I ♥ Abu Dhabi

It is near 40°C outside and a baby camel nearly ate my shoe. Why, I must be in Abu Dhabi again! Indeed, I arrived in the capital of the UAE on Monday night, and have been enjoying my spring break with my family in this crazy city.

Leaving Paris was actually quite an ordeal. For some reason, I mixed up my flight information, and thought I was taking off at 2PM So, I got up at 9AM, took a shower and, lazily browsed the web. In doing so, I decided to check which terminal I was supposed to leave from at the airport, since I did not have that information. That’s when I realized that my flight was actually leaving at 11:30, and that I had an hour to get to the airport before check-in closed. Thankfully, I had packed my bags the previous evening and so within five minutes I was out the door. I ran quite a lot through the subway halls, hoping I would be able to get there on time. The worst part was upon arriving at Paris CDG airport, and having to run for about 10 minutes, heavy luggage dragging behind, to get from the train station to the Etihad Airways counter. I really arrived at the last minute and they had to call a guy in order to make sure I could still get in on the flight and all, though eventually I got through, and, after what was surely the shortest flight boarding of my life, I got to my seat on the plane, heading off to the Emirates.

             Now, I’ve flown a few airlines in my life, notably last December, when I cumulated flights on Air France, British Airways and Gulf Air. I have to say, I’ve probably never had a flight as comfortable as the one I had on Etihad. While I’m not a very difficult traveler, I have to say I was very pleased with the six-hour journey, so I would definitely recommend the company. I looked it up a bit, and apparently Etihad, the flag airline of the UAE, is one of the rising airlines in the world. They’ve received a bunch of awards recently as being one of the best, so I think my return home should be comfortable. On the plane I watched two movies: The Lovely Bones, which I loved and Up In The Air, which was quite appropriate given the circumstances.

Abu Dhabi Skyline

            I’m now at the end of my second day of vacation here and I must say I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my stay. When I came a few months ago, I was under the impression by the time I left that I had seen pretty much everything there is to see in AD. In fact, I feel that this time around I’m actually starting to see the city with more depth and I must say that I find this place to be very fascinating.

            One of the amazing things you have to remember about Abu Dhabi is that 50 years ago, it was merely a fishing village surrounding a small fort in the middle of the desert. Today it has become a big city with a bunch of skyscrapers. I did not like the city much the first time I came. I come from Europe, a place where cities have grown progressively over a couple thousand years, leaving behind complex layouts, filled with history and culture. Abu Dhabi is a young city, and it basically grew overnight. And that growth is only beginning. Seeing how I live in Paris, I’m used to being in a city which has a properly established layout and which is not expected to change much in the coming years. I realize however, that Abu Dhabi is in no way similar to this aspect. The city is still expanding at a very quick rate and there are actually large areas of land surrounding the city, which are still totally empty. Many urban planning projects intend to use this space to create new neighborhoods dedicated to administration, culture and education, or tourism. It’s fascinating to see this place developing right under our noses and knowing how in just a few years it will already be a different place. There is such energy and dynamism here! So far, the city only feels half complete, but you can tell there is more to come. There seems to be a major urban planning project which will unroll until 2030, and so I think that it will be a very interesting experience to come back here in twenty years and see what it has become, looking back on the present situation.

            One odd thing about Abu Dhabi is that culture is sort of hard to come by. That’s not to say that there is none, but there is very little advertisement for the things you can do. There are a handful of landmarks you cannot miss such as the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, the Emirates Palace (the most expensive hotel ever built), the Corniche and the Marina Mall. These are all places I visited during my previous visit and it seemed that this was basically all there was to actually see. In fact, there are other places which are interesting to visit, and there will be even more in the upcoming years, but you have to know they’re there.

            On the first day I was here, I went with my mother to a museum dedicated to Sheikh Zayed. The latter is the former ruler of the country, who brought the Emirates together and founded the UAE in the 1960s and 70s, making him largely revered by the population. So we headed out to this little museum, which is among those off-the-map attractions in the city. It is located in this little complex of traditional-styled buildings. In the court, in the middle of all the buildings was a little fenced space where four camels were kept. Among them, two babies. We spent a bit of time watching them and petting them and they were curious too. Eventually one of the baby camels stuck his head out of the fence, leaned down and started licking my toes, before grabbing on to the edge of my sandal and trying to take it. It was a funny moment, though I did have camel spit on my foot afterwards. The museum itself was actually closed when we got there and it was only when we tried to open the doors that someone opened it from the inside, as if surprised people would actually like to visit. The man who opened the doors was alone there, and actually asked us to wait five minutes before letting us in, so that he could go pray. Talk about cultural shock!

Inside the museum

            The museum itself was full of memorabilia surrounding the Sheikh. The entrance held a bunch of portraits and pictures of him. The man I mentioned earlier gave us a guided tour of the exhibit, probably quite happy to actually have visitors, and his explanations were insightful, despite his English being vague. He took us to another room, which was the main section of the museum. It was a very strange — halfway between a car showcase room and the reception hall for an official international meeting. It contained many of the Sheikh’s possessions, including a broad collection of perfume, gifts from foreign states, stuffed hunting trophies (lions, jaguars…) and four of his cars. There were also many more pictures of him with various state officials or on hunting trips. One whole side of the room was occupied by bleachers with very ornate armchairs, in front of an enormous Emirati flag, the whole facing a screen, which was supposed to display a documentary film in Arabic about Sheikh Zayed, though our guide apologized, explaining the television was not connected to any power cable. Oh well…

            The visit of the Sheikh Zayed museum was a great experience to get an insight on the country’s culture and background history. It was odd, since we were the only people visiting the museum, though I think a bigger cultural center dedicated to the Sheikh is expected to open in the future, which might be why the current one is so low profile.

The great thing about Abu Dhabi is that you can feel it is currently in its beginnings, but it is becoming a large cosmopolite cultural metropolis very fast, and I know there is much more to come from it than what we’ve seen so far. So my advice is to watch this space, because this is just the tip of the iceberg (yay for using two clichés in one sentence!).  I’m definitely growing fond of this city, and will continue my exploration of it in the coming days.