Abu Dhabi...Part 3

Back to Abu Dhabi.

On Saturday, we went to visit the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, which was finished in 2007. It is the largest mosque in the UAE and the eighth largest in the world. It is large enough to accommodate 40,000 worshipers and cost about $550 million to build.

The courtyard is about 180,000 square feet and with its floral design is considered the largest marble mosaic in the world. You can see part of the floral design under Emma, Evelyn, and Hyrum; clearly it was very, very bright. Thanks to a similar reflection in my buddy Scott's blog when he visited, I remembered to bring sunglasses. It's possible that I forgot to mention this to everyone else, though. Oops...

Outside, there are some beautifully manicured gardens with these large glass domes.

Like I said...it was bright.

Dress code.

Inside the entrance of the mosque, they have a model of the mosque...very meta.

They have the names (in Arabic and English) and times of the six daily prayers posted.

The mosque has seven imported chandeliers from Germany. The largest, seen below, is the second largest chandelier in a mosque and the third largest in the world (33 ft diameter and 49 ft height).

The main prayer hall (capacity: 7,000) has the world's largest carpet. It was made by Iran's Carpet Company, is 60,570 square feet, weighs 35 tons, and its 2,268,000,000 knots were made by 1,200-1,300 knotters over about 2 years. It is made primarily of wool (coming from New Zealand and Iran).

The 99 names of Allah are featured on the wall.

And with all that, Hyrum was most excited about the water.

Me in the doorway into the courtyard.

We also saw the Capital Gate building (aka the Leaning Tower of Abu Dhabi), which is the "world's furthest leaning man-made tower" with an 18 degree westward lean. The Leaning Tower of Pisa leans at about 4 degrees, and something called the Leaning Tower of Suurhusen leans at about 5.2 degrees. Therefore, Capital Gate doesn't just beat the competition; it blows it out of the water. The Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Leaning Tower of Suurhusen are both unintentionally tilted, while Capital Gate was built to lean on purpose. Therefore, the Leaning Tower of Suurhusen still holds the record of most leaning tower that is unintentionally tilted, which sounds like a sore loser trying to come up with another competition category so they can still win something. Really, you're now flagging the fact that your structural tilt is ineptitude instead of a conscious decision? If you look closely (doesn't really require you to look that closely to see the reflection), you can tell that we saw the building through the car window.

On Sunday, we went to a huge mall in Dubai before dropping me off at the airport. It's a weird feeling to be shopping on a Sunday, but the holy day there is Friday, I swear...maybe not the best turn of phrase when discussing the Sabbath...okay, I promise.

On the way to the mall, we passed two things that screamed Abu Dhabi to me. The Petroleum Institute and a gas station food court that included a store called "Texas Chicken." When you combine oil, American influenced chain stores, large Muslim mosques, and beautiful beaches, you start to get a sense that Abu Dhabi is an interesting place.

The mall was huge and included (starting in picture #2; picture #1 is to indicate overall largeness) an aquarium, an ice rink, a bagel shop (mainly exciting to people who have spent bagel-less months in Ethiopia), some weird fountain with metal or stone men who are either diving into the water or trying to commit suicide head first, giant potted plants (seriously, where do you find a plant pot that big), and a small grocery store.

"You didn't really think I would leave Buzz and Woody at home to miss all the excitement, did you?"

Next to the mall is the tallest building in the world (I have no further information than that; feel free to research on your own time). The building is seriously so tall that no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't get the whole thing in the picture (even with the photographer getting as close to the ground as possible and slanting the camera up). I hear the fountain show at the base of the building is really cool, but we'll have to save that for another trip.

The tallest building in the world seems like a good place to end the trip recap.

While not detailed until next week, I wanted to publicly congratulate my brother Lawrence and his new wife Erika on their union! Congratulations you two! To the many years ahead!

Abu Dhabi...Part 2

Alright, Abu Dhabi post #2. It’s time to lean heavily on the ability of children to be entertaining to fill a post. I’m going to warn you that the post is going to reference Hyrum more than Evelyn and Rosemary. That has nothing to do with my love for the three of them. It’s just that Evelyn spends all day in school, and while Rosemary is cute, she doesn’t yet supply many stories you can write about (just lots of laughing and smiles). Hyrum, on the other hand, is very good (as his sister was at his age) of requiring your monopolized attention, which is fine because he’s so entertaining!

