Etiquette Conundrum: Showers & Registries

I went back and forth about whether to post this.  Etiquette dictates that throwing your own baby shower and posting your own registry as a blatant request for gifts is a big no-no, and my mother was the ever-perpetuating voice of etiquette.  With our current overseas situation, I just going to have to set my inner etiquette voice aside, particularly because I've had so many friends and family ask, "Since we can't throw you a shower, where are you registered??"

So, with some hesitation, I have posted our registry information.  We are more than grateful for any gifts you choose to give, and please know that we are not expecting gifts from anyone.  The registry directs all shipping to Gabe's parents in Baytown, and if you would like to have the address to send something off-registry, please let me know (for their privacy, I didn't to post their address here). Our only caveat is that all gifts need to be received by G's parents by the end of June so that they make it overseas to us. My company allows me to have a "baby shipment" prior to my due date, which is basically as much stuff as I can fit into a 4'x4'x4' air shipping container.  G's sweet mother is graciously allowing me to ship all my baby stuff to her for staging until the freight company comes to pack it all up and send it to us in UAE.  We plan to "buy out" our registry on July 1, and any gifts received after the shipment goes will have to wait until they come to visit us in October.

We are registered at Amazon.com.  Baby stuff tends to cost about 25-30% more here, so the free shipping on Amazon, combined with the company-paid overseas shipment is a huge savings for us. Thank you for all your love and support, we are 28 weeks down, 12 weeks to go!

Thank you to all who have gotten us started!

Home, Sweet (Other) Home (and a graduation!)

Let me start by talking about how amazing my little sister is.  She is 6 years younger than me, and we were not close growing up.  In fact, when Mom first started to get sick in 2010, I think Danielle and I drifted further apart -- we were so focused on Mom's health, we didn't really spend much time communicating with each other unless it was about Mom.  As awful as Mom's passing was, it forced the two of us to live together in the same house for 2 weeks, something we hadn't done in a decade.  We had this wonderful opportunity, regardless of the terrible circumstance, to reconnect as sisters, and now she is one of my best friends.

Anyway, back to Danielle.  She was a published author in high school, has won awards at every stage of her education, has 3 degrees, and is currently working at MIT on some research that I don't fully understand.  She is super duper brilliant.  Despite all her accolades, she is generally a grounded and personable individual and if you met her on the street, you wouldn't know she was a Class A Nerd until you asked her about work.  

This trip back to the Midwest USA started with her graduation.  She actually finished her PhD at Illinois when she defended her thesis last year, and for a variety of reasons she opted to wait a year to to walk and have her PhD hooding ceremony. Since I missed her defense, I couldn't miss her this ceremony! I had only been to Champaign-Urbana once, and G had never been.  We didn't get see a lot of campus, and what we did see was beautiful in May.  We were definitely blessed with some nice weather!

Congratulations, Graduate!!

This pose was not easy with all the regalia!

Spring photo-op!

After graduation weekend, we headed up to my hometown of Kalamazoo.  I can't remember exactly how long it's been since I've visited Kalamazoo.  My parents moved from Kalamazoo to Mystic, CT in 2007, and I probably visited my first husband's parents' home once or twice after moving to Texas.  Regardless, it has been a long time.  G and I ate at my favorite Chinese Restaurant in nearby Mattawan (Chinn Chinn - I waitressed at the original Peking Palace in college and often dream about the Mongolian Beef), we attended mass at the church I grew up in, drove by my childhood home, and met up with lots of family friends.  We even did a quick driving tour of both my hold high schools.  It was crazy and hectic and super fun to show G where I grew up.  

Mother's Day brunch with my high school Youth Minister

I knew when I planned this trip that both G and I would need some R&R after lots of driving and sightseeing, so I booked us a mid-week getaway in South Haven.  It has been a perfect beachy recharege for both of us on the beautiful Lake Michigan.  Again, it has been unseasonably sunny in Michigan, and we basked in the cool mornings followed by warm afternoons.  We won't have weather like this in again in Abu Dhabi until at least December, so we enjoyed it while we could!  We took long strolls down the beach, squealed as we stepped into the cold Lake Michigan waters, and marveled at the college coeds we saw partying on the public beaches and swimming.  We also took a classic selfie at the South Haven lighthouse, which is remarkably smaller than I thought it would be.  Plus, with the extra time on our hands, I introduced G to the awesome-ness of Meijer.  Pretty much everything you could get at Walmart or Target, but better!  

