All About Town...in Al Ain

Day 10 - Sunday, December 30th

Day 10 and we are having a relaxing morning and getting ready for a new day. 

School was closed for the last 3 weeks in December but we wanted to see Andrea’s school.  We drove over to the school and Andrea managed to communicate with the security guard that she was a teacher and we were her parents and that we would like to visit the school.  He let us in and we walked around the complex.

While we didn’t see the children, I’ll give you a short tour.  There is a courtyard in the middle and the classrooms and administration building are all around it.  Each classroom opens directly into the courtyard.  Andrea showed us her classroom – it looks similar to her room here in the US just not as much resource materials as she had here.  Her Arabic counterpart teacher’s classroom was next door to hers. The gym was a nice size but the interesting thing was classroom materials were all along the outer edge - this is where they have their health/fitness classes.  

The children are beautiful – dark skin, dark eyes, jet-black hair, long eyelashes, wavy hair – just gorgeous.  However, they are a tiny bit spoiled – almost all have nannies so they don’t have to do anything that they don’t want to do.  UAE is a country that caters to the children – they believe children are without sin so they are perfect and can do whatever they want.  One of the things Andrea said that her little girls love the most is “Chocolate Paste” in a straw like Pixie sticks but it’s paste – they just squirt in their mouths and eat it.  The other thing is “Pink Hair” – looks like cotton candy.  

The two pictures below are from Andrea's blog - http://fromatlantatoabudhabi.blogspot.com. 

Our next stop was in search of the Al Ain Hanging Gardens.  I had seen pictures on the internet and was really looking forward to seeing them. They are in the Guiness Book of World Record for the largest hanging gardens in the world.  After driving around for a while, we finally found where they should have been –my Biggest Disappointment – the gardens were closed for “refreshing and refurbishing”.  We later found out that they may be moved to Dubai. I guess I can make the visit the next time we are in the UAE to see Andrea.

Then we headed to the Al Ain Camel Market.  It kind of reminded me of going with my dad to the livestock market when we were growing up. The only difference – we had cows; they have camels. 

Al Ain Camel Market

• Last souk of its kind in the UAE
• Excellent opportunity to see camels up close and see and hear traders discussing the price and merits of their animals
• Some of the men told us “Oman camel no good”
• Raise for milk and later to butcher
• We ask about prices: Small Oman camel – 200 dirhams; Small Emirate camel – 500 dirhams; Large Emirate camel – 5,000 dirhams
• We saw a veterinarian attending a camel – we thought we might get to see a baby camel being born but the mother just didn’t see fit to be on our time table J

Then we headed over to Souk Al Za’afarana where there are fresh fruits and vegetables from all around the world.  Things we had never seen.  The guys there were so friendly – one guy, Abdhul Jaleel wanted his picture taken with Andrea and I so we could put it on Facebook.  Too funny!!!  

There were beautiful fruit baskets – Large -100 dirhams (approx. $27 USD); Medium – 65 (approx. $18) dirhams; Small – 35 dirhams (approx. $9.50).

And an interesting looking vegetable that looked like a cucumber with needles on it. We ask what it was and they tried to explain.  It was quite comical to hear two southern belles trying to communicate with 5 Arabic guys.  We think they said bitter gourd.

 After that little adventure, we headed home to dinner in the crock pot – roast, carrots, potatoes, biscuits.  It was a very lean cut of beef – I think it was Australian beef.