Eid

This past weekend was our first holiday break for the school year.  We had Sunday (yes we work on Sunday) and Monday off to celebrate Eid al-Adha also known as The Feast of the Sacrifice.  This holiday is celebrated by Muslims to honor Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.  As the story goes God intervenes and gives Abraham a lamb to sacrifice instead.  To celebrate this holiday Muslim families slaughter a lamb keeping one third of it for themselves, giving one third to relatives and friends, and giving one third to the needy.  To read more about this holiday please see my "Did you know" page.  Here is the display at the front of my school for the holiday.

For the holiday I had a total of four days when we include the weekend.  Since I wasn't like most of the other expats who hopped on a plane to explore a foreign land (Can you believe it?  I didn't go out of town!), I thought I would take the opportunity to explore the foreign land I was living in.  Here's what I did:
First I visited Jabel Hafeet.  This is a mountain that you can see lit up in the distance every night in Al Ain.  I enjoyed the winding roads all the way to the top and on my way down.  It reminded me of when my dad used to take us on trips through the mountains.  Here's my view.

The bottom of the mountain

I have braids!  Couldn't deal with my hair anymore.

Halfway point

Made it to the top!

Traveling Crew!

Next I went to Abu Dhabi (the city) and went to Yas Beach Club.  I loved the water and got to see another great sunset.

My last stop was to Dubai to go to Ski Dubai at the Mall of Emirates.  That was a complete failure due to the holiday crowd.  Like I said in a previous post, families here go to the mall for fun.  So after they finished their celebration at home they headed to the mall on Sunday.  It took us 45 minutes to find a parking space.  Once we got to Ski Dubai there was an overwhelming crowd.  So we decided to go to Cheesecake Factory, get dinner, and then check out some shops. 

Mall entertainment

Credits to James for his pic from the scene at Mall Dubai.  This is the largest mall in the world and it was still crowded!

Dubai

I finally made it to Dubai a couple of weeks ago!  I was so excited to finally see this place.  I wanted to go to Dubai as soon as I got to the UAE, but needed to wait until I got my first pay check (talk about excitement when I finally got paid).  Dubai is only an hour away from where I am living so I plan on visiting frequently.  On this trip I went to the beach and the largest mall in the world, Dubai Mall!  It was a great short day trip.  I can't wait until I go again...which will probably be this weekend!

Highway View

 Tall buildings everywhere!

 The Beach!!!

The tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa

 In front of the largest mall in the world, Dubai Mall.

Police Car

The aquarium inside the mall

 Mall Map because I couldn't get a picture of how big the mall really is, lol.

Water fountain inside the mall.  I thought it was pretty cool.