Abu Dhabi

I hardly slept a wink on the overnight flight to Abu Dhabi i watched a Bollymood movie to get me into the mood for india arrival. It was a beautiful warm morning when i arrived, palm trees, clear blue skies...ahhh heaven and massive change to bitterly cold Europe! I tried to wait for the bus to the city centre but i was so so tired i ended up forking out for the taxi. I met CS Faris in a cafe and got some caffine into me ASAP! Faris was a cool guy who was good friends with CS Evelyn that i had stayed with in Vienna. He had to go back to work for a meeting so he dropped me off at this 'urban park' area and we would meet up later.

Wow Abu Dhabi is cool but strange!!From the plane all you see is desert then all of a sudden this city emerges. But its very man-made. Everywhere the grass is like a carpet, shiny office blocks and hotels, flowerbeds on every corner, fountains everywhere, palm trees and spotlessly clean and men everywhere working around the clock to keep it like this. I walked along a lake so so beautiful absolute paradise then i met some locals. I was a big attraction in Abu Dhabi! Everytime i sat down some man would come over and ask if we can have a chat.

The chat consists of 3 questions:
1) where are you from?
Ireland
Holland?
no. Ireland
Holland?
right yeah ok holland!

2) what age are you?
25...might start throwing in a 16 or 45 see what reaction i get!

3) are you married?
definately YES!!!

I also had a few guys come up looking for photos with me and some old dirty Egyptian man who really took a shine to me (ie before i learnt to say yes for are you married question!!) kept telling me i make good wife for him ...yeah ok sure...help!!!!

Luckily i was sooo sleep deprived that i couldnt help but just break down in laughter. Faris told me about one of the massive shopping centre areas so i thought i'd head there get some more caffine and hopefully a break from these crazy men....Faris later explained to me that there is something like a 10:1 ratio of men to non-local women so the competition is on!

Mosque overshadowed by shiny buildings

The shopping centre was Huge. It was a mad mad mix of the local people, the men dressed like Ali baba and the women totally covered in the black gowns from head to toe and in contrast to this were the totally plastic westeners who seemed to be going for a Dolly Parton look. Strange!! The other strange thing was the women who were floating around in their black cloaks totally covered up and they were looking at sexy dresses...mmmm.

Around 4pm i started to give up the fight to stay awake i met up with Faris again and we tried to find somewhere cheap for me to stay abu dhabi only has 5 star hotels. Anyway i was so so sleep deprived that we hunted down the best bargin in town at E95 a night....and i didnt care one bit. May as well lap up the luxury before heading to India the next morning. This room had a phone beside the toilet....incase you feel the need to make a call then, slippers, gown, millions of soaps, etc etc ahhh heaven! The plan was to get freshened up and meet up with Faris for a drink but i rested my head on the pillow for a second and i was out cold.

Abu Dhabi magic mushroom inspired airport



Next day my heart was racing ohmygod going to india!!!!!!! It was racing even more when i got to the ariport but a strange thing happened as soon as i sat in the waiting room with the other indians getting onto the plane and had a look at them i felt a total sence of calm and knew everything was going to be ok! Excire and delire to be almost there!