Evelyn is the epitome of a little lady. It’s crazy to see how quickly she’s growing up. I remember her being so much like Hyrum, and she has definitely moved on to the next stage. She’s really bright and clever. When we used to play the matching game, she wouldn’t find matches unless you hinted strongly at them. This time, she was finding ones even if it had been several turns since the card had been turned over. I was very impressed (especially since I some of her matches were ones I had forgotten). Congratulations Evelyn! At five, your raw mental power has surpassed your Uncle Charles’.

Here's Evelyn entering the prison where she spends her days...actually, having been inside, I have to admit it's a really nice school...but the entry gate does make it look a little like a prison (though not as much as the school Careen and I went to in Houston). Lest you think I've confused my niece with a brunette boy in a Toy Story backpack, I'll point out that Evelyn's the one in the far background in the pink backpack. Clearly, Uncle Charles is not very fast at getting the camera out. 

Hyrum is clearly still obsessed with Toy Story. Buzz and Woody are his companions of choice for playtime, car trips, going out and about, and even nap/quiet time in bed. The other characters are slightly less loved and are more supporting characters in play time. I knew my animal gifts were a hit when they also reached supporting character status. Buzz, Woody, and the African Animals – potential Toy Story 4 subtitle?

Hyrum with Woody, Buzz, and the supporting cast:

Hyrum sitting at the table in the background. New supporting cast members giraffe and lion are in the foreground.

Hyrum’s Toy Story adulation has changed a bit though in that he will no longer watch Toy Story 2 or Toy Story 3 because Zorg and the bear (respectively) are too scary. Sorry Sid (Toy Story 1 villain), you didn’t make the cut…how embarrassing.

Hyrum has definitely reached the stage of toddlerhood (is that a word?) where he asks a million questions. My favorite is that anytime anyone laughs, Hyrum will come up to you and shout, “What was funny about?” He’s definitely got some lungs on him, which I imagine reminds my parents of my childhood (okay, maybe he’s not THAT loud).

My favorite Hyrum experience of the trip might have been getting him ready for church. I put a polo shirt on him, and after buttoning the bottom of the two buttons, I thought we were done. How could I have been so foolish?

Hyrum (very loudly): “Other button! Other button!”

Me: “Hyrum you don’t need to scream. Come over here and ask quietly for what you want.”

Hyrum (somewhat softer): “Other button…please.”

Me: “Hyrum, what do you want with your other button?”

Hyrum: “Button it.”

Me: “Hyrum, you can’t button the top button of your shirt. People don’t do that.”

Hyrum (very loudly and panicked): “Mom! Mom!”

Me: “Hyrum, your Mom is taking a bath; you can’t bug her. What do you want?”

Hyrum: “I want her to do my other button.”

Me: “Fine, if you really want it, I’ll do it. Come here…but you’ll look weird.”

Hyrum (as the button is buttoned): “No, I don’t want to look weird.”

Me: “Do you want me to undo it then?”

Hyrum: “I can do it myself” (as he yanks the two sides of the shirt apart from each other).

Me: “Hyrum, you’re going to rip your shirt; let me do it.”

Hyrum: “Okay.”

Mission accomplished! Who knew watching children was so similar to consulting – you just have to get the child/client to come to the same conclusion you already did.

Here's Hyrum in the aforementioned polo with his Buzz Lightyear wings (aka hangers). Before you say anything, of course it's blurry...he's flying!

Also seemed like a good spot to insert the picture of the matching girls dressed for Church.

Rosie is adorable…I really don’t know what else to say. I’m glad I waited until her sleep schedule adjusted to the time change before visiting ;) She smiles and laughs all the time and doesn’t cry very much. Seriously, check it out (you'll also notice that she likes to stick her tongue out pretty much all the time, whether smiling or not).

Clearly, she is well loved (even though Hyrum's "loving moment" looks a little like an attack):

Let's finish up strong with a picture of everyone (except John who was working) at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. That's a sneak peek of what the next post contains. That's right, we're making it a three-parter! If I visit often enough, I won't ever have to do anything interesting in Ethiopia for the blog ;)

Abu Dhabi (for real this time)...Part 1

After the teaser that was my last post, I figure it's time to actually share the details of the Abu Dhabi trip. The trip was planned only a couple weeks before when I realized that both Wednesday, May 1 and Friday, May 3 were public holidays in Ethiopia. May 1 is always International Workers' Day (or Labor Day), regardless of the day of the week, and May 3 was Good Friday (Ethiopian Easter was on May 5). Ethiopian Easter is calculated differently than western Easter because the Eastern Orthodox Church (which is the main religion in Ethiopia) calculates Easter based on a different calendar (the Julian Calendar) than Catholic and Protestant denominations (the Gregorian Calendar). In other words, from the US perspective, I celebrated Easter a month late and Labor Day two-and-a-half months early.

