It's gonna take me awhile to get through all this content, so please bare with me...
Part 1 of ??? on my adventure to the Middle East!
On June 10th I left the Des Moines Airport at 4:30pm. Arrived in Chicago around 5:40 and then got departed Chicago at 8:30 pm. I landed in Abu Dhabi at 7:25pm on Monday evening. Yep, I took a 14-hr non-stop flight from Chicago to the Middle East.
Luckily I was able to get some sleep on the plane (mostly due to advil pm and a glass of wine) because I didn't give myself any time to recover before I began training. I facilitated presentation skills training for our sales engineers on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Thankfully it went well - or at least the director who asked me to come over and do the training thought that it did! But I don't think you really want to hear about work-- and certainly in the future I don't want to come back to this blog and read about work, so let's get into the cool stuff.
First, it wasn't actually cool over there - it was a freakin sauna! The moment I stepped outside the airport on Monday night, my glasses fogged up and it really did feel like walking into a sauna with all my clothes on. yuck! Later I found out that Monday was actually the coolest day I was there - only a high of 97 degrees.
After work on Tuesday I took a quick walk down to the Corniche, completely sweat through my clothes, and then met up with a few of my coworkers for dinner. The craziest thing I saw on Tuesday was people running... in 100 degree heat. Oh, I forgot to mention that the humidity was around 60%. So it's definitley not a dry heat there.
On Wednesday after work a coworker drove me over to the Emirates Palace before we met up with the rest of the Abu Dhabi office for dinner. The Emirates Palace is a 6-star hotel, it's actually never been a true palace because royalty hasn't lived there. Every surface was marble or glass so it oozed luxury but kinda felt a little cold. In the hotel there was even a vending machine for gold coins! Crazy!
View of the front of the hotel again. There are 1002 chandeliers throughout with the largest weighing 2.5 tons.
After our tour of the Emirates Palace we went to dinner. During that dinner my coworkers convinced me to spend the weekend down in Dubai instead of staying in Abu Dhabi. The weekend in the Middle East is Friday and Saturday. Plus there ended up being a religious holiday on Sunday of that week (it was announced only a week in advance because the had to wait to see where the moon would be) so I ended up with an unintentional 3 day weekend! There's lots to say about Dubai so I'll have to leave that for another post!
Part 1 of ??? on my adventure to the Middle East!
On June 10th I left the Des Moines Airport at 4:30pm. Arrived in Chicago around 5:40 and then got departed Chicago at 8:30 pm. I landed in Abu Dhabi at 7:25pm on Monday evening. Yep, I took a 14-hr non-stop flight from Chicago to the Middle East.
Luckily I was able to get some sleep on the plane (mostly due to advil pm and a glass of wine) because I didn't give myself any time to recover before I began training. I facilitated presentation skills training for our sales engineers on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Thankfully it went well - or at least the director who asked me to come over and do the training thought that it did! But I don't think you really want to hear about work-- and certainly in the future I don't want to come back to this blog and read about work, so let's get into the cool stuff.
First, it wasn't actually cool over there - it was a freakin sauna! The moment I stepped outside the airport on Monday night, my glasses fogged up and it really did feel like walking into a sauna with all my clothes on. yuck! Later I found out that Monday was actually the coolest day I was there - only a high of 97 degrees.
After work on Tuesday I took a quick walk down to the Corniche, completely sweat through my clothes, and then met up with a few of my coworkers for dinner. The craziest thing I saw on Tuesday was people running... in 100 degree heat. Oh, I forgot to mention that the humidity was around 60%. So it's definitley not a dry heat there.
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| The Corniche, Abu Dhabi |
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| Abu Dhabi |
Entrance to the Emirates Palace. There is a guard at a gate before going through this which checks to make sure you are dressed appropriately to enter. No shorts or tank tops.
The front of the Emirates Palace.
Special cars that pick up VIPs from the airport. They are super luxurious (read: EXPENSIVE) cars but I don't recall the name of the brand. Everyone drives luxury cars like maserati and lamborghini and these are even more prestigious.
View after walking in the front entrance. The hotel has almost 400 rooms ranging in price from $350 up to $11,500 a night!
View up looking at the Central Dome approx 73 meters above ground. In total there are 114 domes in the hotel.
Marble floors. Marble in the hotel was imported from 13 countries across the world.
Vending machine for gold coins. EXPENSIVE gold coins. I recall seeing one that was worth $1400 USD. Maybe you'd rather eat your gold than buy a coin - 5 kg (11 lbs) of pure edible gold is used per year for decoration on desserts.
Exterior view from the "back" side, closest to the beach. There's 1.3 km of private beach (0.8 miles).
There are 8000 trees set in landscaped gardens. All the palm trees had to be imported.
Here I'm standing on the front terraces facing the hotel. These buildings are just across the street.
It's kinda hard to tell in this pic but the building on the right are still be constructed.
View looking directly straight out from the main door of the hotel. There are 12 external fountains on the grounds and 8 indoor water features.
After our tour of the Emirates Palace we went to dinner. During that dinner my coworkers convinced me to spend the weekend down in Dubai instead of staying in Abu Dhabi. The weekend in the Middle East is Friday and Saturday. Plus there ended up being a religious holiday on Sunday of that week (it was announced only a week in advance because the had to wait to see where the moon would be) so I ended up with an unintentional 3 day weekend! There's lots to say about Dubai so I'll have to leave that for another post!
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