Never go to sleep without knowing where your pants are...

View from my hotel room.  The sky is never blue here- the dust and haze make it grey.

For you to get an accurate picture of what I'm experiencing, the easiest thing to say is that it's like a low security middle eastern prison.  That's a little harsh, but I am staying in a secure compound almost an hour from the city.  I can't explore much beyond the gates because it's not safe, and it's too hot. It has been pretty low stress- just go to class for six hours a day, go to the gym, and socialize.  Weekends (Friday and Saturday here) will be the time to get out and explore all the air-conditioned amenities of this country.

A great example of branding.  I'm sure you all know what this is a picture of, even if you can't read the words.

The food in Abu Dhabi is a cross between Indian food and Greek food, if you can imagine that.  Now can you imagine a version of that served in a school cafeteria?  Without too much description, I will just say that my stomach does not like it.  Too many spices I think...  But last night we had the opportunity to go into Abu Dhabi for the best buffet I have seen.  I had a tiny bit of all of my favorite Mediterranean food, but I was scared to eat too much of the dinner.  Nevertheless, two plates of chocolate desert from the fondue fountain shocked my system back into American food mode and made me feel awesome.

The best thing about dinner was our view of the Grand Mosque.  I tried to take a picture a dozen times, but as soon as I opened the camera lens water condensed on it.  If you were paying attention in my previous post you remember that Abu Dhabi has 0.00 inches of rain in August- it was so humid that water immediately condensed on the camera! And my skin. So, I went back inside and found the bar.  Alcohol consumption is very taboo here, but you are allowed to drink in hotel bars after dark during Ramadan.  The bar was behind a curtain so you wouldn't have known it was there unless someone told you. We discretely enjoyed a nice cold beer, and although it seemed expensive, it wasn't.

The currency here is the UAE Dirham (abbreviated dhs).  One dollar equals about 3.7 dhs.  So when you look at a drink menu and it says 30-, that seems like a lot, but it's not too bad.  I bought a hairdryer the other day and it was 78-, and it almost made my heart stop until I did the conversion.  The conversion makes me feel rich when I am holding the money. I exchanged $600 dollars at the airport for 2000 dhs and it was like winning the lottery.  Also, dirhams look cool, but maybe that's because I have a special fondness for pink money.  The 20 franc note in Switzerland is also pink, and that was always my favorite.  I wonder why American money isn't colorful?

100 dhs, 50 dhs, and 10 dhs, bills from top to bottom.  The other side is in English so I won't embarass myself.

Last interesting thing- the weather. I cannot explain how hot it is here.  The heat index that last time I checked was 129, and now I refuse to check.  It is not a dry heat, as I said before.  Fortunately we spend very little time outside- mostly it is just to walk from building to building or taxi to building. Yesterday we did have a 90 minute geophysics exercise outside while wearing our standard company uniform, which is a full flame-retardant suit.  That was hot, but no part of my body was exposed so I didn't get sunburned!  The humidity has set off the fire alarms the past two mornings, and if that keeps happening no one is going to take a real fire seriously.  The series of fire alarms have made me appreciate one of my mother's random but useful life advice: never go to sleep without knowing where your pants are.

Later,

ET