UAE: Abu Dhabi | Dubai

Just made it back!

Yup, I've spent the past week in the UAE participating in the first Advanced QC course in the new WesternGeco building on the Schlumberger compound just outside Shamkha City. Traveling was exhausting. My scheduled 14 hour direct flight from Chicago to Abu Dhabi ended up being a 21 hour flight with a emergency stop in Milan, Italy because a passenger had a heart attack in flight.

But anyway... I stayed in the Al Maha Arjaan in Abu Dhabi, a very nice hotel, one I would recommend if you ever visit the city. It was close to everything, malls, street shopping, restaurants. Close to everything... except the damned compound. Every morning and afternoon it was a freakin' hour and half drive to and from, horrible.

Temperatures hovered in the low to mid 90's the whole trip, and unfortunately, travel was very limited. I did get one good night in Abu Dhabi or shopping for some touristy gift type things, as well as a framed UAE coin set. It's a perfect tourist gift for a person in the MD hobby, or coin collecting in general. I also scored a sweet middle eastern style hunting knife, a glass light up sculpture of the Burj Al-Arab, a couple magnets and a shot glass for my chica friend who is out on the Tau right now... I'll be seeing her Thursday for Crew-X.

My last night there, which was Thursday night, which in the UAE is their Friday night. Two buddies (Ray and Mauricio) and myself hired a private chauffeur to cart us out to Dubai and around the city for 8 hours. Dubai is AMAZING! Go there, if you can afford it! I went everywhere... Atlantis on Palm Island, the Burj Al-Arab, Burj Al-Dubai (World's Tallest Building), Dubai Mall, Mall of the Emirates... lots of cool places. I snapped a sweet video of the water show in front of the Burj Lake Hotel, check it out at the end of this post.

I ended up getting a 91 in the class, met lots of cool folks from the company, and saw a sweet new world city to add to my travels... enjoy the pics!

Abu Dhabi

DUBAI