Monday,
January 22, 2007


Both Chris and Kara were able to fly in from college for the Christmas break. Having never been on an overseas flight I was proud they both succeeded in making their connections in Frankfort and Amsterdam respectfully. After realizing she had a six hour layover, Kara took the train to downtown Amsterdam to satisfy a curiosity about the city. In fact, I suspect, she booked her flights with this in mind. What was I worried about?!

UAE celebrates National Day on December 2nd. This was the day, 35 years ago, when seven trucial states organized themselves to form a country. Quite an accomplishment for people where tribal warfare had predominated for 2,000 years. The UAE flag colors are black, white, red and green. On this festive occasion the cities are festooned with red and green lights which are kept up all month - a nice coincidence for those of us, infidels, celebrating Christmas. The first week-end of National Day, there were fabulous fireworks here in Abu Dhabi and, for once, Bob and I had the best view right from our apartment.

Speaking of Christmas, before coming here, I had gotten a general Middle Eastern synopsis of living here from Bob's company with a slant toward some of the more strict Islamic countries. The packet seemed to infer that there should be no outwardly show of Christian celebrations. So, when I saw the first Christmas tree display at the mall, I just stood there and tears came to my eyes. I quickly dried my tears before anybody saw a middle-aged woman balling right there in the mall. Later, I found Christmas decor almost as common as in the U.S. Just to show my appreciation and the fact that the kids were coming for Christmas I bought a 2 foot laser optic tree. That and the Christmas bath towels and stockings hung with care on window ledges constituted our total seasonal decorations.

After Christmas the family went to Egypt - Cairo and a Nile cruise from Aswan to Luxor. Cairo lived up to it's reputation of filth quite well. Also, Bob invented the 20 foot circle 'tip' zone. That is: everybody within 20 feet of you is expecting some sort of tip irregardless of what was or wasn't done for you. Of course, we had the usual souvenir sphinxes shoved in our face. This goes on all day long. Kara's idea was to just walk very fast and look straight ahead and they can't catch you. Besides that, everything was good. Oh, Kara spent about 30 minutes negotiating the price of a quality hooka pipe at the bazaar. Wish I had gotten a photo/video of that. She and "Oscar" were really having fun adjusting the final sales price. I have finally found out Chris' expertise. He can immediately figure the the exchange between whatever money to whatever money: Dollars to dirhams; dirhams to Egyptain pounds; whatever - just like a human calculator. We also took a hot air balloon ride over the Nile at Luxor - amazing. Some temple and tomb walls with carved relief had 3000 year old paint still on them - quite colorful. Our guide with a college degree in "tourist guidance" was quite animated and knew more facts and figures than we could ever hope to remember. (see photo of guide, Waleed, on faluca boat ride and describing hieroglyphics) Since Chris couldn't play internet games on this trip he was quite sociable. Bob and he became involved in a cut-throat ping-pong tournament organized by passengers on our Nile cruise boat. The match was well attended between exotic stops along the way.