Michigan T-Shirt, purchased at Meijer

Selfie at the lighthouse!

Our sunset was interrupted by some clouds, but still gorgeous

With our batteries recharged, we drove back towards the Windy City for the final leg of our trip.  Rather than take the freeway, we opted for the scenic route along Red Arrow Highway.  Personally, I've never gone to Chicago this way -- when I lived in the Midwest, I was always in a hurry trying to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible.  We really enjoyed the scenic drive - we found a hip new brewery and taproom along the way and stopped for lunch.  Apparently, Haymarket is based in Chicago and this branch in Bridgman just opened in January 2017.  The food was great and G seemed to really like the beer as well - so win win!  We made another quick stop in Michigan City at the Lighthouse Outlet Mall to pick up some deep discount clothes since retail in Abu Dhabi can be quite expensive.

Selfie in front of Haymarket

At this point, we (mostly I) had a lapse in judgement.  We should have hopped on the freeway for the remainder of the drive to Chicago, but I thought it would be interesting to stay on the back roads.  Google was showing backups on both the toll road and on I-94, so I thought it might be less stressful to continue our leisurely drive.  We drove through Gary and East Chicago, which was definitely an eye-opening experience.  You could tell that at one time in the not too distant past that these were nice places to live, but that they've both just been run down by industrial blight.  The steel mills that we drove by were actually kind of cool for a pair of oil & gas nerds, but the depressed surrounding communities were really sad to drive through.

It was a relief to finally make it to Chicago.  We met up with Jamie, my best friend from grade school, and her husband, Alec for the weekend.  We were supposed to go to a Cubs game, but we were unfortunately rained out.  G was so bummed out to miss the game at the historic Wrigley field, so we went to the ballpark anyway to walk around and take pictures.  While Jamie and Alec were in Chicago with us, we had a mini pub crawl, ate some deep dish pizza, drank a bunch of beer (well they drank beer, I had sodas) and laughed over Cards Against Humanity.

Bummed that we were rained out :-(  Just means we'll have to come back!

Photos around the stadium

Ironically, after the game's original start time, it didn't rain again for the rest of the weekend

After Jamie and Alec headed home on Sunday morning, G and I did a quick tour of downtown.  We had Jamie and Alec drop us off at Millennium Park so I could show G the shiny bean.  Poor G had his first encounter with some of the Buddhist peddlers around the park who try to give you beads and prayers for peace in exchange for donations to the temple.  He thought they were giving him free stuff until they started telling him how much the beads cost.  I gave the gentleman a $5 bill, firmly said "No, Thank you" and ushered G away towards the river.  We walked around downtown for a bit, and then decided to take the Chicago Architecture Foundation boat tour.  I had previously taken several walking tours of Chicago, so I thought a boat tour would be different and new for both of us.  The tour did not disappoint!  It was cool to see all the new construction that had gone up since I'd last been to Chi-Town a decade ago.

Underneath the shiny bean

The "end" of the bean - with a cool skyline reflection!

Chicago skyline from our riverboat cruise tour

We ended our whirlwind Midwest tour similarly to how we started, with family.  We had dinner and ice cream with Danielle's husband, Jonny, who is attending grad school in Chicago.  We didn't get to hang out much the weekend before with all the graduation festivities, so it was nice to have a low key casual dinner and catch up.

At this point, G and I were ready to head home - we had a great trip, and we loved seeing so many of our friends and family!

The Face of Support

While sitting in our rented beach house on vacation in South Haven, Michigan, I've had some time to reflect on how wonderful my husband is.  I won't over embellish and say I wouldn't be where I am without him -- it's not true. I have a successful career that launched before I ever met Gabriel.  I will say that I wouldn't be nearly as happy as I am now without him, and that I am more able to focus on what's really important in my life because of him: filling my life with love and even if it comes second, success at work will follow.  I've wanted to post about this since I started this blog, and after a few days of relaxation, I've finally been able to articulate what I've wanted to say.

Almost every married expatriate will tell you that expatriating is hard and requires an immense amount of support from your spouse.  I've heard of countless stories of marriages ending in divorce during expatriate assignments -- I don't think the dissolution of marriage comes from the actual expatriation, rather that expatriation exposes and exacerbates any weaknesses a relationship might have.  As a couple on expat assignment, you assume much more responsibility for supporting your better half than you might have back home where you have your establishes friends and family to lean on.  Sure there are fun parts - adventure, exploration, experiencing new things.  There are also hard parts like feelings of isolation, balancing work and fun, and acclimating to a foreign culture.

