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.
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.
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