The real work begins (and other adventures) Part 2: Orientation happenings (including an amazing trip to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque)

So everyday I've been having school orientations at a beautiful girl's MODEL school here in Abu Dhabi City. I won't bore you with the details but let me just say this, the school is gorgeous. I've never seen such a beautiful school back home. While I know my particular placement won't look like this school, it's a model that provides inspiration. Random cool happenings during the meeting don't include many things. There a few notable happenings from Orientation. One was seeing a presentation from Ali from ask-ali.com. He's a local cultural guide here in the UAE that is extremely knowledgeable, funny, and cute too. He studied at UCF back in Florida and was wonderful to listen to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h65h6cJKLNw&feature=related  (an Ask Ali Intro Video)

Here's some trivial knowldege that I've acquired the last few days before I get back to cool happenings during Orientation.

*Men say hello by rubbing noses and I've spotted Asian men holding hands (which is a sign of friendship that my Western mind just can't process. hehe)
*They call the Persian gulf the Arabian gulf (and they really don't like when you call it Persian)
*They absolutely love the founder of their country name Sheikh Zayed and they have really good reason to. I'm incredibly fond of this man too. He's an incredible visionary that brought Abu Dhabi from desert to international city in a matter of 30 years. He was truly for the his people and came from humble roots. I definitely am going to school myself on this amazing man that this country loves so much.
*There's no Daylight Savings Time in AD. :)

Another great thing that happened was a team building exercise. Our team was by far the smallest. We only had 5 people when every other team had 10 or more people. We figured when we were placed in groups, for some odd reason  we were placed with a lot of drop outs. Anyways, we had several tasks to complete which included creating a team flag, answering a questionnaire, a scavenger hunt to answer questions about the MODEL school we were at (such as how many windows? What's the principal's name?), and finally we split up into smaller groups to compete with various projects. Edward (I totally forgot my team members name) and I went on the scavenger hunt while our team created a flag. We answered most of the questions and came back and help put the final touches on our blended UAE, USA and Australian flag, which looked great. Then we split up and our team didn't even have enough members for every station. Three people went to the creativity tent where they performed a great poem that the teacher wanted to keep, one went to create a car to race and was apparently very succesful and two of us (including moi) went off to the building station.

Our task was to make a model of a famous building using only 5 rolls of aluminum foil. We were allowed to use the boxes that stored the aluminum foil, the foil itself and carton roll inside and nothing more. We chose to build the Burj Khalifa because of it's linear architecture and impressive height, the tallest building would win after all so we figured we'd model the best of the best. :)

This task was sooooo what I'm into. I like delegating. Quickly, I created a strategy. Begin with a heavy base of three containers, with two containers, and then the one container on top. We rolled this base tightly and then added the three carton rolls to our base followed by one carton roll. Past this point we just added height with the additional foil. I told my partner to work on creating a heavy and steady base and gave myself the task of creating height by rolling up aluminum foil creating a large roll that became progressively lighter as it went up. Time began running out and having only two people on our team instead of 5 made us work extra hard. Two minutes before time was up we had added my height piece to the building but it was wobbly and would not stand with our base. I looked down and saw that the base did not seem to be leveled after we had tugged at it so much to add our height piece. I told my partner to hold our building (he was standing on a table) and I pressed on the base with all my might. We chanted "3,2,1...let go" and voila, the building stood. We walked cautiously around it because we couldn't believe it. People started coming around and commenting how impressed they were. Of course, we ended up winning because our building towered over all the others. There was no humble pie for us. We were ecstatic!

Group six ended up winning overall for our session. woot woot!

Moving on, the most amazing thing that happened during Orientation was getting to visit the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque. It is bee-you-ti-ful. The mosque is jaw dropping. It's one of the largest mosques in the world and the most ornate place I've ever been to. In order to enter the mosque you must put on a hijab (hair cover) and abaya (black national dress cover).

In addition to wearing the traditional attire, you remove your shoes before entering because it is entirely carpeted. There's an area outside the holds thousand of worshippers that is made of marble. Here's the cool thing (literally)- they selected marbles that stay cool in the desert heat. We walked around the marble flooring exposed to direct sunlight and except for a few pieces, they really were cool.  The mosque has the biggest carpet in the world. It's windows are grand and have etching and colored flowers. There are marble flowers throughout the walls. There are beautiful chandeliers and gold details everywhere. It was simply divine. I hope everyone gets to visit this awe inspiring location at some point. At the end of our tour there was a Q&A session that I was too ansty to really listen to. The ADD really kicked in and I just looked around the beautiful men's prayer room and tried to ignore the dumb questions that people asked.

I hate to sound judgmental but here's the deal: the Americans in our group are the most guilty of asking inappropriate/justplaindumb questions. They make us look bad!

Lately I've been told by a few locals that I look like I'm Middle Eastern, specifically Lebanese. They are always shocked to hear that I'm American. I guess they picture blonde hair and blue eyes. I explain my heritage and they still are amazed that I'm not Lebanese.I find it interesting. It's the first time that people label my looks particular to a specific country. Most of the time people are just confused.

I'm getting better at haggling down prices and chatting people up for better deals. ;) The trick is to make sure they know you are local and not some tourist. A little chit chatting goes a long way in this country.

There's so much more to tell about the last few days but I'll save it for the next post.

Heading to the mosque in my new colorful dress and fun scarf :)

Stay safe everyone!

 

 

This picture doesn't capture how immense this mosque is.

The carpeting was beautiful and the shapes depicted on the carpet were perfectly reflected on the roof of the mosque. The most interesting thing is that the two parts of the mosque were made in entirely different countries.