Dear all,
hope you all are in good health.
My last two weeks have been quite busy with work travelling and moving in our new home.
You'll find pictures from my trip to Salalah (06.-09.08. - south of Oman) and from my trip to Abu Dhabi (13.-15.08.) in my web album.
Let me tell you a little bit about Abu Dhabi. The emirate Abu Dhabi makes 85% of the total territory of the United Arab Emirates and has the majority of the oil reserves of the country. That makes Abu Dhabi to the richest of the emirates. From a appearance in the public media perspective,Au Dhabi doesn't get as much attention as Dubai. But this will change soon.
Actually Abu Dhabi has much more to offer than Dubai regarding culture, life style, living conditions and vision for the future. Additionally, although the Abu Dhabi Emirs are much more richer than Dubai counterparts, they are not exaggerating it. Take the Emirates Palace as an example. It is absolutely huge and overwhelming, they all allow you to live in one off the suites in the palace. There offer three different room categories and you can rent the top suite for less than 1000 EUR a night in the high season.
Beside the emirates palace they have many parks, shopping malls, a very nice corniche and beach road and much less traffic than Dubai.
On top of that they are planning to realise some huge projects. One is the carbon emission free city, means that a whole city is operating sustainably by emitting very few CO2 gases and having enough green areas to filter the remaining CO2. It's going to be the first project of it's kinf in the world. Secondly, they are going to build a huge island dedicated to culture. The Guggenheim museum, the museum of Arts and the Martime museum will be located there. That's how Abu Dhabi is investing his money into.
Another masterpiece is the Grand Mosque. Luckily, they let us into the prayer room. It looks really awesome and majestic. Check out my pictures.
So generally, people from Abu Dhabi are more relaxed than people from Dubai, the price level is lower, but if you want to party and entertainment than Dubai is still the place to go. It's only 1.5 hours away by car, so easy to reach.
My living environment changed, too. As many other interns already left Oman we merged two households into one. So now I'm living in Mawaleh, which is 20 min further west - out of the city - than I lived before. So my way to work is now 35 min by car- if there is now traffic - which is 45 - 50 min during the peak times. It is not that far, but unfortunately, we are more depended now on having a car and there are less people living nearby who cold give us a ride to somewhere. But therefore the house is much nicer :-) I'll how you some pictures soon.
Take care
Hajo
