Brrrr......

It's been refreshingly cool here for the last couple of days. Last night (for the first time ever) we turned off all the air conditioners in our place! This story talks about the bone chilling weather. Another story mentions near freezing temperatures. It would be cold for many people here because, like in Florida, houses here have poor insulation. Many buildings have tiles for floors which make it really cool.

The Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council recently published a book called Plan Abu Dhabi 2030: Urban Structure Framework Plan. It talks about about how our fair city will be transformed within 25 years. It's an interesting document to read and it rivals Duabi in terms of wholescale change for an entire city. It's available online but the contents have been split into several downloadable sections.

January 10 is the Islamic New Year so we're enjoying another holiday! But there will be no more breaks until the Prophet's Birthday in late March. We will start planning our April vacation to Istanbul this weekend. And we'll also try and book tentative flights to Canada this summer. We've asked to have July 27 to August 18th off. It won't be as long a break as last summer because we'd like to plan other trips. We'd like to go somewhere this fall and maybe winter too.