Easter is a much bigger deal in Ethiopia than Christmas (which is also on a different day than western Christmas). This is because they celebrate his death and resurrection as more important than his birth, which if you think about it, makes a lot of sense. The Atonement is the defining, supernal act in all of the history of mankind, so it's actually a little weird that in the US Christmas is a bigger deal than Easter. Ethiopians fast for the 56 days of lent leading up to Easter, meaning they don't eat meat or animal products of any kind. This makes it pretty easy to order vegetarian or vegan food in Ethiopia by just ordering dishes that are marked as fasting dishes. Then, Easter is the day of celebration after the long period of "suffering" to represent Christ fasting for forty days and forty nights (amazing what you can learn/confirm from Wikipedia).

Most Ethiopians take their annual holiday around Easter time, so a bunch of people weren't at work last week and this week. Traditionally, the holiday is spent with family, so there's actually a pretty big exodus from Addis as people go to the country to visit their families. In the same spirit, I decided to take the opportunity to visit my sister Emma and her family.

The trip started off auspiciously with my Tuesday late night flight. While very few flights in the US now take off or land between midnight and six am local time, with international travel, you really could end up traveling anytime of the day or night. My flight took off at 10:15 pm Addis time and landed at 3:00 am in Dubai (only one hour ahead). The flight was the equivalent of flying from NYC to Kansas City, just at a strange time of day. Even more peculiar, Ethiopian Airlines has both a 10:15 pm flight and an 11:00 pm flight to Dubai. The only other flight of the day is a 10:55 am flight, so I have no idea why two of the three daily flights are only 45 minutes apart.

Every so often, I see things here that remind me companies aren't proofreading nearly as carefully as they do in the states. For example, Ethiopian Airlines safety card has an African woman putting on a child's lifevest (see #4 in the picture below), and in the zoom in on her hands, her complexion changes dramatically.

Anyway, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are not connected by public transit, so you have to cab it (about a 1.5 hour drive). After passport control / customs (remarkably busy at 3 am) and the taxi ride, I got to Emma and John's sometime after 5 am. Emma was up pretty soon after I got there, so we went for a walk on the road right by the beach before the kids woke up. After spending 2 months in a landlocked country and seeing how the lack of a port harms the agriculture industry, it was pretty awe-inspiring to be somewhere with direct access to the ocean (in this case the Persian Gulf, which is an extension of the Indian Ocean).

I know I mentioned last time that Abu Dhabi is the location of most of UAE's wealth, but seriously, Abu Dhabi generated 56% of UAE's GDP in 2008 (versus 32% for Dubai) and Fortune Magazine and CNN declared it the richest city in the world in 2007. That's crazy.

Once the kids were awake, Hyrum helped me move my stuff up to the guest room on the third floor at which point Hyrum exclaimed, "You're staying in Nonna's room!" I guess my Mom visiting for three weeks right after they moved in had a permanent effect. Pretty cool view from the room (though to be fair I think everywhere in Abu Dhabi probably has a view of large buildings).

We did several awesome things during my time there, and I'll give a full recap of them and the cuteness of Evelyn, Hyrum, and Rosemary next time. This time I wanted to mention our Saturday night desert adventure. Emma, John, Evelyn, Hyrum, and I went out to the desert for an evening of awesomeness as displayed below:

Meeting the camels:

Sand duning, which is a mix between off-roading and a roller coaster. Very fun.

Sand boarding, which is exactly what it sounds like and makes me want to move to Abu Dhabi just so I can do it all the time. My skills were definitely lacking, but it was crazy fun. In the first picture, you can barely see me holding the board over my head at the top of the dune.

Desert dining:

After dinner, there was a belly dancing show, which was fantastic because Hyrum started running all over the place and attempting to imitate the dancing. Definitely upstaged the show. Near the end, John, Evelyn, and Hyrum went up on stage with a bunch of other audience participants.

We did not participate in the traditional smoking of shisha.

[PICTURE NOT AVAILABLE]

All in all, a pretty great evening. Anyway, I promise cute pictures and thoughts on the kids next time.

A final note: Today Noah (one of the other SPAs) and I were walking somewhere for lunch. A guy randomly pulled over and asked if we wanted a ride. Turns out he was a preacher in a local church here, and he drove us about halfway to our destination before needing to head in another direction. That totally made my day. Random acts of kindness showcase the divinity within each of us, so go do something nice for someone.