Wed Nov 26 - Al Ain UAE

David had his conference on Monday and Tuesday.   Monday I spent the whole day in the hotel reading, (lovely!)  and in the evening we went out to see the new James Bond movie.  Daniel Craig is not my favorite James Bond.  Give me Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan any day.   Tuesday was pretty much the same, but we decided to check out of the Marriott and explore the area more, now that we had free time,  so after David was finished with his conference we took a Taxi to Al Ain, UAE.  It is an oasis city about 1 1/2 hours south of Dubai.  When we got to the hotel here I realized that I had left our passports in the safe back at the Marriott in Dubai!   We called the hotel, and they found them and were able to fax a copy of them to this hotel so we could check in.  They are holding them until we get back to Dubai, so we should be okay.  

The UAE has been very interesting.  Not quite what I expected.    They don't seem to have their own identity to me.  It is like they are taking what they think is the best from around the world and trying to 'one-up' them.   They have the only 7 star hotel in the world.  The world's widest building, the world's tallest building,  the Palms and the World island developments.  They are building an underwater hotel in the Arabian Sea, where the guests are the ones in the aquarium and you can look out the windows to see the fish.    They are building 'Dubailand' which will take 20 years to complete, but will be more than twice as big (or was that 4 times as big?) as Walt Disney World.   There are a TON of shopping malls here, including 'the world's biggest mall'   which is actually only about 40% occupied at the moment.   There is every designer you can think of here.  It has been called 'a shopper's paradise'  and I suppose that would be true if I were a shopper.  Everyone speaks English here and the majority of people in Dubai are wearing 'western' clothing.  We are headed back to Dubai tomorrow and then home on Friday.  Oh, one note:  if you come to Dubai you need the electric adapter for the UK and not the one for the Middle East.

Dubai, UAE Sunday Sept 23, 2008 part 2

David and I spent the day on The Big Bus Tour of Dubai.  Here a few pictures of things we saw.

This is the largest Mosque in Dubai.  It can accomodate 1000 worshipers at a time.

This is Ski Dubai in the Mall of the Emerates.    We didn't ski.

This is the Atlantis Resort.  It is at the very top of The Palms Island.

Far left is David in front of the Burj al Arab hotel.

Another Mosque.

I would write more, but I'm tired and going to crash now!

Dubai, UAE Sunday Sept 23, 2008

David and I are in Dubai for a CIO Middle East Conference.   We had a long 24 hours of travel to get here.  We flew to Atlanta, and then had a 3 1/2 hour layover.  We were able to spend that time in the Crown Room, which was nice, but freezing!  They had the AC cranked and I was afraid I'd catch a cold before our 15 hour flight to Dubai.   The flight to Dubai was relatively uneventful.  We had a few patches of turbulance, but it wasn't bad.   The personal entertainment units help the time go by.   My legs were bloated and cramped by the time we arrived, and it felt good to get up and stretch.   

We picked the slowest passport control line in the airport.  It must have been his first day, because the other lines let 3 people in to his one,  but we made it in the country and found a taxi to our hotel,  the JW Marriott.  It is a very nice hotel.  We get VIP check-in and executive status, because David spends so much time with Marriott.   We have access to the Executive Lounge, where they serve complimentary breakfast and free wi-fi, which is where I am typing this from.   We had  a nice nights rest and breakfast and are ready to go explore!  I will post pictures and more when I have them.

Some Images from our trip

I just wanted to post a few of the pictures from our trip.

Enrichment & Fireside

We did an Enrichment night for the ward in Ensenada.   Our enrichment lessons were on first aid and hygiene since we had a doctor and several nurses with us.  Before enrichment the ward had an hour of Zumba Fitness that we joined in on.  It was a lot of fun.  

We also did a fireside on Sunday for the ward as well.  We had several musical numbers and speakers all in Spanish.   Two of the houses that we worked on were members of the church and the husband of the home had a room built onto it bore his testimony that was really sweet.  It was a very neat experience.

Free Time in Mexico

We did have some free time while we were in Mexico.  We were able to go to the beach and to brunch at a restaurant overlooking the ocean.  

Other Projects

Some other projects that our group completed while we were in Ensenada was to build a room addition onto a house for a family of 6.   The far photo shows the family as well as the people in our group who worked on this project.  We didn't finish the roof, but I think arrangements were made for that.

Another project was for a single widow who lived a the corner of a steep hill whose house would flood every time it rained.  The project

here was to build a retaining wall to direct the water around her house as it came down the hill, instead of straight into it.