Thank God, we arrived safely and on time. Speaking of God, there was a prayer from the Holy Quran over the airplane's PA System before takeoff. I was very OK with that.
The 400 passengers deplaned and headed for the highway, so to speak. I had to go through customs, which was painless, thankfully. There were at least 25 guys with signs with people's names in the baggage area waiting for folks. Unfortunately, I was not met as planned, so I took a cab to a random hotel. No biggie. Some guy stopped and asked if I needed help. I explained my situation and off we went. He gave me a mini-tour of the city on the way to the hotel. It's beautiful with seemingly wonderful infrastructure. Of course, we were on main roads, which looked and felt brand new. Not sure if it's like this all over.
I forgot to mention the Starbucks that was in the airport baggage claim area. On the ride to the hotel I saw a McDonald's, a KFC, Pizza Hut, Popeye's Chicken, Hershey's Kisses, Adidas Shoes, Toyota cars, a Hilton Hotel, and a Howard Johnson Hotel, so those were pretty cool examples of the global expansion of named brand products from America.
Also, a wonderful surprise was seeing all of the road signs written in English as well as Arabic. They drive on the same side of the road as we do, so that will make driving here easier than I expected.
I was SHOCKED to see hoochie mamas, I mean American Style Hoochies, with the tight revealing clothes and stiletto heals and the hair done all crazy. In fact, it's here at the hotel where I saw them. Kinda made we wonderful what kind of hotel this is - just kidding. The guys are dressed in outfits that look they walked out of a 70's black gangsta movie. There is a club that is jamming on the 2nd floor. I can hear them and I'm on the 5th. I think I was given some bogus info about females being covered from head to toe, or maybe young folks get a pass.
There's MTV (???) on TV, along with House and classic American movies. The movie and MTV were in English; the other shows were in Arabic.
I left the US on Sunday morning and arrived in Abu Dhabi on Monday evening at 7:30. My cell phone is turned off until I can get service locally. Hopefully that will be soon.
More later.
The 400 passengers deplaned and headed for the highway, so to speak. I had to go through customs, which was painless, thankfully. There were at least 25 guys with signs with people's names in the baggage area waiting for folks. Unfortunately, I was not met as planned, so I took a cab to a random hotel. No biggie. Some guy stopped and asked if I needed help. I explained my situation and off we went. He gave me a mini-tour of the city on the way to the hotel. It's beautiful with seemingly wonderful infrastructure. Of course, we were on main roads, which looked and felt brand new. Not sure if it's like this all over.
I forgot to mention the Starbucks that was in the airport baggage claim area. On the ride to the hotel I saw a McDonald's, a KFC, Pizza Hut, Popeye's Chicken, Hershey's Kisses, Adidas Shoes, Toyota cars, a Hilton Hotel, and a Howard Johnson Hotel, so those were pretty cool examples of the global expansion of named brand products from America.
Also, a wonderful surprise was seeing all of the road signs written in English as well as Arabic. They drive on the same side of the road as we do, so that will make driving here easier than I expected.
I was SHOCKED to see hoochie mamas, I mean American Style Hoochies, with the tight revealing clothes and stiletto heals and the hair done all crazy. In fact, it's here at the hotel where I saw them. Kinda made we wonderful what kind of hotel this is - just kidding. The guys are dressed in outfits that look they walked out of a 70's black gangsta movie. There is a club that is jamming on the 2nd floor. I can hear them and I'm on the 5th. I think I was given some bogus info about females being covered from head to toe, or maybe young folks get a pass.
There's MTV (???) on TV, along with House and classic American movies. The movie and MTV were in English; the other shows were in Arabic.
I left the US on Sunday morning and arrived in Abu Dhabi on Monday evening at 7:30. My cell phone is turned off until I can get service locally. Hopefully that will be soon.
More later.
No comments:
Post a Comment