another last day

I have to say, I now have a lot more respect for my parents. When you are on vacation with your family and you have to be the one saying goodbye to everyone (they're all leaving you), it really sucks. Not to mention, when you aren't leaving right away for somewhere new, you have too much time on your hands and very little to do. Though I have definitely been keeping busy reading a book and such things.

It is yet again packing time. In the next two days, I will have packed and re-packed probably twice. Three times if you include packing two days ago to move over to the Self's apartment. Tonight's packing is geared towards flight. Tomorrow's packing will be to make living out of a suitcase more bearable, less digging through all my clothes. The bag method has worked well for me: putting pants in one bag and shirts in another (the ones that push all the air out of the bag so they are compressed). Packing and unpacking seem to be the story of my life, but it really isn't so bad. I enjoy seeing new things and meeting new people all the time.

A few thoughts on Abu Dhabi as a city. First of all, it really isn't all that exciting. Actually, the Emirates aren't all that exciting. People mostly shop for fun and it isn't the best place to be a woman (though it isn't half as bad as Saudi). For instance, we were walking down on the cornice the other day and honestly, I haven't felt as uncomfortable as I did in a very long time. A lot of the men who were down there (and there were a LOT of men) come to work from places like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and other places in South Asia and the Middle East. Many have families, but they are back in their home countries, rather than in the UAE with them. Thus, women tend to get a lot of stares.

The UAE also has a lot of wealth, mostly from oil revenue (something like 12.5% of the world's oil) and they really have no qualms about showing it, especially since only about 15% of the population in the Emirates are Emiratie and get all of the money. They build like crazy (as can be seen in the ever-changing skylines of Abu Dhabi and Dubai), light 200 km stretches of road in the middle of the desert, run fountains at almost every intersection and have a plethora of grass and petunias growing all over the city. And they claim to be green (they're hosting a clean energy conference in about 10 days or something). Most of the energy used to light the city comes from the burning up of oil when they could focus their money into making use of solar power (which there is a lot of - again, the desert) to run the lights and such things. There really is a flare towards the ostentatious and extravagant here. People drive Bentley's, Maserati's, Porsche's and Maybach's. They live in luxury palaces that line the roads, hidden behind their 15 to 20 foot walls. And when you see the discrepancy between that wealth and the treatment of the people who work for the wealthy, it really is sad. Sometimes, you just wish you could shove the idea into the heads of the spoiled young men that there are people who really need the money, it's not just a bunch of zero's that mean nothing.