G has been my champion on this journey.  Back to when we first started dating, like...on our second date...I floated the idea of moving overseas to him, and he was all for it.  His family worked in the oil industry for generations, and he was actually born in Singapore.  His parents repatriated to the USA when he was a year old, and other than a mission trip to Mexico, G hadn't left the country since then (at least, when I met him.  We have since put several stamps in his passport!).  He loved the idea of moving abroad and didn't mind in the least that it would likely be my career that took us there.

G is pretty much ready to try anything I throw at him!

Fast forward to when I got the call in November.  When G said "Go for it!" it was actually a slightly longer conversation involving "Is this good for your career?  Do you think you'll like the work?  Yes?  Ok!  Go for it!".  He knew how important this opportunity was for me, and he jumped all in.  He gave up a great job working with people he really enjoyed knowing that we might only be gone a year, enrolled in school knowing that he might not have the chance to finish before we were sent back home, and while he complained about the uncertainty of the assignment, never complained about the sacrifices he was making for us to have this experience.

We knew the challenges of moving abroad could be extra daunting because I am the lead spouse.  There are plenty of expat spouse (the non-working spouse) support groups, mostly focused around wives of expat men, and even more support groups expats with kids.  There are very few, if any, "expat husband" - largely in part because how males bond is different from females, and I'm pretty sure if such a group existed G wouldn't go.  Even with having his online degree program to work on, spending all day in our apartment can drive anyone stir crazy and I'm sure when we first moved to Abu Dhabi, he felt pretty isolated.  G is such an intrepid individual, he found himself a group of guys that play basketball twice a week.  This has been great for him to make friends and be active, and it has been great for me because it gives me a few nights a week where I can recharge my introvert batteries.

There have been a million ways that G has supported me in the short time that we've known each other, and I'll try to stay focused on our expat assignment or else I'd be writing a novel on how much I love and appreciate him!  Pregnancy on expat assignment has been a big change for us, and G has been incredibly patient with me.  For a few months, I couldn't eat much but fruit and starches and we didn't really get to eat dinner together - he waited until I left for work to cook his bacon breakfast, and he cooked his dinners before I came home to reduce the smells in the apartment.  We're fortunate enough to be in a fully serviced apartment (housekeeping comes 3x a week to clean up after us) and G handles all the laundry and dirty dishes so when I get home after work utterly exhausted, I don't have to worry about it.  I'm embarrassed to say I don't know how to operate either the laundry machine or the dishwasher in our apartment because it's usually all done before I get home.  I feel so blessed to have such an amazing friend and partner who cares for my well-being in the way that he does.

Just the other day, I was talking about how I was considering reusable diapers instead of disposable.  I try to be sensitive about choices I make for the baby since G will be the primary caretaker when I go back to work.  Disposables will mean more laundry for him (and he HATES our washer/dryer), so I started to sell him on the cost benefits and the environmental benefits, and he stopped me mid-sentence and said "Babe.  You don't have to sell me on this.  If this is what you want to do for our baby, I'm all in."  The combination of unwavering support and my pregnancy hormones made me a little teary eyed in our living room!

Don't get me wrong, G and I argue all the time (mostly about politics and public policy), and there are things we do that drive each other nuts.  The important thing is that we can be honest with each other, and we can agree to disagree without holding a grudge.  Usually at the point when things seem the most tense and maybe we've just come to a resolution, he does something goofy to make me laugh.

Always smiling and laughing with me

I know that our life will only get more complicated when our little bundle of joy is born in August, and I'm confident that G will be right next to me, helping me figure out all the paperwork involved with a state department birth certificate, navigating newborn sleep and feeding schedules, ensuring I eat properly and take care of myself, and making me laugh the whole time.

We're so excited for our little one!

In a letter that my mother wrote to me before she died, she told me that she would find me the right man who would love me and support me in all the ways that I needed.  Thanks, Mom, G is perfect.

Opulence and Luxury

Before we moved to Abu Dhabi, G worked as an operator for a midstream pipeline company.  He has a technical associates degree from a local college, and has always wanted to finish his bachelor's degree.  Moving abroad was the perfect opportunity for him, and he found a great online degree program at an accredited Texas university that accepted a large number of his previous degree's credits.  He finished  his first semester of school the first weekend of May with all A's!

