Tour of Abu Dhabi

   I went on a tour of the city on Saturday and I am just now getting to blogging about it because right after it I became very ill from the extreme heat and sun. When you stop sweating in 109 degree weather, its a bad sign. But I am have been keeping well hydrated and sleeping most of the day so I am just about back to my normal self.

 
   The trip started at 9:15 AM, which was terribly difficult for me to wake up since I normally go to bed just before that. We went to Heritage Island. There they show case how life was before the British discovered oil here in the 1970's. I had no idea that this country was that new, but I should have because well, everyone here acts like new money.

People lived these tents as late as the 1970's, some still even do. The country survived on their dates and pearl market and when the Japanese invented cultured pearls in the 1950's conditions got even worse. 

This is what the inside of a tent would look like, it mainly sheltered you from the sun, I can say that it was considerably cooler inside. 

   I spent most of my time taking pictures of the camel. I just love camels, I always have. I think that they have such a funny, expressive face that is totally worth enduring the weather conditions that I had to. A group of tourists came up just as I was about to start taking pictures of the camel so that is why most of my pictures have other people in them. Still, they are good pictures of the camel. 

This was one the only picture that wasn't blown out and had the entire camel in the picture. 

See what I mean about expressive faces? 

   After the camel ride I went to the museum and took many pictures mainly because it had air conditioning. In there they had displays of jewelry that looked more like torture devises, dead animals, pearls and daggers. 

   After cooling down we headed to the Grand Mosque. This is the most breath taking, beautiful building I have ever seen. I know many may disagree with me be but I thought it was more beautiful and an all around better experience than the Louvre. The whole thing is made of white marble, gold, colored marbles, crystals and hand woven carpets. Before they let you go in you must be dressed properly, which means woman in Burkas with black scarfs around their head, no hair showing and if men aren't wearing pants then they had to wear a white dress. 

Outside of the Mosque. 

This is the world's largest chandelier, it was made in Germany and its all crystals I believe it weights something like 6,000 pounds. 

Here I am standing under a third chandelier at the far end. This is to show you just how large the room is. The carpet I am standing on is the worlds largest hand made carpet. It took 1,200 women just 2 years to make it and it came from Iran. 

Anything that is shinny, is gold. The curvy gold and white sculpture in the middle was made to represent rivers of milk and honey. 

Really tall walls, these are names of different saints. The white shinny stuff is white gold. Also the backwards "L" shape means "The" in Arabic. 

Standing on white marble, its not hot. This place is HUGE. 

   That about concludes my tour of Abu Dhabi. By that time I was super exhausted. We did go to the gold suk, which was nothing special, the first one had burnt down a few years ago so the one we went to was inside a mall. They had lots of gold, all very Arabic designs, so nothing that really caught my eye. I am way too white to wear gold. After I got home around 2:00 PM, I smelled like Ryan so I took a shower and slept all day, then got sick and haven't been myself since.