Of Cats and Crabs, or Day 82 in Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Al Ain

This post is coming a bit late (in the morning instead of the evening), but we arrived easily in Abu Dhabi yesterday, where Michael and I split up from Abdalla at the airport. Our CouchSurfing host for last night, Haya, lives in Al Ain, just a two-hour bus ride from Abu Dhabi, which we did at 8pm last night (the bus ride, that is).

Before that, we wandered into Marina Mall (though I didn't get to see the rain show... instead, we went up on the viewing tower) after failing at getting to Khalifa Park on a bus from the airport.

When we got on the bus at the airport on the morning (I know, this story is kind of going in backwards order), we got off after we saw the Grand Mosque. Thinking we could just easily walk to where we needed to go, we got out and were in some other green space. The heat (it was noon) dissuaded us from walking any further than through the park. As we were walking, Michael all of a sudden jumped a bit. A small, Chihuaha-like kitten had climbed on top of his shoes while we were walking, and it continued to trip us up. It was mewing at us as we finally walked fast enough to keep it at bay. It was heart-breaking!

We then took a taxi to Marina Mall (as mentioned about), then made our way onto a jetty called Breakwater. Marina Mall is a bit of a walk from Heritage Village (which is on Breakwater), but we made the walk in the afternoon heat anyway, getting to the end of the jetty where the large flagpole is. Michael found his necessary UAE flag, where as I just got a glimpse of a sandy-colored crab as I waded in the beach right along the Air Race course.

It was the closest we got to the planes all weekend. A few planes jetted past us and through the course, so Michael especially is very excited for tomorrow (Saturday) when the final races (and all the crowds) take place along the Abu Dhabi Corniche.

Our last stop before taking the bus to Al Ain was the Emirates Palace Hotel. Built for some crazy sum of money (something like $3 billion), it was very gold and shiny and majestic and stuff. We were planning on having dinner there, but in the end were too hungry to spend a lot of money on a little bit of food.

It worked out in the end. Our bus station was by Wahda Mall, which had a very large LuLu's (a grocery chain) in the basement. We ended up cruising the prepared food section and taking little tubs of a bunch of stuff. Michael had something like five different nationalities of food when it was all said and done.

So, I don't know if you all remember my rants and raves and ponderings and musings about being a girl, but this was one of those times when it is handy to be a female doing something that many females don't do. Public transportation is very kind for us girls, and for our male traveling companions, it would seem.

We got to the bus station, and the line was easily two or three busloads of people long. Michael and I diligently stood at the end of it, thinking that we weren't going to get to Al Ain until midnight, hours after we had told our host we would be there.

A man came up and said there was a woman's line, but I pointed at Michael and told him we were traveling together. The man came back a moment later, saying the typical phrase, "It's no problem", and when the next bus pulled up a few minutes later, we got in first with the other females and easily secured a seat. Michael saw the virtue in traveling with a girl right then.

We got to Al Ain two hours later, and managed to taxi our way to our host's complex. Our couch and bed in Al Ain were adequate, and today we are heading out for the day with our host!