC (which apparently is open to 4 am here). I was amazed at how packed the place was that late, but I guess people stay up a lot later here than what I'm used to. We ate some good ol' fashioned fried chicken and biscuits, and ended up back at our hotel about 3:00. Good times.


Today, I was able to sleep in until about noon, which felt good. Jeff, Erin, Kate, and I walked over to the beach and hung out there for a few hours. Then we went to the mall to grab some lunch at Mugg and Bean. I had this dish called "Deep Sea Pie," which I guess was their own twist on shepherd's pie that substitutes beef with salmon and what I'm guessing was a random assortment of other seafood. It was pretty good.

This afternoon, I cleaned all the dirty dishes we used last night and tried to tidy up my apartment a little bit while watching a movie. Tonight I'm going out to eat for some girl's birthday party. Should be a good time.

Good afternoon from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

More Meetings + Some Fun

So for the past few days, things have been pretty much the same: Wake up early, go to meetings all day, then find something fun to do in the evenings.

Yesterday, about 6 of us went to the Marina mall after meetings, where we spent about 3 hours at Ikea. I got most of the kitchen/household items I've been missing, but mostly just had fun goofing around with all of the weird and interesting stuff they have there. After that, the guys and I hit up the gym to get (more) buff.

For dinner, we went to an Indian restaurant, where I felt adventurous and tried some squid and biyirani rice. I was expecting something pretty exotic, so when the squid came out pretty much whole, I wasn't really that surprised. It was pretty spicy and pretty delicious.

After that, we headed over to Chi Chi's to grab a much deserved margarita. We ended up staying there until 1 in the morning sharing stories.

This morning, 7:30 came awfully early but I managed to stay nice and chipper through all of my meetings. Go me.

After meetings, we headed to the mall to go . . . where else, Ikea! I didn't really need anything but it was fun to just chill out in the nice air-conditioned mall. We also ended up going to a place called Carrefour (pretty much like Wal-mart). I got some laundry detergent so I can actually clean my clothes, and Jeff and I got a football to throw around when we go to the beach.

Speaking of which . . . Jeff, Erin, and I went to the beach this evening. We felt like we had worn out our welcome at the Meridien hotel for a while, so we decided to sneak into the Beach Rotana, a five-star hotel near the mall. This place is ridiculously nice on the inside, and also pretty nice on the beach side too. They had 2 swimming pools, one with palm trees coming out of it. Pretty cool.

We swam around for a bit in the pools, then we went to the beach where Jeff and I played some good old-fashioned catch with the football. Then we went back to the pools to watch the sunset.

Afterward, we went to the mall to grab dinner in the food court. I had my first Abu Dhabi McDonalds experience, at which I tried the McArabia sandwich. It was basically a slice of flatbread with some lettuce, tomato, and 2 beef (well, "beef") patties on it.

Tonight, the 2nd wave of teachers arrived at the hotel so we felt like it would be nice for them to have some of us who have been here a week to greet them (in English) and help them get their suitcases up to their rooms, things we wish we would've had when we first got here.

After that, Jeff, Andrew, Erin, and Kate came up to my place to get our Wii on. We played about 6 games of Wii tennis before we all decided it was time to get some rest.

Tommorow is our last day of meetings with everybody, and from here on out any meetings I have will be at my school at the southeast end of town with just the other people who will be working there. I'm not sure how many people will be at my school, but I know that Andrew will actually be teaching there with me so that should be fun.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

The Daily Grind

This morning was pretty much the same as yesterday morning, with the exception that our bus left without about 12 (out of 23) of us. We were supposed to come down for the bus at 8:00, which we did, but apparently since we were not actually ON the bus at 8:00, we were late. It is funny that we have waited for nearly an hour for our busdriver to get to our hotel, but he would not wait even 1 extra minute for us. Oh well. We caught a taxi and got there about 15 seconds after the bus did anyway.

The meetings this morning were fairly boring, so I won't go into much detail about those. After lunch, some parents from Abu Dhabi came to discuss what they would like to see from us as new teachers in Abu Dhabi. As we are really here to serve them and their children, I thought it was great to actually get input from these people.

For our last hour, we split back up into small groups and discussed in a bit more depth what our role will be in the Abu Dhabi schools and how we will mesh with the "native" teachers. Unfortunately, our facilitator was being very vague and wishy-washy and so currently I still am not exactly sure what my role will be. But I guess since my principal and colleagues will be unique and have their own set of expectations (as each school does), I suppose I will have to wait and see for myself anyway.

After an unusually long bus ride home (our bus driver took a major detour at one point, I think because somebody cut him off before he could get over), some of the guys decided to go join a gym near our hotel and work out for a bit. The gym is about a 3 minute walk from our hotel, and while by no means is it fancy, it's got everything I need to get back into decent shape: treadmills, bikes, rowing machines, free weights, and all the typical weight machines. I just got a 1 month membership just in case I decide I don't like it or if I find something better in the next few weeks.

