Back in the 'Dhabi

Today I slept in pretty late and around noon we all took a cab out to the Emirates Palace and Hotel. There are countless pages describing this palace, including a blog post from my mom, so I will just add my own comments. It's definately overwhelming with its huge vaulted ceilings and gold leaf everywhere. The quality and quantity of the materials alone is staggering. There are 2 staff people to every visitor to the hotel. In the men's bathroom, an attendant turned the water on and off for me, and also placed a handtowell on my wet hands for me. We were also chased out of two spaces by staff wondering who the heck we were and where we thought we were going. We were however, escorted to the auditorium at our request, which was cool.

This evening, we went grocery shopping, and also the Marina Mall where I bought an additional bathing suit and two pairs of sandals. While we were there, mom and I pondered the lack of Starbucks in Buenos Aires and it brought up the case of McDonalds in Russia, which has had great success. Originally, she said, the quality of beef and vegitables in Russia was so low when McDonald's came in, that they had to open thier own farms in order to provide the same quality of food as outside Russia. This meat they also sold in stores under the McDonald's farms label. Additionally, all the profits had to stay within the country, although I believe that they can now take the profits out.

Abu Dhabi is cool and surprisingly pleasant outside right now, a sharp contrast to when I came here before Argentina where my glasses would instantly fog upon setting foot outdoors.

Still no sign of our luggage. It wasn't on last nights flight or tonight's flight. Hopefully they will have located it by tomorrow as I have no extra clothes.

Here are some photos taken between Buenos Aires and Abu Dhabi


by archalec