Life As I See It - From Egypt

Ron and I were fortunate to see Megan on December 11th in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. Abu Dhabi is one of the seven Emirates that combined to form the United Arab Emirates. We toured the Prince's palace, spent time at the beach and worked in some shopping. We capped off the evening at a Lebanese restaurant that Megan had been to before. Excellent! Megan was well, as you can see in the picture, and we very much enjoyed our time with her.

After Abu Dhabi, we drove to Dubai to see the storied development in the shape of a palm tree and the indoor ski slope at the Dubai Mall. In terms of shopping, Dubai is a Mecca. They have a one-month long shopping festival in Jan & Feb. that attracts shoppers from all over the world. It exceeded my expectations and imagination. The King of Prussia Mall in Philly is big. The Dubai Mall is mammoth. And they just opened the Emirates Mall, which is just as big but all the spaces are not yet filled. The Palm developments were quite interesting and parts of it were beautiful. All the Palms (there are currently three) are still under construction. In fact, all of Dubai is still under construction. It is not a beautiful city. Maybe 10-15 years from now it will have a gorgeous skyline. Right now every other tract of land is a construction site and the tower cranes dominate everything. The city is like a life-sized development model. Everything is new… buildings, cars, roads, everything. Unlike Egypt, you can get anything in Dubai. It is very Westernized and rather sterile, almost to the point of soullessness. We were there during the International Film Festival. There were news cameras at all the theaters and hotels. We missed all the movie stars… darn!

We returned to Abu Dhabi to fly back to Egypt. Abu Dhabi is older, and it was a lovely city to visit. Ron and I were actually glad to get back to Egypt. With all its difficulties, it is quite vibrant, full of life and is a never ending source of adventure.