New years eve

The fog never really lifted today. I took this picture about 5 20 p.m.

enjoying the holidays

Christmas Day got off to a slow start as Darcy's workplace did not allow their staff to go home until 2 pm.  So I spent the day at home waiting for her to come home.  But I had fun tracking Santa Claus's night journey online.  We had a delicious turkey dinner that did not take nearly as long to cook as last year.  Darcy and a friend baked cookies earlier in the week and we've pacing ourselves with eating them.

We got more books and dvds for Christmas which was great. I'm making progress with reading books that I've received as gifts over the last few years.  But we've yet to make much of a dent with our watching tv shows and movies from our huge dvd collection.  We've had a few foggy mornings over the Christmas break too which was a bit unusual for this time of year. 

Today (Dec. 28 is Islamic New Year) is our last day off before heading back to work.  It will be a short three day work week as Thursday is New Year's Day.  After that it will be sparse for holidays until the summer.  It will feel like working in North America!  I guess we have become accustomed to working few days with living here.  But we have carried over a lot of vacation days from last year so we we'd like to take a few short trips in the spring.  Below is an assortment of interesting newspaper articles.



Firms race to restore service

Internet cut a ‘rare’ occurrence

Abu Dhabi airport gets busier

Traffic chaos as major road closed - luckily we live on the other side of the Abu Dhabi!

Wealth fund may be Madoff victim - we live just to the left side of that big blue building in the photo

 ‘Living on a boat makes sense’

The good life at risk - this is disturbing

 UAE Folk Tales/ Narratives/ Legends

No sleigh bells, plenty of cheer

Jebel Ali's secret cavern is lost forever

Plans afoot to make Abu Dhabi souq permanent

Christmas day in Abu Dhabi

Foggy and Cool-almost seasonal!

Feel our pain...

Back to work....

Well, it's the end of our vacation.  The old cliche of not knowing where the time went is true.  But I'm well rested - although don't ask me when I have to wake up at 5:30 am tomorrow!  I managed to exercise a bit by taking walks along the corniche, going on my bike using the indoor trainer, and doing some yoga.  So it's back to tackling projects and putting out fires at work.  Darcy's alergies flared up and she's not been well for the last few days.  But she managed to bake delicious short bread cookies.  Hopefully we'll get our national ID cards this week - wouldn't that be a nice Christmas gift!

Expats lag behind on integration

Gateway to seafaring heritage

Days of paid parking draw nearer

UAE could be ‘research hothouse’

Enjoying our long break..

It's been almost a week since our 12 day vacation began.  This year the UAE's National Day and Muslim EID break come almost right after each other.  So many people get an extra long break this year.  The fireworks were okay but they did not come close to rivaling Dubai's.  The media/gov't (they essentially are one and the same here) reported that Abu Dhabi's fireworks would be the biggest ever. 

We've put up our Christmas tree and Darcy baked a wonderful gingerbread cake last night.  We'll try and do some Christmas baking this week.  The weather has FINALLY cooled off enough where we can open our windows for hours.  There have been thunder and lightning storms too - how exciting!  It's nice to see clouds and rain for a change.  The northern emirates even had hail.

Last Monday Darcy and I registered for our national ID cards at a place reserved for ADNOC employees.  My workplace is run by ADNOC so I was lucky enough to use their facility rather than going to the few horribly disorganized EIDA (Emirates ID Authority) offices.  Hopefully we'll get our cards in the mail before the end of December and put that messy chapter behind us.

I've been busily pimping out (using Darcy's words) my iPod Touch.  There must be hundreds or even thousands of applications that you can easily download.  I've only paid for one app while the rest are free.  Some are Facebook, New York Times, Maclean's and Instant Messaging that syncs with Yahoo and Google.  I've also been trying some free games like Chess, Connect Four along with some arcade style ones.  Some really neat games are Nintendo like WII ones like iBowl and iGolf.  The graphics are improving and the technology, in my view, puts traditional hand held games like the PSP to shame. 

Abu Dhabi unveils interactive website for residents and businesses - ummm.....so what's the website's URL?  Current gov't website doesn't have the content that is mentioned in this article.

Shaikh Khalifa's full speech on National Day

Thousands yet to register for ID cards

Roads to receive new attention

Low paid applicants denied driving licences

Telephone is a ringer for royalty - my first observation was that it looked like mold growing on the phone

Global crisis forces Dubailand review - the global recession has hit the UAE!

Tourism growth to slow to 5%

Last pearl of history in danger

Just another typical Abu Dhabi parking job

Boom!

Decorating our tree on National Day