Lake Al Ain

This is very near where I live. I've never seen a lake in this country.

Many people came out to see Lake Al Ain. It's obviously a rare event.

The wet roads make for fun play for the Shabab. This truck kept doing donuts and delighting the audience standing on the bank of the wadi.

("Shabab" technically means "young" but I've only heard it used in reference to young guys. "Wadi" means "river." There are no rivers in this country and what you see in this picture is a bridgeless wadi. It's like a dry creek bed that they put a road through. Amazingly they also constructed huge river banks like you see the audience standing on. These are all over the city. Considering it never rains enough to actually fill a wadi I'm not sure why these were built.)

Al Ain Raceway

After Thanksgiving a bunch of us went to the racetrack.

Although the track is large with a lot turns, with 19 people racing there was a lot of passing getting bunched up.

I'm proud to say I did not come in last. I also did not place in the top 14.

This is me after I spun out trying to take a turn too fast. The jump suits were supposed to cover the entire body. Mine kept riding up my leg. It was very distracting.

Give me more time and I'll come up with a better excuse.

$1.30 per gallon

That's the price of gas.
I spent most of the afternoon driving around Al Ain. Driving and getting directions is very, very different here. Imagine getting directions by neighborhood and roundabout. "Go to the fountain roundabout in Jimi, go towards municipality and take your second left." Newsflash to Google maps: There are no numbered streets for the main boulevards in this city. I can't believe Google has let me down.
Anyhow, I want to get to know my new home... and fortunately, it won't cost me much.

Al Ain at night

New faculty were taken to the top of Jebel Hafeet (the mountain that is in a picture from an earlier post). There's a hotel up there and we were given a feast. At 4000 feet the evening temperatures were quite comfortable.

Arrival in UAE

I made it in safely. Thanks to the University, upon arrival in Dubai I was able to bypass very long (and not very pleasant smelling) lines.
Ann and I went shopping this morning and I really couldn't think of anything I couldn't find. In other words from really cheap red onions to stew meat I found every non-pork product I was looking for...
Ann said cabs were cheap. Imagine a 15 minute cab ride for $1. Roundabouts will take some getting used to but the traffic is not that bad.
Anyhow, I'm in and alive. Everything went smoother than I could have expected.