One Day of Fasting

Ramadan was quickly coming to a close and everybody was quite happy about it, the westerners especially. For us, the transition from the western culture to a middle east one was quite difficult. New language, New customs, New Food (Which I actually preferred). On top of the new changes, the first day of Ramadan occurred only two days after we arrived. So not only did the westerners arrive with an initial culture shock, but soon afterwards, we were not able to eat in public during day time for a full month!!! It was quite a transition. Being a former fat thrower (ok, maybe former thrower, but current fat kid), I enjoy my food, so it was quite difficult.

During the last few days of Ramadan, some of the Muslim students challenged me to fast for one day. This means nothing will travel between my mouth and stomach from sun up to sun down. No food, no water, no nothing. Fortunately, there was light at the end of the tunnel. The Masdar company (Where I go to school) was throwing a huge iftar as a thank you and good luck to the new school year. As you might remember, an Iftar is the large meal breaking the fast after sundown. It’s a massive buffet of local and regional food. So, it worked out well that I would be fasting during the day, and then reward myself at night with a large buffet which I earned. Well let me tell you, this buffet was a double edged sword.

Before I get to the buffet, let me explain what it is like to not eat or drink anything for a full day. It’s not as hard as you would imagine, at least for the food part. But it is very difficult to not drink any water for 14 hours. I mean, its water. It’s the most basic thing that we need in our bodies. I brushed my teeth in the morning and I had to remind myself not to swallow any water. Very difficult to do. As far as keeping away from food, it wasn’t too bad. I had to keep myself busy all day with reading to not focus on my empty stomach. Honestly, it’s not as hard as you would think. I challenge you to try it.

So, this iftar was amazing. There were many rows of dried fruit, food, drinks and deserts. There was some great flat bread and hummus. Naturally I loaded up on just about everything went back from seconds and a large plate of deserts. Man, I made a terrible mistake……….

(Fat Kid Fuel)

Not eating or drinking for a full day does some odd things to your stomach. Since nothing has been down there for a while, it shrinks, and shrinks fast. I would say it was half the size it normally would be. All of a sudden, I loaded up of food, juices, etc, and it started to expand the crap out of my stomach. Simply put, I was putting in way to much volume. In no less than a half hour of eating, I feel terribly sick. I’m not talking Halloween full sick. I’m not talking Thanksgiving feasting till you are full and make yourself throw up sick (Jon Hart, fess up). This is a whole new level of stomach pain. Not only did I feel like I would throw up at any time, my stomach felt like it was literally tearing itself apart from the inside. I was nearly about to pass out in the middle of a large dining hall in one of the most expensive hotels in the work (Emirates Palace). It was being a fat kid once again, and it was terribly painful.

After a few hours, things started to settle down and I felt better. The last thing to feel the wrath of that iftar would be the toilet (Pictures Not Included)…………………….

Until Next Time.

First Day of Class

It had finally come. I had my first day of class today, good old Fluid Dynamics. It had been quite some time since I was in the classroom and I have missed it. The topics look good but will take a little time to get back to the groove of things. I have picked out an academic adviser and it looks like I will be researching concentrated solar power. Here’s to trying to save the world!

Here are some good links about the school:

First Day of Class
1.2 Billion USD
New Students

Flooding in the Desert

So I woke up just the other day to get ready for school and after three steps, I was walking in massive puddles of water. I was quite upset at the time, since it made me very late, and also got my new leather shoes ruined. A pipe has a faulty hookup and began leaking from the wall. Long story short, I had a mini flood inside of my bedroom in the middle of the desert. Go figure.

A picture of the hole due to the flooding and leaky pipe:

From Around My Villa

Food

Ah, the food here. I was told by some people that I would lose a lot of weight being over in the UAE due to food being different than I was used to, limited access, etc. Well this is simply not the case. The food here is amazing, and all the Iftar feasts didn’t help. Lots of great sheep and beef with spiced rice cooked in the traditional way by burying the meat underground and letting it slow cook for hours.

I even ate pigeon. The meat was very brown/red and tasted quite good. The food shops here are great too. There are many larger supermarket where I will be able to buy all the food I desire. The fresh seafood selection here is amazing. I bought a whole shark last week, and it did taste quite good. It was also about 3 dollars a pound, so I will certainly be buying it again. I will try to eat as many beans and lentils while here too. Hopefully I will come back to the states a bit more in shape than I left.

Pigeon in the upper left corner:

From Downtown Abu Dhabi

Crazy Oil Money

So I want to write a brief thing about how money works here in the UAE. As we all know, this country has most of its income based around petroleum and natural gas. Now Abu Dhabi wants to shift more into its services sector, but Oil is still king. Abu Dhabi pumps out about 2.5 Million Barrels of oil a day. This equates to about 170 Million dollars a day from oil profit. FROM ONE DAY! Now this may not seem like a ton compared to the US, but keep in mind that this money is spent in one city of only 4 million people. This would be the equivalent of the US making 12 BILLION dollars a day!!!! Only if this were the case we would never have to worry about a bank bailout or universal health care again.


