Finally made it here, talk about a long crazy journey! I am staying in Abu Dhabi for now since this is closer to where I'll be doing most of my work, but will also be going to Dubai to work on some things there. Flights were actually not too bad, I think I am getting so used to flying that it went by fairly quickly. On my flight to Amsterdam I sat next to a guy who was from the States but lived in Kuwait for the last 8 years or something, but he had to fly home to finalize his divorce with his wife who he had been separated with for the whole time he was in Kuwait or something. Both of us were also speaking with a girl from Iraq who was trying to teach me some Arabic, but the only thing I can remember is how to say airplane!
The Amsterdam airport was quite crazy, they had a Museum there and a Casino inside of the airport plus all sorts of places to eat and hang out while you were waiting for the flights. I bought a few post cards and asked the clerk how to get into the city and he directed me towards baggage claim where I could catch the train into the city. So I went through passport control and spoke with the security officer there and he said there is a ton of stuff within walking distance from the Central train station and showed me where to buy tickets.
So I headed into town and walked around for a while and took a bunch of
pictures. I'm assuming I was in the Red Light district because there was "coffee shop" after "coffee shop" and a bunch of sex shops scattered about, plus the Sex Museum and some restaraunts that advertised stuff about scantily cladded women. The surprising part was there were a bunch of normal stores, art studios and bakeries all around the same area too. It was only a little past 9am when I started walking around but there were a lot of coffee shops that already had a ton of people in them! I was chattin on the phone with wife and some guy was standing a few feet away finishing up his joint before getting into a taxi.
On my flight here I think there were more white people than on the flight to Amsterdam (most were British or American but there were a lot of eastern Europeans as well). Luckily for me my company hired their "Marhaba" service to assist me in getting through the airport and getting to the hotel. Of all the airports I've been in, this one had to be the crazy busiest one to get through Immigration since every flight is a international. So some lady assisted me through passport control where there were at least 2000 people waiting to get into the country (if not more) and through Security and baggage claim and then found my driver for me. There had to be at least 500 people holding up signs for people to take them to different hotels and then at least 500 more local taxi drivers offering to assist people. It was almost like out of some movies I've seen.
The ride here was LONG, so I should of probably flown into Abu Dhabi here, but I got to see a bunch of crazy buildings on the way here. We drove right through "Dubai Land" which they are still building, but is suppose to eventually dwarf Disney/Orlando as the theme park capital of the world. They are building a DreamWorks theme park here, Tiger Woods is building a golf course, and they already had some theme parks up with roller coasters and the "Dubai Eye" (a big ferris wheel of course). We stopped at a gas station and I got a Red Bull and a bottle of water for 3.50 AED (which is a little less than 1 US dollar).
The hotel I am at is really nice and I have a nice view the beach / gulf. The water is an amazing blue and there are a lot of Palm trees and stuff out there. I couldn't see it at all last night except for the lights but when I woke up today I got a good look. I haven't been out of the Hotel yet because I slept until 4pm and I am trying to get caught up on some emails and stuff.
*more to come later along with pictures of Abu Dhabi and Dubai*
