The construction site right outside my window

As some of you already know, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are among the fastest growing cities in the world. Everywhere you look, there are cranes. In fact, when I wake up in the morning, this is what I see outside of my window. This is the beginning of a huge apartment complex. It's just amazing to see how quickly building go up in this city. In fact, there is a significant difference between where this building was when I first arrived to where it is now. I will try to take a photo each month so that we can all see how quickly things happen around here!


You can see the migrant workers doing their thing. It amazes me that they wear long-sleeved clothing even in the super hot weather that we have here. Although it's a bit cooler already than it was when I first arrived in August, it's still hotter than I've ever experienced in NY. The best way that I can explain the August heat here is to compare it when you open up the door to an oven that is on. The hot wave of air that strikes you in the face is equivalent to what it's like here. Five minutes outside and you are literally soaken wet with sweat. It is absolutely mind-blowing to experience, and without air-conditioning, life would be almost unbearable. In fact, even these migrant workers have AC where they live.
This is the view from outside of my window when looking to the right. You can see the water in the distance. Once this building goes up, this view will no longer exist, which is kind of interesting to consider. One moment it's here, another it's not!
Here's one of the main roads in Abu Dhabi. You can see how wide the lanes are. The roads are clean and well-maintained.

I'll keep the posts coming!

A day trip to Sharjah

The UAE is made of 7 Emirates (equivalent to states in the USA). We ventured out to another one of them yesterday. The name of the Emirate is Sharjah. It's not as wealthy as Abu Dhabi because it doesn't have nearly as much oil, and it's easy to see the difference. It's dirtier and much more traditonal then here. It's known for amazing prices on car parts. In fact, people drive from Abu Dhabi to there just to get good deals on their car parts, so if any of you want a good deal, you now know where to come! Here is a link to the pictures from that day. There are captions below each picture explaining them in more detail. Follow this link below and enjoy!

http://binghamton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2090569&l=7f10e&id=8115079

Also, please keep questions coming!!! If I fail to answer all of them, please let me know that, too, so that I can answer it!
Thanks!!!

Back again with photos from Oman!

So, this time around I have some pretty good excuses. It turns out that my weekdays here have become a non-stop work assignment from the time that I awake in the morning to the time that I go to bed at night. I apologize to all for a failure in keeping in touch if you're feeling that way, but this is the reason why. Secondly, my computer had some major issues, and I finally have it fixed now, which means that from this point forward it will only take me 20 seconds or so to upload a photo that for some reason was taking me 5 minutes to do before. Of course, no one really wants to hear about this though. All you want are pictures, and that's rightfully so, so here they are! There are many of them, which is why I posted them to a website. Cut and paste the link below into your web browser in order to see them:

http://binghamton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2090505&l=40695&id=8115079

I hope that you enjoy them! Plenty more pictures to come!

I'm still here!

I'm still here! I have not forgotten about the blog, but I'm just waiting for the pictures from our trip to the desert in Oman. As soon as they come through, I'll post them.
Stay tuned!
- Paul : )

One of my first amazingly different cultural experiences!

So, when moving to a new place, I now understand that it's so easy to get caught up in the hard feelings of adjusting to a different way of life and dealing with the very strong homesickness. However, today, I had what I thought was an amazing experience that really helped me to realize how blessed I am to be here and to see all of this new world around me.
As I mentioned in a previous post, it is Ramadan here, which means that people fast all day long, completely depriving themselves of even having a glass of water while the sun is out. The fast ends as soon as the sun goes down, which right now is around 6:00-6:15PM. Before, at this time, I went into a barber shop hoping to get a quick clean-up of my sideburns from the barber. When I walked in, he was kind of hesitant to do the job because they were just about to eat, but then at the last minute decided to do so. I felt bad and insisted that I come back after the feast, but he further insisted that I sit down, and so I did. It took him 5 minutes to do my sideburns, and when I was done, he invited me to eat with him and his three friends, and this is where the experience came about.
In the corner of the barber shop they set up a rug on which they had all kinds of food just laying out on top of newspaper. I sat down with them on this carpet on the floor, and we sat Indian style looking at the food silently, waiting for the prayer call to go off. When it was time, we all ate together, right there on the floor. There were four of us, and it was a wonderful experience. The men were from Pakistan, and only one of them spoke English. We discussed their culture and their traditon, and I told them that it was completely different for me to be eating on the floor. In their culture, sitting on the floor makes everyone equal, as there is not even a head of the table as we have in the Western world.
What else struck me about these men was how poor they were but yet how willing they were to offer me food. For us, the concept of eating off of a newspaper would be disgusting (and it probably is bad for you), but to them, it's an efficient way to eat. By the way, no utensils, either!
I also have pictures from my trip to Oman, where I saw some incredible scenery. I wish that all of you could be here with me seeing it! I will post the pictures as soon as possible with more explanation of them as soon as possible!
Thanks and love and miss you all!
- Paul : )

A little taste of that family life that I miss so very much!!!

