Traveling 10 time zones can be a bitch. Day 2 is always the hardest for me so we kept the day - Christmas day - pretty calm. The term "Ain" in my home city of Al Ain means "spring" or "oasis." Back in the day before roads Bedouins traveled across the desert to reach this oasis where water and dates basic vegetables were grown.
Miriam with the guy wearing an interesting shirt in a Muslim country...
After the Oasis we stopped by the camel market.
Miriam with a rare black camel. So here's the story: We were only in the camel market for a short time - 10 minutes. A guy volunteered to be our "guide." The Pakistani was very helpful and showed us the cool things to see very quickly. Meanwhile an entire group of Pakistanis joined in. All were trying to be our guide. As we were leaving I should have given our guide a 10 dirham ($2.70) but I gave him 40 dirhams ($11). By the time we made it back to the car a fight had broken out. The other guys wanted a cut. In 8 years in the Emirates I have been to the camel market many times. Normally I blow off the guys offering to be guides and there's no problem. In this case it was just sad to see fist-fight break out over $11... on Christmas day.
Finally, we ended up at my friends' place for Christmas dinner. Laurie (the pregnant woman in blue) and her husband Chris have been friends for years. She's British, he's Kiwi (New Zealand) and they are planning to move to Canada in the summer. Directly in front of me is Caleb and Maura(?). Caleb is another Kiwi and the brother of Chris' best friend. Maura is Russian and from
the most polluted city in the world. At Caleb's brother's wedding last summer in Wales I listened to her stories about life back home. Just be happy you don't live there.
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