Marta Can't Log In to Post

Oh My dear Marta cannot figure out how to log in in 'arabic'...I must admit, that you must put in your password first, then your user name....OK...rather then her not posting I will for her...I actually finally spoke with her yesterday..Thank You 'SKYPE'....she is deep into work...finding many issues that need to be resolved..The first thing that Marta did was create an 'issues' list in her first couple of weeks. It's a pretty long list but she has started to put together a plan and is still meeting with all the 'correct players' at the Hospital. Marta has started to make friends and since I have been gone she started meeting people for dinner and the 'rare' drink in this Muslim country. In February we will begin to look for a permanent place to live, that sounds scary, but she has met many 'expats' who have lived up to a dozen years here. One nurse just does 6 month stints and is about to move on to someplace in Africa. I would like to go on a Safari to see the Great Migration of the Wildebeest herds next summer. I head back in a couple of weeks, I am just waiting for Alicia to give birth to my first grandchild. She is huge, baby around 8 lbs and she still has 2 weeks to go. Big Ultrascan due on Wednesday to check on a more accurate Size...we are hoping for long and skinny to avoid a C-section. Here is a picture of her from last month.

Art writing for Marta

Well, I am back in America, with my internal clock all backwords, up all night. I was greeted by a huge storm today, the first of the winter. We have had between 12 and 14 inches of fluffy, then wet snow. Just in time for our Annual Inn to Inn Christmas Cookie Tour where 15 Inns in the Valley each cook around 1000 cookies and invite about 400 guests to tour the inns, eat cookies and other refreshments and get Holiday Decorating ideas. Our Inn was decorated by my loyal staff. Sherry created a Gingerbread house that is of our Local Village Train Station in the Middle of the Town...it's not finished yet. I suggest all of Marta's California friends come to New England next year to enjoy this annual festival Go Sleigh riding in the evening, Cross Country or Downhill Skiing. In the center of the town there is a public skating rink that is lit until midnight every night. Bring family and friends for a real New England Holiday...then you can fly to the UAE to visit Marta !!!!!!!

OK, blatant advertising and marketing is done for the day.....off to shovel snow !!!!!

Weekend Activities....it never stops

What a weekend for us. It seems we have more holidays then working days since I have been here. Everyday there is something new to see or do. We have been to check out about 5 shopping malls (since we have been here), altho we could not find the Gold Souk (souk=mall), but Art who is my GPS probably missed it on purpose....yes I am sure of that.

Art went to the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge, a 6 day (hiking, biking, running, swimming, kayaking, mountain climbing, desert hike). He went to the leg of biking and kayaking as it was close by, here is a link of a video of the race http://www.abudhabi-adventure.com/videotheque.php?page=VIDEO&lang=gb&codej=anglais video #2 is the best, # 3 breaks up a lot for unknown reasons. Art is thinking of volunteering to help in next years event as they need a lot of support staff for all the stages......

On Friday Art drug me to the Power boat races....they went round and round..
On Saturday after we slept most of the day away, in the evening we went to a Heritage Village, but it was closed...we were about to leave the area when Art noticed that down the block they were having an event. We checked it out and it was a Free concert held in a magnificent theatre. The Russian Folk Orchestra was going to play in 1 hour...we had time for a quick bite at a lovely restaurant right on the water. We ate outside and had traditional Gulf Food. The concert was excellant, we had to wait for some dignataries to arrive 1/2 hour late, they had special chairs in front (like thrones, with water, sweets, tea, candies) on table in front Turned out 1 was the Minister of Culture, the others were big shots too. The Russian Orchestra was flown in for the holiday events this past week, we were lucky to get to see them...Well that is the end of the holidays, but Soccer FIFA UAE is holding a tournnment in 6 days...more fun !

UAE Sports - Every day

It takes awhile to get used to seeing women dressed this way, but it is starting to seem more natural to us as we learn the culture. Art watched the movie "The Messenger" the story about the prophet Mohammed and the beginning of Islam....it makes more sense to him now the calling to prayer 5 times a day and to see people praying at the plethora of Mosques or the landscapers stopping and setting up their carpets on the lawn they are mowing to pray

Me on the Corniche admiring one of hundreds of fountains they have here in this desert. Art read that they de salinate the water for drinking

Not a week goes by without some kind of sporting "Championship Game" of some sort. They have a Sports Council that sees to every sport possible. I won't be able to sleep during this tournament as the locals stay up to the wee hours when their team wins (soccer)

Another round of powerboat races...not the huge F1 40 footers as 2 weeks ago, this time just big fast boats. We walked down there on Friday for day 1. The boats go round and round...Like Nascar, which I don't care about either...oh well, boys and their toys go round and round

After the race, Art got to go up to the display...oh boy...another boy with his toy. There is a shopping mall just behind the boat !

Fireworks Grand Finale from 4 barges

I was wrong about the barges on the beach, there are now 4 of them and they turned out to be the ones used for fireworks on Friday, Dec 3rd. It was awesome, the barges were barely 100 yards offshore and they shot massive fireworks for 45 minutes. We were right in the middle of it. Surely not OSHA approved as we were directly under the fireworks breathing smoke. This brief movie is of the finale, again we missed the 'smiley' face at the very end. It was the most spectacular loudest and brightest event I have ever seen !

National Day (Like the 4th of July)

38th National Day Celebrations !

Dec 2nd is UAE 38th National Unity day, The day the 6 of the 7 Sheikdoms in the area came together under 1 constitution to form a government. Bahrain and Quater declined...a year later a smaller area became the 7th and final emerate to become part of the UAE. so it was party day

All day long the streets began to fill with Partygoers..and honking, people decorated their cars with the national colors and pictures of the 3 highest rulers as shown above. Some were quite elaborate!

This barge appeared on the beach in the morning, we thought it was for the Fireworks later, and thousands of others did later in the evening, but that never happened. We think it just washed up. It was too close to the shore to safely shoot fireworks..they ended up being about 1 KM away at the Emerates Palace Hotel. They had Guinness World record staff there to record the " largest display of fireworks ever" . By pure luck we had walked down to that area to take pictures so we had a pretty good view.

The crowds were overwhelming, the streets came to a standstill around 10 pm, Honking, people singing and dancing in the streets, waving flags and tooting horns, it was loud. The Palm trees in the center divider were all lit up, what u cant see in this picture is that the spiky things on the palms had 'moving' lights that shot out from the center to the bottom of the tree, hard to describe, but beautiful to look at

This is a short move of the fireworks and the crowds.

It was a pretty good day, it went on way too long, we went to bed around midnight but the noise, firecrackers and singing and dancing in the streets went on until past 4 am according to Art who got up several times to watch the streets below !