Thursday 2/12
Today we had a sand storm and it looked more like fog, but there really was sand/dust all over the cars and on my head, after spending some time outside. I was advised not to bike, so I wouldn’t breathe too much sand into my lungs. Lots of people wore face masks (not only the women). And there was some wind. The palm trees on the streets had also a layer of sand and didn’t look too green anymore by the end of the day. I guess there will be a lot of sweeping activity in the streets and parks tomorrow, if they really mean to keep it as neat as it looks most of the time. Tomorrow is Friday, but people are off work, like it is Saturday for us. They work from Sunday to Thursday every week and then are off Friday and Saturday.
Today I had to smile while walking around town. It’s just so funny how the drivers just honk like mad at everybody and anything – every chance they get and not only a little, they often just sit on their horns to really make a point. In our neck of the woods, that would mean somebody is really pissed off and ready to shoot if they had a gun, but here it is part of the city noise and when you look at the face of the person who is so seemingly so angry, they really aren’t – they just sit there and honk – it doesn’t really mean anything. Even though it makes for an even noisier town, I kind of like it, it’s somehow……… peaceful ??
OK, so and what is Coby’s company building? They are involved in a lot of projects as you can imagine. One, I know is part of a development at Al Raha beach with big buildings and parks. It’s the same as some of the stuff that is already build – more of the same. Parks and houses, huge sky scrapers, and underground shiny malls. Parks on the roof tops of the buildings. One other big project is the Zayed University (after Sheik Zayed the first). Coby is really impressed, I can tell, and he is also trying to point out to me, that some stuff is actually considering the environment, like building to catch enough daylight for the underground malls – lots of glass, recycled water for the pretty water fountains and enough trees and plants to keep the air in good condition, supposedly! All this is springing up like mushrooms out of the ground, but even here the world crisis in the economy has caught up and people have been laid off in Dubai, starting here in Abu Dhabi now too……………Quite a few people are leaving………….I don’t quite know what to think about that right now. It should be just temporarily, but who knows?
I am going to a third world country next week. Oh, did I say that the sky diving adventure was called off? (Too many people committed before we did– this kind of activity is popular as it turns out) Well, it is and I am ready to go –will book my flight in the beginning of the week.
