Updates on Sara's life

This may take awhile. I have a lot to catch up on. :)
No, I didn't get left in Abu Dhabi and that's the reason why I haven't written about my trip yet. Laziness and being busy is my excuse. I've been so busy, that when I have free time, I don't feel like writing on this.

The trip to Abu Dhabi was amazing. Everyone asks how it was and my response is, "It's a whole different world over there." The culture, the architecture, the driving, the bathrooms...it's all so different then what I'm used to. I am so blessed to have been able to experience it.

Mom and I met up in Minneapolis. We had a long layover so Ryan's mom, sister, and my niece Violet picked us up at the airport. We went out to breakfast, visited my other niece Hailey at daycare, and went to Rachel's to relax for a bit. It was great to see them, even if it was for a short while. Mom and I board the plane in Minneapolis heading to Amsterdam and who is sitting across the aisle from us...2 young kids. Just what we didn't want. Not much sleeping was done there. In Amsterdam it was around 3 am our time and we were just so tired but had a few hour layover. As soon as I stepped foot on that plane I was out cold.

We arrived in Abu Dhabi in the evening. Just stepping off the plane and going through customs you could see how different it was over there. Women were in their abayas and shaylas. Men had on thier dishdashes and head scarfs. Josh let us see some of the city on the drive to his apartment. We had some yummy tabbouleh and hummus, met Josh's girlfriend, Nicole, and headed to bed. I had a dream that night about the Muslim call to prayer. I woke up in the morning and Josh said, "did you hear the call to prayer this morning?" I must have heard it while I was sleeping. A few times a day all the mosques (and there are a lot of them) do a call to prayer, where a man "sings" to signify it's time to pray. They are quite beautiful but also strange when you are driving down the road and hear it. Only once did we actually see people praying in pubic. There were some workers outside who stopped their work to pray.

We saw SO much when we were there. On the first day we drove around and saw the souks, the dhows, Emirate's Palace, the Arabian Gulf, and Abu Dhabi in general. We ate at a lovely outdoor restaurant. We ate outside a lot which I absolutely loved. Had my first of many mint lemonades of that trip.

We also went into the Emirate's Palace, which is a super expensive hotel. It's strange how any Joe Shmoe can walk on into these places. While there they had an art exhibit up so we saw that. Jackson Pollack was the only artist there that I had heard of, but there was pretty cool stuff. We had tea (well, everyone except for me) and a swanky bar at the palace. It was beautiful outside with all these water fountains everywhere. After a week in the UAE, you notice that EVERYONE has water fountains. They never got old though.

The next day we took a trip to the desert, Al Ain, to visit Josh's old boss. On the way we pulled off of the freeway to see some sand dunes and we got to see 2 camels. :) We went up a mountain, Jebel Haffit. We drove through a nice park, which Josh calls the "green Muzzabuzza" which isn't it's name, but is much more fun to say. I loved how the culture is so family oriented. There were people everywhere, hanging out in the park. Very cool to see. We headed back to Al Ain and ate at an outdoor restaurant. I had to use some Arabic to ask for the bathrooms. Then we went to the town center where they had a cool fountain show.

The next day we visited the Grand Mosque. Wow, that place was impressive. Mom and I had to wear abayas and shaylas, which was a strange experience. Everything was ornate marble and super huge carpets. It's hard to even describe what this place was like. When we were leaving we got free pastries from the women handing out the abayas and shaylas because we caught them taking bites so they were very kind to offer us some yummy treats. :)

We headed up to Sharjah and Dubai the next day. Josh lived in Sharjah the first year he was over there. It was a lot different than I imagined it. We visited his friend's, Asma, boutique and got some scarves. She also had some yummy pastries for us. We ate some Thai food outside at Al Qasba, this cute area along a river lined with restaurants. I'd be there every night if I lived there. We then headed to Dubai. We stopped at the beach to get pictures of the Burj Al Arab, which is the big hotel shaped like a sailboat. Then we drove out to the palm islands to "see" the Atlantis Hotel. Little did we know Josh booked us a room as a surprise. We started pulling up the driveway and I was thinking we were going to get in trouble for driving up there and he said, "This is where we are staying tonight." Mom and I couldn't believe it! We had a gorgeous room overlooking the Arabian Gulf. We walked around the hotel, saw the aquarium there, and had a wonderful meal at the poolside restaurant. We attempted to use the spa, which was not our version of a pool and hot tub at a hotel. This had separate mens and womens, which we should've figured. You walk into a lockerroom, there were steam rooms, saunas, a broken hot tub (that's all mom and I wanted to do), and a relaxation room. Very swanky but unfortunately since I am preggo my only option was to put my feet in a hot tub but since it was broken that wasn't an option. Josh did enjoy his though. Mom spent the rest of her evening taking a nice bath while Josh and I headed to the imperial lounge for some juice and tea. We had a yummy breakfast at that same lounge the next morning. Tried some crazy new fruits. Then we headed to the beach and tried to soak up as much sun before we had to check out. That was my favorite part, but I'm such a beach bum. Then we went to the Dubai Mall, saw the aquarium there (which not much later made the news for springing a leak), then went up into the tallest building, the Burj Khalifa (which later made the news for closing the observation deck for electrical problems). Very impressive. As developed as Dubai is, you could still see so much desert around. I can only imagine what that place will look like in 10 years. We then ate at Fridays on the balcony outside, overlooking the Dubai Fountain and saw 2 of the fountain shows. Probably was my 2nd favorite thing about the trip. Then we headed back to Abu Dhabi after a busy 2 days in Dubai. The next day we went BACK to Dubai to go to the Global Village, which is this huge shopping area with vendors from different countries. I got a henna tattoo and some cool marble goblets.

The rest of the trip was spent running to little places here and there. We went to the Shangra La hotel and had drinks. Again, it's crazy to me that you don't have to be a customer and you can just wander the grounds and sit in their lounge and order stuff. We were trying to figure out a hotel in the US comparable to some of these hotels. I don't think we ever came up with one. We headed to Yas Island to get my friend a souvenir for the Formula One track that's there and there were actually cars running, which was cool to see.

I'm sure I left stuff out, but that's a pretty comprehensive list of what we did. It was a wonderful experience and I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to go. Although I missed Ryan, it was nice having me, mom, and Josh together, since that doesn't happen very often. There, I did it. Done.