With this money the entire country has been able to develop crazy fast. Only 40 years ago, people lived in one story huts without electricity. ONLY 40 YEARS AGO. Now it has more sky scrapers than most of the counties in the world and one of the longest life spans due to its pretty impressive heath facilities. There are also hundreds of thousands of trees that line the streets and buildings. All of the plants are imported and must be watered daily. A huge expense, but it nothing compared to the money they earn. Along with this money comes with massive visions for the future, which includes Masdar.


All of this money has not totally been squandered on big building and big cars (The UAE has the largest carbon footprint in the world). Sheikh Zayed, the leader who formed the UAE and guided its growth for the past 50 years, has been very generous with the oil wealth of the country. He has donated billions of dollars to the other six emirates to help their growth. Billions more have gone to other Arab nations to help with education, medicine and nation building. The money has done a lot of good in the region, and will continue to do so.

Dubai

We took a quick trip to Dubai before classes start. The rooms were very very cheap (35 dollars per person per night) and where pretty nice. We were able to go to some nice bars which were very expensive. I paid 18 dollars for a mixed drink. I took my time to drink it. Back at Penn State I could have a very good night out for that dollar amount. O how things have changed.
We were able to go swimming in the Persian Gulf for about an hour. It was way too hot to stay out any longer. The water was nearly 90 degrees F and twice as salty as any water from Jersey. It was however, much clearer.

This is a picture of the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world at 185 stories or so. The buildings to the left are about 65 stories tall for comparison. Crazy.

From Dubai

This area of town didn’t exist six years ago, Dubai Marina. Now look at it.

From Dubai

Ski Dubai

From Dubai

I love me some public transit - Dubai Metro

From Dubai

Me with a large beer glass

From Dubai

Classy dining options in the Dubai Mall

From Dubai

As always:

From Dubai

Local Sights

Over the first couple weeks, we have been able to visit quite a few famous places in Abu Dhabi. Below are a few of the highlights:

Entrance to a golf course:

From Downtown Abu Dhabi

Large Buildings under construction

From Downtown Abu Dhabi

Emirates Palace - The most expensive Hotel Ever Built

From Downtown Abu Dhabi

Coastline of Abu Dhabi

From Downtown Abu Dhabi

Emirates palace at night

From Downtown Abu Dhabi

Me with Zayed Mosque in the background

From Downtown Abu Dhabi

Zayed Mosque

From Zayed Mosque

From Zayed Mosque

From Zayed Mosque

Iftars

On the third day in Abu Dhabi, the holy month of Ramadan started. This month, marked with a new moon cycle, starts a month of fasting from sunrise to sunset. During the daylight hours nothing should consumed, drank or smoked. There is no eating, no drinking water and no chewing gum in public. People generally wake up around 3 Am to eat some food and then continue on to not eat anything until sundown. When the sun officially sets, the IFTAR begins. Iftar is the Arabic word for the feast after the breaking of the nightly Ramadan fast. We have been very fortunate that MASDAR has provided us with Iftar buffets for the first week so we can truly experience the event. After we arrive to the restaurant, we have to wait carefully until the evening prayer begins. As all of you probably know me, waiting to eat at dinner time is nothing I can do easily, especially when there are loads of foods and deserts just waiting for me 20 feet away. But then you realize that the students who do celebrate Ramadan can last all day without eating. Maybe it is possible to wait those extra 15 minutes…

The provided food was very very good. Some of the best hummus I have ever eaten. The basic layout of the buffets consists of the following:
- Appetizers of salads, dips, dates, hummus, and flatbread
- Main courses of various meats (lamb, chicken, beef) with spiced rices
- Lots of fresh fish (since we are right on the coast of the Persian Gulf)
- Kebobs of chicken, lamb and beef
- Deserts consisting of egg custard, cakes, and many others I have a hard time naming

Below we have a common Iftar plate consisting of bread, rice, slow cooked veggies, veal in the middle and pigeon. Yes, I ate Pigeon.........

From Downtown Abu Dhabi

I must say, I was very satisfied by all of these buffets. I honestly think I gained a few pounds over the week.

First Week

The first week was comprised of orientation classes and cultural teachings. I will spare you all the boring details of the lectures of how to study, research topics and general bookkeeping. The most important things that happened this week were the interaction between the 92 students from 22 different countries.

The first big hurdle was in the learning of the name pronunciation. It’s not too hard if everybody had a name like Bob, Mark, or Jen, but this was simply not the case. The majority of the students here are from the Middle East, Africa, or the sub-continent. As you can imagine, their names are not quite like those found in America. Just for starters, I have meet Ahmed, Hatem, Mehmet, Amro, and Zaid just to name a few. Another difficult aspect to these names is since they have Arabic roots, there are certain sounds which we are not used to in English. All of this coupled with over 90 names to learn, it has been a bit hard. But, eventually I have caught on.

The grouping in Masdar has been a bit of a social experiment. People from all over the globe all share one common goal, to help advance the world to one based on renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. Other the other hand, there are many different religious and cultural background shared between the students. It has been a great experience to talk to everybody and share their views on various topics. One thing I have noticed is that people from the same religious and language background tend to group together. Personally, my main group has been with the people from Europe and the US. While I have made many friends from different areas of the world, the groups do tend to cluster towards shared backgrounds. Interesting.

