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