We had a whole weekend of celebrating by going out to eat.  I've finally figured out how to manage my morning (well, all-day) sickness, and it was great to be able to enjoy some meals together.  One of the places that I'd been wanting to try is just across the street from our apartment, the Emirates Palace Hotel.  We can actually see the entrance to the hotel from our apartment windows, and the property is sprawling with perfectly manicured lawns, a huge dome in the center, and lots of tourists every day taking selfies at the gate.

View from the entrance of our building.  The little building to the right is the Emirates Palace entrance gate, the bigger building on the left in the distance is the main building of the hotel.  It's actually much bigger than it looks here, but the trees are blocking the view.

The Emirates Palace Hotel boasts cuisines featuring edible gold leaf and somewhere in the hotel is a gold vending machine (we forgot to look for it, so I'm not sure where it is).  Reservations are strongly recommended for guests not staying at the hotel, and I booked us a table for lunch at Le Cafe, known for its gold leaf camel burger, gold leaf cappuccino, and camel's milk cappuccino.

Our first attempt to get to the hotel was unsuccessful.  The front gates were closed and we couldn't figure out where the alternate entrance to the hotel was located. Rather than wander in the sun getting sweaty and sunburnt,  we went back to our apartment and took a cab.  It was a good thing we did take a cab because we would have had to walk halfway around the property in the midday Abu Dhabi heat.

We pulled into the hotel and were greeted by the hotel staff.  The hotel is owned by the Abu Dhabi government and is operated by Kempinski, a European hotelier known for 5-star luxury.  In my travels, I've stayed in some really nice hotels, and this place is out of this world!

Selfies under the ornate dome in the main lobby

The hotel was built to showcase Arabic culture, and it certainly does.  There is also a lovely performance venue which has seen the likes of Yo-Yo Ma and Christina Aguilera to name a few.  

We made our way to Le Cafe, which is an open cafe in the back of the lobby.  We didn't order any of the gold-leaf specialties, G went with fish and chips and I went with chamomile tea and the "light as a feather" scones.  I had some language barrier challenges trying to order chamomile tea because our server thought I was asking for "camel milk tea" and she kept trying to explain that they only served camel milk in the cappuccino.  After a few tries, I finally pointed to tea on the menu, and the whole situation was resolved. We learned that G is not a big fan of scones ("How is this different from a dry biscuit??").  Personally, I thought the scones were lovely - airy and light, and served with a variety of accouterments.  My favorite was a mix of the clotted cream with the delightfully tart raspberry jam.

G's fish and chips in the background with my yummy scones front and center!

After lunch, we wandered around the hotel. We peeked out the windows at the hotel's private beach and opted not to venture out since the sun was directly overhead.  There was also a crane outside, which is also a good deterrent for safety-conscious wanderers.  I snapped a photo instead.

View of the hotel's private beach and marina.  Check out those boats!

We found some grand staircases into conference-looking areas.  I imagine the hotel has a large number of weddings hosted there, although I cannot imagine how expensive those weddings must be!

One of many grand staircases.  Notice the custom etched glass on the stair rails, topped by marble.

We also looked at some of the menus for the restaurants around the hotel.  Generally, the food prices are reasonable for Abu Dhabi, with the exception of the baluga cavier and champagne ($850 for 50 grams)!

It was definitely a fun experience, I think when G's parents come to visit, Mom, baby, and I will go for afternoon tea while G and his dad go check out Ferrari world and ride the rides.  If I can find a good deal this summer, we might even stay a night here over the weekend - I hear during peak summer months, rates drop due to the heat, so it might be worth a mini adventure across the street!  

Home, Sweet Home (and a wedding!)

Two months after moving to Abu Dhabi, we headed home for a family wedding.  G's sister (Sarah) was tying the knot the first weekend of April!  We couldn't possibly miss it.  Plus it was an excuse to come home and enjoy all the things we missed from Houston. 

A blushing bride...

And a handsome groom!

We're so happy to see Sarah & Ben so happy!