First Steps onto UAE Soil (or sand)

So after I arrived and found my ride into town, I stepped outside to get into the van to take us to the villas. I have never been struck by such humidity. My glasses fogged up immediately. I proceeded on a couple of the roads which all were aligned with date palm trees and very green grass. It was amazing to see how much green could be grown in the desert (with enough money and water of course).

From Downtown Abu Dhabi

I found the villas to be nice and very spacious rooms. The bathroom situation isn’t bad, except for the fact that there is now shower curtain which made for some very messy showers. The one thing I have noticed so far is that there is truly sand everywhere. In the cars, in the villas, and eventually in the bed. It just gets everywhere. Just going to be something I live with. I went to sleep pretty early that night. I was physically on a plane for 15 hours, plus an 8 hour time difference. Basically, I lost one day flying to Abu Dhabi. Below are some pictures of my villa and the local area.

From Around My Villa

From Around My Villa

From Around My Villa

From Around My Villa

From Around My Villa

Arrived Here

I Made It! (for all out there who were concerned, maybe a few) Jen and I had a great last day taking public transit up to NYC for a few hours before we said our good bye's. It was extremely difficult to say goodbye to her. I already miss her. The flight itself was fine. There was a 2 hour delay to takeoff due to a storm. We were the 32nd plane in line for take off. Eitherway, I still made it into Aub Dhabi.



Now once I touched down, I went through the line to get my visa, iris scan and a trip through customs. After I got my bags, I figured there would be somebody from the school waiting for me. So I pulled off, looking around, but saw nothing. People had been asking if i needed a taxi, which i politely said no, mainly because I had no idea how to get to the villa I would be living at. So at this point, i started to make circles around the area looking for my name, or the school logo or something. But, there was nothing. I started to think of all the crazy things i might need to do in the mean time, like sleep in the airport, call a friend back in the US for some ideas. This was summing up to be my worst fear, having no where to go in a foreign country, let alone one where I did not speak the native language.



I tried to rationalize some things in my head, like maybe they were late because my flight got delayed, or since I went through customs quickly, etc. I decided to sit down for 10 min to get my bearings and thing about what I should be doing now. Finally, I decided to walk around to see if anybody was around. I looked high and low, and then, finally, I spotted somebody with the proper logo, and the school's name on back. I asked them if they were here to pick me up. They recognized my name, but said they were only here to pick up one student (that student not being me). They informed me that they thought I got on a different flight, and would not be arriving until the next day. No worries, but I then realized if that other student had not arrived on that day, and my plane was not 2 hours late, I could have easily spent the night sleeping in the Abu Dhabi airport.........................

That is it for now, I have limited access to internet. I will post more later

T minus Five Days

Greetings All,

So for my friends and family who I have already told, and my friends who are first finding out now, I am moving to Abu Dhabi, UAE on Tuesday, August 18th. I was recently accepted into the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. To give some background on this, let me explain:

Back in 2006, the Government of the UAE came to the conclusion that:
1) They have billions of USD in Fossil Fuel Reserves
2) Fossil Fuels will not last forever (maybe not even 100 years)
3) In order to grow and to secure their energy and economic future, they need to invest in renewable energy and sustainability

Through this, they set up the Masdar Initiative, a comprehensive plan to build a zero carbon city in the middle of the desert, close to Abu Dhabi. The Initiative, costing over 22B USD, will also have an investing company to foster renewable energy growth; plans for a zero carbon city which will be the model for cities of the future and lastly, a graduate level research institute to lead scientific growth in the fields of renewable energy and sustainability research. There is a lot more literature out there; just follow the links in this paragraph. Also check out some YouTube Videos 1 - 2 - 3

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) is the centerpiece of Masdar City. Construction is well under way, and will be ready for students when we arrive next week. There are 5 Msc degree programs ranging from Systems and Mechanical Engineer to Material Science. The work here has been guided through a strong partnership with MIT. The school provides a full scholarship to all who are accepted, which included tuition, books, housing, health care, plane flights and a monthly stipend.

Professionally, this seems like an opportunity of a lifetime. I finally get to research renewable energy, live in a foreign country, and progress towards a potential PhD. The school is truly revolutionary and will hopefully provide many avenues for me to help the global transition to a renewable energy economy.

The converse of all this is that I will be leaving my loved ones back home. Most notably, I will greatly miss my girlfriend Jen. We have been dating for nearly three years now, and it will be extremely rough to not have her close. She has been an enormously positive influence in my life, and has stayed with me through many of our lives’ ups and downs. I will certainly miss my parents, grandparents and brother Greg. And lastly, my other friends out there from high school, Penn State, Charlottesville, and DC.

This is all for now. I’ve been quite busy getting packed up and organizing for the trip out there. I’ll update soon. Feel free to contact me via e-mail/GTalk (shotputsteve(at)gmail.com) or AIM or Skype (shotputsteve). If you also have a Blackberry, we can swap Pins to use BB Messenger. It is free for international use as long as you have the unlimited data plan. Later on.