After running about 3 miles on treadmill and lifting some weights, I felt a lot better. It has been about 3 weeks since I've had a chance to really work out (and they've been a little bit stressful), so I was starting to have a lot of energy pent up inside of me.

When we got back from the gym, Jeff, Andrew, Graem, and I walked to the mall to grab some food and hang out at the pool hall for a while. At an Arabic restaurant in the food court, I got some lamb kabobs and flat bread, which was pretty good for food court food.

On the way back from the mall, I stopped off at the hypermarket to grab some random household items and groceries.

At the end of the day, I look back and think that this is probably what a typical day in my life will look like for the next month or so (at least). While it was pretty exhausting, it was also pretty fun.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Work Day #1

After getting an unexpected wakeup call at 6:30 this morning (my alarm was set for 7:15), I decided since I was already up that I should go try to find a local bakery to eat at. I found a place around the corner that was serving chocolate croissants for 3 dirhams (roughly 75 cents) each, so I ordered a couple of those. They were quite delicious, making the early wake-up worth it.

At 8:00, we caught the bus to the school where our meetings were at. When we got their, the Minister of Education (comparable to the U.S. Secretary of Education) was there to greet us. They gave us a big packet of resources and a travel guide to the city of Abu Dhabi, as well as an agenda for the day.

First, the Minister of Education and some of his staff spoke to us about the educational history in Abu Dhabi and the UAE in general, and also about which direction they are hoping education to go in the next 10 years or so.

Next, some principals from various schools in Abu Dhabi spoke to us about the school system infrastructure, and how there are various private-public charter schools in the area as well as government-run public schools. From what I have heard, I will be teaching in a government school, and rumor has it that some of the class sizes in these particular schools can reach 35 students or more. Seems a little daunting, but we'll see what happens.

After a short tea/coffee break, we returned to listen to a man who owns a business called Embrace Arabia. Basically his job is to travel all over the world and give seminars regarding the Arabian culture to people who, like us, will be doing some sort of work in an Arab nation. He was a great speaker and pretty funny, but his presentation was just too long (nearly 2 hours) for me to sit still. Apparently I was not the only one who was getting restless.

They served us a quick lunch, then it was back to more meetings. We split up into groups of 6 or 7 for some Q & A time with some school administrators. They further explained the school system from a more Western point of view (the 2 facilitators from my group were both Canadians). They also gave us some insight into the curriculum we will be using and also warned us about the lack of materials the schools give their teachers. Since I handmade most of the classroom decorations, resources, and school work I had for my students last year anyway, this was not that big of a deal to me, but it was pretty bad news for some who were under the impression that we would be provided all of those things.

For our final meeting of the day, we had some teachers who have been in our shoes for the last 2 years give us their perspective on coming from abroad to teach in Abu Dhabi. It seems as though they were much less prepared for their teaching jobs over here than we have been, so it made me feel a bit grateful that so much information has been given to us about what to expect before we got over here.

After this last meeting was over with, just a little past 3, we took the bus back to our hotel. When we got back, we decided it would be a good idea to grab some ice cream since it was so hot, so about 8 of us walked over to the mall and went to Coldstone. I got some coffee ice ceam with chocolate chips, and when I tipped them, they started singing a very goofy song that I think was supposed to be a spin-off of Mary Had a Little Lamb. By the end of it, I almost regretted giving them the tip, but they were all grins so I guess it was worth it.

After ice cream, we walked down to the supermarket, where I grabbed some steaks and chicken for my grill, as well as some fresh veggies and some spices. My friends Kate, Erin, and I went back up to my apartment to make dinner. I grilled the chicken, Erin was in charge of the baked potatos, and Kate really didn't do much of anything except for go down and get some butter and salt when we realized we didn't want to eat our potatos plain. I thought it was pretty fun starting up my charcoal grill right in the middle of the city, 15 stories up. Once we got things started, we played some tennis and bowling on the Wii. They were pretty awful (not that I'm great). I was trying to let them win and I still won. But it was fun anyway.

Dinner took a while, mostly because the chicken took forever over the charcoal grill. But we eventually got to eat and I'd say it was pretty delicious. Since they more well-travelled than me, I asked them about some good places to go for trips. I think as of right now, my top 3 places I want to go on my long weekends are (in no particular order):

1) Egypt (I've always been fascinated by the history and pyramids and such, and it's only about three hours away so I pretty much have to go)

2) Turkey (I've heard nothing but great things about Istanbul especially, and I know the girls aren't bad looking there either) :)

3) Greece (who doesn't want to go there?)

Well, it is time for me to start thinking about going to bed and getting well-rested for another long day tomorrow.

Good night from Abu-Dhabi,

Matt