Formula 1

I hope everyone had a great and safe Thanksgiving yesterday!  Some friends and I got together and cooked and to celebrate the holiday.  One of our Egyptian friends joined us and was tired after we ate.  We told him getting sleepy after you eat is also a part of the Thanksgiving tradition!  Here are a few pictures from last night's feast.

My beautiful turkey!  I had to fold the sides of the pans and turn the way I would usually put a turkey in the oven to make it fit in my oven.  It was a 13 pound turkey by the way.  For those of you who know me, yes, I did make rolls as well.

Ashley, Islam (our friend from Egypt), and myself 

In other news, last weekend was the Formula One Race in Abu Dhabi.  The race weekend was filled with activities around the city.  Most of the events took place where the race was being held on Yas Island which is about 20 minutes from downtown.  I made my way to Abu Dhabi, but did not make it to Yas Island.  I was going to check it out to see what was going on but didn't feel like dealing with the traffic.  Based on the radio these were some of the activities taking place:  the grand opening of Yas Mall (yes, another mall), the Ferrai club was having a race and showcasing cars (I'm sure that was cool), Pharrell was having a concert (heard it was crazy expensive), and of course the actual race was going on (no NASCAR here...a guy from the BMW team won).  

I decided to attend a free concert on the beach with some of friends that lived in the city.  The two performers I recognized were Miguel and Jason Derulo.  Most of the people I was with, including myself, wanted to see Miguel.  Everyone else who was at the concert came to see Jason Derulo.  We found that rather funny.  At the beach they had a lot of vendors set up with fun activities and showcases for all ages.  We walked around for a bit and then checked out the concert.  Here is some footage from the event.

A radom cool looking guy 

Miguel

Jason Derulo

Mosaic art in the underground walkway tunnel

Ski Dubai

The weekend before last (yes, I'm late with this post) I took yet another trip down the highway to Dubai to visit Ski Dubai.  This time my trip was a success!  My first attempt was during Eid weekend and it was a failure due to the sea of people.  We couldn't even walk through the crowd to get to the counter.  This time we walked right up to the counter.  We paid  200 Dirham ($54.45) for two hours of skiing, pants, a coat, boots, snowboard or skis, and a helmet if you choose to wear one.

Once you get inside the actual snow arena you can ski or snowboard, go snow tubing, have a penguin experience, or roll in a huge snowball.  For some reason I didn't think it would be as cold inside this snow arena as it is when you are outside skiing, but it was.  My fingertips actually got a little cold.  Thank goodness I brought my Green Bay Packers hat to keep my head warm (Go Pack Go! I actually ran into another Packers fan while boarding).  Due to all of these activities there were only two slopes to ski down.  There were two lifts and no line, so I would say that the runs were good for practice.  If you are an advanced boarder or skier then you might not find this place too exciting.  For me, it was a fun experience and another item checked off my list.

Here's Ashley about to take her ski lesson.

Part of the slopes.

Snowball!  People get inside of these and roll down a small hill.

View from the lift

National Flag Day

November 3rd was National Flag Day!  It was also a little glimpse of how much pride the people here have for their country and what's to come for National Day which is on December 2nd.  Now National Flag Day is literally a day to celebrate their flag.  This day marks the day that the United Arab Emirates received their flag.  It also celebrates the day Sheikh Khalifa became president of the UAE.  To celebrate Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai mandated that everyone raise the UAE flag at noon and participate in a Flag Day celebration.  Here's a quick look at the Flag Day celebration at my school.

Video Note:  Those things you will see the boys throwing in the air during their "dance" are toy guns.  Toy guns are not frowned upon here and are allowed to be brought to school.  Also this is as organized as our presentations get!

For better quality you can find this video here:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NFCLAd-H5s

Flag Day has officially kicked off decorations for National Day.  Around town there are flags everywhere.  When I say everywhere I mean on cars, houses, buildings, and even outfits.  I would compare it to Christmas decorations back home.  Pictures of the city decorations coming soon!

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!