Phase 2 - first trip to Al Ain- ended on Thursday with a trip to Hili Archeological Park and a visit to Ammoryiah Primary School.
Hili Archeological Park was very neat, but very small. We only found 3 old remains of settlements and archological stuff. They were very old and dated back to the second half of the third millenium BC!! I have no idea when that was, but hey that sounds like a long long long time ago! Maybe a looooooooong loooooooooong looooooooooong time ago!! Anyway we saw 2 old settlements and 1 old tomb. I thought it was pretty neat, but I also thought there was going to be more to see. It was pretty much a nice park with archeological sites. So we walked around for a bit and then we left. Neat, but small.
Since Hili Archeological Park was so small we had time to see my school before heading to Dubai. I gave my parents and Amy the tour of my school and they even got to meet Charity! They found the school very interesting. I think "interesting" is a very kind word!! It is quite different and I guess it would be interesting if you haven't seen anything like that before. Actually I guess I thought the schools were pretty neat when I first got here, but I'm over that now especially since it's outside and I have to wear long skirts and long sleeves and it gets to be very very very hot. Interesting is not a word that I would use to describe the school anymore!!
After touring the school we went back to my apartment so we could use the bathroom. I didn't want to subject them to the issues if there wasn't any water. I thought I would take the shorter route past the Hili border, but I shouldn't have. We were stuck in traffic for about 20 minutes. Oh well, at least they got to experience border traffic! After our potty break we headed to Dubai to visit with Cindy and Sarah.
Phase 3
We got to Cindy's and visited for a bit before Aysha and Hamdan came over. So Mom, Dad, and Amy got to experience all of the excitement of being at Cindy's! The kids just come over whenever they want and they play. It's great! Khulood also came over so that was neat. She made us cupcakes with ice-cream. Cindy says she doesn't bake so that's quite special that she made something for my parents. She is so sweet:) After we visited for a bit Amy and I took Aysha and Hamdan to the pool. I went swimming with Aysha and Hamdan while Amy sat by the pool and watched. The pool was so hot. I think it was heated or they hadn't turned on the cooler yet. It was quite unpleasant. I swam for a while with the kids and then I had to get out to sit in the shade. It felt good to get out of the water! I sat there with Amy for a while and watched the kids and then I went back in the hot water for a bit to encourage the kids to come out and head home. We went back to Cindy's and played for a while before the kids actually went home and we had dinner. Sarah had made roast turkey and mashed potatoes. It was delicious. We had a nice quiet dinner and then enjoyed the cupcakes that Khulood had made! They were yummy:) A nice relaxing night visiting with Cindy and Sarah. I am so glad that my parents and Amy were able to meet them!
Friday was a very busy day! It started with breakfast at Gulf Pastries where I had an awesome zatar bread thing and Mom and Dad had egg and cheese and Amy had mushroom. For a quick breakfast in an unfamiliar area it was quite good. After breakfast we headed to church where they got to meet many of my friends and hear a great message by Pastor Dave! Cindy, Sarah, and Merle joined us for the day at the Dubai Mall. We had lunch and then went to the Aquarium while Cindy, Sarah, and Merle walked around and shopped. The aquarium is pretty neat and I am glad that they got to experience it. We were kind of rushed so we didn't have time to take the glass bottom boat ride. The tunnel was so much less crowded this time than it was the first time I went. I actually enjoyed the tunnel! There was this cool part of the aquarium where you stood on a large thick plate of glass above the aquarium. Pretty neat! The aquarium is filled with 10,000 liters of water! That's a lot of coke bottles:) We did a quick tour of the underwater zoo before we had to head to the Burj Khalifa.
Oh my gosh, what an experience! Going to the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa was amazing! The elevator ride was only 1 minutes and then we (Mom, Dad, and I) got to walk around the observation deck and see Dubai from 124 storeys up! Pretty neat. The views were great even though sand was in the air and it was hazy. Sorry, picutres aren't uploading today so you'll just have to check my Fb page to see the views from the "top" of the Burj. I wonder how much more I would have been able to see if it wasn't so sandy. I know we all enjoyed it even though we couldn't see as much as we probably could have if it wasn't so hazy and sandy.
The elevator ride down was just as fast as the ride up, although we had to wait longer for an elevator to go down than we did for one going up. We had been doing a lot of walking so we were all tired and needed to rest so we sat down at a cafe and rested before meeting up with Cindy. On our way to find Cindy we saw the waterfall and stopped for a few pictures. Sarah, Merle, and Amy went to see Hunger Games so it was just going to be us. I ended up walking around with Cindy while Mom and Dad sat and rested by the skating rink. We met back up around dinner time and went to Madeline's for dinner. Although Cindy and I left with Sarah and Merle because we weren't hungry and you had to spend at least 70 dirhams per person to sit outside and watch the Dubai Fountain. We let Mom, Dad, and Amy enjoy the dinner on the balcony while we went outside and walked around. It was a nice night, not hot like it was during the day, and we enjoyed the fountain from outside. Our day at the mall ended at 10:00 and then we had to drive back to Cindy's so I could get a blanket because it is freezing in the hotel and we can't figure out how to adjust the air. Although Cindy doesn't live too far from the Dubai Mall it took us about an hour to get there due to traffic leaving the mall. Just getting out of the parking garage was awful. We eventually got to Cindy's and I got my blankets so I could actually sleep and then we headed to the hotel for well deserved rest. We had spent 9 hours at the mall! That's a long time:)
Saturday was a slow day. After spending 9 hours at the mall you can imagine we were tired so we slept in and just had a slow morning. Dad and I went out to try to find some breakfast food and after driving around looking for a LuLu we ended up back at the hotel where church is held and went to Carrefour. While I was paying and Dad was getting coffee he was chatting to some people who were visiting their daughter in Abu Dhabi. It turns out that this daughter works as the hiring person for a private school in Abu Dhabi and she gave me her information. Something else to try. I'll give it a shot and see what happens. On the way back to the hotel we saw a Spinneys that we could have walked to! Oh well, we got to drive around the city! More driving around an unfamiliar place.
Our plan for today was to go see a camel race and then go to the beach. Well that totally changed! We started out trying to find the camel race track and ended up finding some camel just roaming along the side of the road. So we watched them for a bit and took some pictures before heading back to try to find the race track. We tried to find the camel race and ended up at the Dubai World Cup! I actually found the place where we were told the camel race was going to be, but it turned out to be the Dubai World Cup. Who knew?! That was not on our itinerary or in our price range so we left. From the Dubai World Cup we headed to Jumeriah Beach. It was kind of a cloudy day and it wasn't really a beach day, but we made the most of it. We walked along the beach for a while and got some good pictures of the Burj Al Arab and some sailboats. The water was kind of chilly when you first stepped in, but we got used to it and it felt nice and cool on our feet. Amy found several shells and a sponge to take back to school with her. Walking on the beach made us quite hungry so we had to find somewhere to eat lunch/dinner.
We decided to go to the Mall of the Emirates so we could see Ski Dubai. Getting to the mall was actually quite easy, other than getting into the parking garage. I had no idea the Mall of the Emirates was so close to the Burj Al Arab. Once we had parked we walked around looking for a place to eat and ended up eating at Tribes, an African restaurant. I'm not sure we had anything too African, but the atmosphere was nice and the food was good. We did some souvenir shopping before heading to Ski Dubai. We got the obligatory pictures and then left. We weren't going to be paying 130 dirhams to go and play in the snow.
We got back to the hotel around 8 and have been chilling, literally since it's so cold in here (at least I think so:)!! Who knows what tomorrow has in store other than our dhow dinner cruise at 7:30ish.
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