Since we were home for 2 weeks, I'll hit the highlights of my favorite parts of the trip home:

• Of course, THE WEDDING!  It was the first time meeting G's extended family.  The groom and I had that in common.  Wedding was lovely, bride was gorgeous, we had a great time. :-)
• Seeing our family and friends!  We didn't get to catch up with everyone we wanted to, but we definitely saw a bunch including our swimming/triathlon buddies and our neighbors!
• Checking out mom and dad's new beach house in Galveston.  We only stayed one night, and it was super relaxing.  We will definitely enjoy spending some time there when we move back to Houston.
• Eating at most of our favorite restaurants, including KA Sushi, Liberty Kitchen Garden Oaks, Chick-fil-A, Cafe Express, Black Walnut, Gringo's, and Canyon Creek.  I think we probably would have eaten at a lot more restaurants if pregnancy didn't make me queasy half the time!
• Hanging out in our house.  There really is no place like home, and the house on Brinkman will always be the first home that G and I had together.  For all the little things that drive us nuts about it, we still love it!



Photo that G's dad took of us at the wedding.  The gorgeous dress from Rent The Runway hid my little baby bump!

In addition to all these, Sarah moved in to our home on Brinkman!  I mentioned in Uncertainty is Hard that we have fabulous house-sitters.  Our (now) brother-in-law, Ben, has been house sitting for us since we moved out, and we were so fortunate that the timing of their leases expiring worked out so they could live in our house.  With my assignment being a "short term" assignment, my company didn't provide any sales or rental assistance, and having an empty house is almost as bad (if not worse) than having bad renters.  Plus our home is very close to one of Ben's cousins that he and Sarah spend a lot of time with, so the situation iss great for everyone!

We also had the opportunity to announce to our family and friends that we're having a baby girl, and that we decided to name her after my mother who passed away from ovarian cancer in 2014. We were hoping for a good 3D ultrasound photo of her to share, and she is apparently a wiggler and a thumb sucker. She wouldn't stay still long enough for the 3D rendering, and the few times we ALMOST got it, she moved her hands in front of her face.  Maybe when she gets bigger and has a little less room in my belly, we'll get a good photo.

After two weeks at home, we were sad to head back to Abu Dhabi - we love the life we built for ourselves in Houston!  Fortunately, we know that with such good quality friends and our beloved family, we can adventure around the world and know that we can always come back home.

Somebody...Anybody...please deliver my baby?

During my time in Houston, I had been going to the same ob/gyn in Houston for 6 years.  I love her, she's awesome, and she has been with me through some ups and downs!  I was SO SAD to leave her to move to Abu Dhabi.

My first priority once moving to Abu Dhabi was to find a new doctor.  I combed the expat forums, I researched the hospitals and I originally landed on delivering at the Corniche Hospital.  It's an older, public hospital in the UAE, but it is well known for its ability to handle delivery complications and its excellent NICU facilities.  It is also known for being the only hospital in Abu Dhabi that offers expectant mothers the option to use a midwife instead of doctor for uncomplicated pregnancies, and the reviews from moms online who chose the midwife option were glowing!  After a little extra digging, however, I learned that the Corniche is continually overcrowded, and at some point they started turning expat expectant mothers away because the barely had enough beds to handle local Emirati expectant mothers.  One of the problems with the internet is that there is so much information out there and a lot of it is outdated -- so ratings and reviews circa 2011/2012 don't really apply anymore.  Compounded with some news articles describing the all-day waits for scheduled appointments and the recent change in management for the Ob/Gyn department, I decided the Cornice was probably not for me after all.  Back to the drawing board.

The bloggers and forums advised that if not going the midwife route, choose a hospital first and then choose a doctor.  Our relocation agent suggested BrightPoint Royal Women's hospital - it was new, it had the same level of NICU facilities as the Corniche, and private rooms for new moms.  Great!  Next step, find a doctor. I combed through threads looking for doctors similar in background and philosophy to my doctor back home.  I want to have minimal intervention unless necessary - the rate of planned C-Sections in UAE is quite high, so I've been careful to read on up philosophies of the doctors I was interviewing.  I finally picked a doctor at King's College Clinic who has hospital rights at Brightpoint.  G and I loved her - we immediately felt comfortable in her office, and had a great discussion about low risk pregnancy and delivery, until we found out that she was not taking patients due in August because of her scheduled vacation.  She had a couple of suggestions for other OBs who might be similar to her, but she couldn't strongly recommend any of them since she hadn't worked directly with any of them.

