You’ll have to look up Garfield to find out who Nermal is, but he agitated Garfield to the point that Garfield shipped him to Abu Dhabi. You’d have to know my son Gavin to enjoy the question. “Did you look for Nermal?”
Abu Dhabi is our regional headquarters. I went there to meet the power base and check in with our President, who it turns out resigned from the position that day, only to leave the outgoing President stranded in country. Oh well, such is life.
One of the amazing sites in Abu Dhabi is the Sheikh Zayed Mosque. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Zayed_Mosque Sheikh Zayed is the founder and first president of the UAE. He is buried at this site. My first reaction when I saw it was a modern day St Peter's Bascillica in the muslim world.
One thing that came up in every conversation was the uprising in Libya on the heels of Egypt and Bahrain. Many people in the UAE and Qatar feel safe that these countries are stable, but the whacko in Libya is finally getting his due. Both the UAE and Qatar have very small indigenous populations. In Qatar the speculation is that only 30% of the 1.7M people are locals. The rest are here to work in the oil fields, design and build the infrastructure that they are spending the oil money on.
The drive between Dubai and Abu Dhabi is a 90 minute drive. On the drive back to Dubai the road was severely congested. I understand the road was full of people who live in Dubai and work in Abu Dhabi. During the downturn people had to go to AD to find work. Another observation on the way down the road, there were cars pulling off the road so the folks could pray. They were pulling off and laying the prayer rug in front of the car to pray – ARE THEY CRAZY.
The drive back was pleasant and other then the traffic not much to talk about.
I went to dinner that night to the Iranian Grill. I think every restaurant in this region has kabobs on the menu. I learned that Kofta is ground meat. So if you get Lamb Kofta it is ground meat on stick and grilled. The food was good. We had a smorgasbord of food, appetizers and conversation.
After dinner we went to the Mall of Dubai to see the fountain show, unfortunately we were too late. I did see the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building and known as a vertical city. The building has restaurants, offices and apartments. Wow. The location has a building called The Address. The only trivia I was told about the building is it has the highest priced hookers in town.
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