Today I came home from work competely exhausted. Starting a new middle schol is no easy task, ESPECIALLY for such a young teacher with as limied experience as I have. The past few days it's taken it's toll on me. Less sleep at night just tossing and turning, worrying (as I know so well how to do). One of the things tha I miss most here is that genuine family life. Before I get more into this part of the story, I will tell you a bit about Lilas...
So, it's March of this year and it's one month after I find out that I'm moving to Abu Dhabi. I go to on to Facebook and join a few groups of people from Abu Dhabi and start to ask questions about life over there and asking for advice from anyone that already lives tere. This girl Lilas writes backto me, totally friendly from the get-go. and because she was so nice, we naturallly continued communicating. A few months pass by and we get friendlier and friendlier with each oher. In May, I get a picture of the building that I will be living in in Abu Dhabi, and I send it to Lilas asking her if she knows where it is in the city. The picture is below:

My building is the tall glass one, and Lilas's is the one to the left with the balconies showing! That's right, she writes back telling me that we are going to be neighbors Since then, of course, we were both thrilled and communicated right until I arrived. We saw each other as soon as I got here.
Since I've been here, her apartment has become like my home away from home. I come here quite often after school, eat with her husband and 6 year-old daughter, and just relax. They're a super young couple, in their early 30's, and their house gives me the true feeling of home that I miss so much right now. I have to say what the hardest part of this experience so far is missing the family and friends that I'm so close to. Everyone that I talk to says it gets easier, and I'm waiting for that to happen! I can't wait to see everyone when I get home though!
I'm going to go back into the family room now and watch some more TV with them before I head off home to bed! Right now it's 7:20PM and I'm totally exhausted This Ramadan work schedule is running me down, but there are only two weeks left of it. We work for 7 hrs. straight with only 10 minutes in between to eat lunch!
Talk to you all soon, and thanks again for reading the post!
- Paul : )

Some more food for thought

So, I still have a few more questions coming, which is always good! I'm glad that everyone is interested in reading! I apologize in advance if I don't post daily, but as you can all understand, it's not always easy! One of the first questions that I got is "what is it like for you in a typical day?" Well, there are some interesting answers to that, as well! The school year started with the days beginning at 7:50AM. The school provides a bus that takes us to work, and being that we live the farthest away from the school of all the rest of the staff, we have the longest ride to work and back home, which is minutes long. However, always being one to try to save time in any circumstance, I started taking a cab. Cost for a 15 minute cab ride to work: 10 dirhams, which in US currency is only $2.70! I would pay that money for some extra sleep in the morning any day! Plus, of my three roomates, 2 have already noticed how much more relaxing it is in the morning to not have to get up at 5:45 to catch the bus and have therefore joined in on the cab ride with me, which obviously makes it cheaper for all of us!
The school day runs until 2:50 on a normal day, HOWEVER, it is now Ramadan, which changes EVERYTHING. Ramadan is the Islamic holy month and is just important to Muslims is to Christians. The concept of Ramadan, from all that I've understood so far, is to get closer with the Muslim faith through sacrifice, which for during Ramadan means not eating or drinking all day until sundown. This is a daunting task, especially during the hot summer months. In order to deal with this, the whole Muslim world restructures its life. Offices open later in the morning and close earlier in the afternoon. Our school day begins at 8:20 and ends at 1:10. The lessons are shorter, planning times are more compacted, and it generally becomes a stress-fest for all teachers involved.
After the sun goes down during Ramadan, Muslims have a party each night and eat together with family and friends. In fact, it is against the law for anyone (including me and all other foreigners) to be seen eating or drinking in public. If you are caught, you get a fine and are seriously shunned upon. Therefore, during this time the staff room door is closed for when we eat lunch, we have no water bottles in the classroom, etc. Our students are tired everyday during Ramadan because they go wake up super early in the morning to eat and drink before the sun comes up and are up late at night at family parties. Life changes in everyway during Ramadan, and in the end, we have one week off to recover!!!
A few weeks ago I went to the Emirates Palace, which is the most expensively built hotel in the world. It's luxury is absolutely mind-blowing, and the luxury of it's service is second-to-none in the world (actually, except for that famous hotel in Dubai). Here are some photos of it:

The outside of the palace. Sorry about the poor quality of the photo, but the camera that I used wasn't exactly the best!

The main lobby (mush more beautiful to see, but you can get some idea of it).

The main lobby, with the former and current president of the UAE.

The back courtyard (which we found out later we weren't supposed to have access to)...

A photo of the UAE flag waving along with some of the architechture of the building.

This place is truly mind-blowing!

Sorry, but I've got to run! Will post next chance I get!

- Paul : )