My next attempt came through a friend I made at work.  Her OB was located at Harley Street Clinic, just a stone's throw from our apartment.  AND she went to the University of Michigan!  Total Plus!! She was friendly and pleasant, maybe not as personable as Doctor #1, but I would have been happy to have her delivery my baby.  Except she had just left BrightPoint for Danat al Emirate hospital, which was quite far away from both my office and our apartment, and most importantly, not covered by my insurance.  No way are we going to pay for this baby out of pocket when we could go to a top line hospital and pay 50 AED (equivalent of $15!!) for our entire hospital stay. This was a major bummer for me, and she also had some suggestions for doctors who I might like.

At this point, I decided to stop trying to find a private clinic doctor and just go straight to the OB/GYN department at BrightPoint Hospital.  I figure at least if I go to the hospital clinic, there will always be a well-trained OB on call, and they'll have all my files.  By the time G and I interviewed Doctor #3, we didn't really have any new questions to ask.  She is very nice and through all my internet searching I haven't seen anything BAD about her, so we're happy enough with her. She is available in August because her long vacation is in July, she speaks English, and she has been very thorough when discussing my test results with me.  All is finally going well, and we're super relieved to have someone that we like delivering our baby!

Penguin Weekend in Dubai

When we moved to Abu Dhabi, we knew we would be headed back to Houston in April for G's sister's wedding and we decided we couldn't spend 2 months in Abu Dhabi without at least one weekend in Dubai.   Dubai is like Las Vegas, full of glitz and glamour.  We decided to go on St. Patrick's day weekend, booked a hotel using points and headed off!

We checked out the slopes of Ski Dubai  at the Mall of the Emirates, although we had decided ahead of time that we would not actually be skiing.  At 5 months pregnant, my ski pants didn't fit and I didn't want to worry about endangering the little one if I inevitably fell.  Besides, I really just wanted to go see the penguins that live at Ski Dubai, and to do that you only need a basic general admission ticket.

Mini baby bump, interfering with our ski plans!

Our basic park ticket came with a snowsuit and access to the snow park -  tobogganing, tubing, and a few rides on the snow ball (a giant plastic ball that you sit inside).  Mostly kiddie stuff, so not that exciting, but it was kind of fun to play in the snow for a couple hours.  Of course, the park had professional photographers everywhere so they could squeeze more money from susceptible tourists.  G and I are very susceptible tourists. :-)

Our awesome matching snowsuits - gloves not included, but enough cheesiness for everyone!

Ski Dubai offers a bunch of different penguin-related packages from a basic viewing of penguins all the way up to swimming with the penguins.  We opted to just go with a basic (i.e. free) March of the Penguins experience because we weren't sure what time we would get to Dubai from Abu Dhabi. The March happens at set times during the day, so if we missed the first one, we could go to the next without booking in advance.  Plus, I figure if my sister, Danielle-the-Penguin-Enthusiast ever came to visit, I'd take  her to one of the more active encounters.

The penguins were so cute!  The trainers were also pretty entertaining, asking a bunch of questions from the audience.  A few audience members who answered correctly got to go take a pictures with one of the penguin.  At first I didn't raise my hands because I thought this was mostly for the kiddos, but towards the end, the trainer was only calling adults -- so when the lady standing next to me answered wrong, G caught the trainer's attention and got him to call on me.  I can't even remember what the question was, I just know that I got it right!  My photo op with the King Penguin made the whole trip to Dubai worth it.

After our exciting encounter, we wandered around the Mall of the Emirates.  UAE is the land of shopping malls, and this one is no exception.  The mall is HUGE and unlike the malls of Abu Dhabi, it was crowded.  G and I grabbed a quick dumpling dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, and then headed to our hotel to call it a night.

Din Tai Fung without pork is a little sad... but the chicken versions were still delicious

The next morning we woke up early, checked out of the hotel and headed over to the Burj Khalifa.  I mean really, it's THE tourist thing to do, so of course we did it!  We opted for the "sunrise" tickets to avoid the crowds.  The plan worked really well, the tower was not crowded, however we didn't realize that the breakfast pastries included with the tickets happened AFTER the tour rather than before.  I think we would have spent longer on the observation deck if our tummies hadn't been rumbling for breakfast!

It was so bright, we were glad we brought our sunglasses!

After the observation deck, we checked out an exhibit at the Burj Khalifa annex featuring 007.  We were slightly less susceptible tourists this time and only purchase one photo instead of all the photos.  It was a pretty cool exhibit made up of costumes and set props from all the Bond movies with some history of Ian Fleming and the books to go with it.  There were some pretty cool cars too!

