A Letter From Evan

Hi everyone
I am finally getting caught up with work and feeling better. I had strep throat for 5 days and only got on antibiotics yesterday.

I am staying at the Shrangri-La hotel which is really nice. It is about 15 minutes out of downtown which makes it kind of like a suburb but there is not much commercial development around so I have had a real chance to be immersed in the culture.

Rumor has it the hotel has 700 employees for 250 rooms, I would believe it, they are kind of like worker ants, they are everywhere always cleaning something.

We had dinner last nite in town at a Lebanese restaurant. So, lots of olives, hummus, pickles, chicken, lamb and flatbread. Before that, we walked around a heritage center which is kind of an open mall tourist attraction that showcases Arabic life. there were mock storefronts with natives practicing their trades, leather, silk, knives/daggers, boat making etc.

There was the token camel who looked like he had seen better days, probably the most photographed camel in the country. I was served the equivalent of hush puppies and a pancake ( I do not know the traditional words) by two Bedouin ladies who could not speak English but using hand language told me to come in and try the food, it was yummy, they put some dark honey on top. They were dressed in traditional garb with veil over most of their face but these ladies had a metal veil across the mouth and nose. which I had not seen before. So, the men wear white and women black. this is also how they differentiate some of the bathrooms, white headdress, (not right word) for the men and black for women.

Abu Dhabi is one of the emirates, the biggest, the capital of the UAE and also a city. It is much like most western cities, lots of traffic, city lights, people walking about, high rise offices and homes (condos, villas, apartments) very clean, people are very courteous, except it seems when driving as the horn noise is very common. they drive crazy fast, all cars have some sort of warning at 120 km/hr either a beep or light which warns you that you going that fast. if you are over 120 it is always on, kind of neat approach to speed control. I imagine it is easy to disable as there are a lot of cars that go faster than 120.

That is all for now
evan