Why does the girl always get the wimpy gun?

After James Bond overload, we were both little peckish again, so we grabbed a quick snack before heading home to Abu Dhabi.  A super quick but fun weekend!

Red, white, and blue patriotic gelato.  Yum!

Aerial Acrobatics

I'll always think back to our first month in Abu Dhabi as a month of air shows.  The UAE national air force acrobatic team (called "Al Fursan" which translates to "The Nights") practiced over the Corniche almost every day, which made for a colorful commute home.

The first event was the Red Bull Air Race.  These are daredevil pilots who race through an obstacle course to try to beat the best time.  We were hoping we could see the Air Races from our apartment since we have a great view of the Breakwater, but alas, the ADNOC building blocked our view of the course.

The ADNOC building on the right blocked the entire obstacle course.  Total bummer.   

We did pack up a picnic blanket and go over to the Marina Mall area to watch an afternoon of racing, and when it got warm, we went back to the apartment to watch the races on TV.  The races went through the whole weekend, so there were plenty of opportunities to watch. Each day of racing ended with the Al Fursan acrobatic show, full of colored smoke and flawlessly executed stunts.  We don't have great photos of the first day of the Al Fursan since we watched it from our apartment...with the ADNOC building blocking about half the show. #lazy

G wanted a shot with his Motor Trends Magazine

The race course set over the beautiful Corniche

One of the competitors on the first loop of the course in front of Nations Towers.

We learned when we watched the broadcast that the pilots have to be careful when they take the loops  because there are maximum "G" restrictions on the course - if they go over, it's an automatic DQ!

We continued to see the Al Fursan practicing their skills throughout the month of February, ultimately culminating in the Union Fortress event in early March.  This was huge event of national pride for the Emirati's - a demonstration of all their armed forces for the general public.  The entire event was broadcast in Arabic (without English subtitles) so we had to guess what was going on, but it appears there was a mock hostage held captive on a terrorist yacht.  The various branches of the military worked together to rescue the mock hostage.  There were also mini staged skirmishes with the army storming various beaches along the Corniche, fighter jet flyovers with pyrotechnics in the water, and of course, all the excitement ended with a final air show from the Al Fursan.

There were 3 broadcast areas along the Corniche beach for spectators - unfortunately for us, it was all in Arabic

The army brought in tanks for the mock beach skirmishes

Various fighter jets flew over the crowds

We clearly did not pick the best beach to watch, but we still had a good time. Plus it was less crowded at our beach.

The Al Fursan in formation!

Lots of colorful smoke

Fun tricks

Pretty formations

It was fun to see little kids dressed up in army fatigues and waiving UAE flags all along the Corniche as their parents watched the show.  For such a young country, national pride runs deep in the UAE!

Sheikh Zayad Grand Mosque

The glittering white Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, an iconic structure for Abu Dhabi

If there is one thing that every visitor to Abu Dhabi MUST do, it is visit the Grand Mosque.  The artistry and architecture of the building are simply incredible.  G and I went late one Saturday in hopes of seeing the mosque at sunset, and we were not disappointed.  We took a guided tour, and  pretty much  everything we learned on the tour can be found on either the Wikipedia or the SZGMC Website, so I won't repeat any of it here.  I'll let the photographs we took and their captions speak for themselves.  The mosque is open to tourists until 10pm, so we think next time we'll try to go at night!

View of SZGM from the Parking Lot

Ladies must be covered from head to toe, so SZGM offers free abayas for ladies to borrow.  I brought my own scarf for my hair, and it just happened to match my abaya!

The endless white marble is accented inlaid semi-precious stones. The only paint in the mosque is the gold atop each column.

A closeup of the semi-precious stone inlay on the columns

The flowers on the floor are made of granites sourced around the world.  It's amazing to see how many different colors were used!

Beneath each of the small domes are verses from the Quran

G captured this beautiful shot of the sun dipping behind the main dome.  As the sun set, our tour headed inside to the prayer areas.

Even the drinking fountains are works of art

Chandeliers made of Swarovski Crystal gently light the interior of the SZGM...

Along with recessed floor lights in beautiful shapes.

The main prayer hall - more huge Swaravski chandeliers and the world's largest rug 

My favorite tourist :-)

Such a cool experience!