Traveling again...

I'm in Abu Dhabi. the thing about Abu DHabi, is that if you are an American chances are unless you are in the military or are a new commentator or vaguely clued-in politician. You couldn't find it on a map, except by gesturing east of Africa and possibly south of the western bit of Russia. I found it right away, it a city-state in teh United Arab Emirates smack to the left (west-ish) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

I got here by taking the national airline of the UAE, Etihad; which is a rockin' good airline. Perhpas I flew Delta too long so my standards are really low but it was grand to be treated like a person on a plane and not chattel.

I do have my camera and I'm hoping to take some more pictures, buttonight its late so I'll just show you around the hotel room. Basically, its like every other nice hotel room I've staid in since I gave up on motels. Its got beds and a big armour with a tv and clean towels and little soaps and shampoos. Butthen in the corner up above the standard issue wall of curtains is the above little green sign.

Can you read it? It shows you the direction to face when you are praying to make sure you are facing Mecca. They had it on the plane too, which was kinda confusing until I figured out that the arrow rotating around the plane on the little map (you know the one in back of the seat in front of you which tells you in many languages that you only have 5 hours until you can FINALLY get out of the flying tin can and its -500 degrees outside and the plane is going a zillion kilometers per hour?) as we departed London was pointing towards mecca. Just as a side note (I do realise that this whole blog is nothing but a side note but really that's why you read it, right?) the sign was pointing to a wword written in arabic which is why I didn't immediately click on the wole Mecca-thing.

Anyway,since I'm an infadel I don't really need to know where mecca is but I thought that was very friendly for them to keep me informed.

Free slippers

You know you are in a quality establishment when in addition to pointing the correct direction for prayers, they also give you a snazzy pair of slipper inscribed with the name of the hotel -- it says in tiny type, under "le Royal Meridian" logo, "Abu Dhabi."

These are keepers.

Day After the Halloween Party

So, I had a Halloween party on the Saturday before Halloween, or really I should say that I was talked into a Halloween party by some friends from work. It goes like this, Brits think that Americans have all these weird giant Halloween parties and they don't really get them. BUT they love to dress up and drink beer - so acouple of American friends said "Let's throw a Halloween party<" and I said "OK, we can use me flat." All agreed it would be agreat idea. However, we didn't take into account that a) it was half-term, which is this strange British time when schools go on break so ALL families of means flee the country, so all teh grownups we know (aka those with kids) had left town, b) evite is way to scary/complicated to for Brits to use and they are afraid to admit they cannot use it so they don't come and/or c) no one wanted to come to a party (that couldn't be!).

It turned out to be fine and fun. We had the usual assortment of priests, medusas, cats, french maids, school girls, men and dogs in matching bathrobes with hats (!?), ghosts, an Indian Chief and at least three folks who didn't comprehend "costume."

We carved pumpkins, drank beer and wine, and listend to the top 100 hits of 1972. The above picture was taken the following day to show off the pumpkin carving skills of my British, South African, Swiss, Australian, Jamaican and American friends.

I still have beer.

He walks

This is Henry! For recollection sake -- check out my last picture of Henry, a couple of weeks before I moved to London! This just shows you how much time has passed and how children grow so quickly and I swear they live in dog years or something -- your remember they get seven years for your every one? I've been grappling with London (its actually been good) he's bee rappling with learning to walk and recognise faces, and learning to laugh and clap. Wow, I guess we've BOTH come a long way in the last 12 months!

Another Brompton Post

In the UK, there is new legislation which allows participating companies to set up bicycle purchase schemes, so that people can buy bicycles for commuting tax free. That doesn't sound like much but its net of VAT (basically 17% sales tax embedded in most purchases) and paid with pre-tax dollars (tax rates run from 20-40%). This scheme (program) mean that there has been a rash of new bike purchases at my firm since July.

This is ANOTHER Brompton photograph. This is my friend Chris, cycling away on his new bike scheme Brompton. Now Chris is a major-major cyclist. The kind of guy who has lots of bike gear - and he stooped to a brompton, "just because it was nerdy." But now I've discovered an even more nerdy bike - the Pashley Princess. I don't think its possible to pass this one up: chain guard, skirt guard, basket. Its the Miss Marple of bicycles.

As much as I have admired Bromptons; my heart may have been won over by Pashleys. meanwhile my trusty trek just keeps on moving along. Perhaps I'll post a picture of her next time.

Milton Keynes New Town

There is a new town outside of London called Milton Keynes. It was established in 1960s but mostly built since the 1970s. Its now sort of a distant London bedroom community.

Anyway, when it was built they put up these concrete cows as a sort of a joke (they may even originally have been paper mache)on themselves. To this day one of the things people mention, when you speak of Milton Keynes is the cows. I have a friend who lives there and this summer I went to his home for dinner. I insisted that I get to see the cows - and here they are for you.

Snout House Brit Style

Milton Keynes was 40 this year. So it was born in the car-crazy sixties. Lots of big roads and single family homes sprawling out. It would make an American homesick. This house has with its garage right out in front, is sometimes called a snout house because its wearing its garage like a rather ugly nose. I had to laugh because I come all the way to the UK and go for fun out to look at suburban houses.

The rest of the day involed checking out the old town that MK was built around. Which was interestingly a coach stop on the way from London to parts north. Becasue it was a coach stop there were several competeing pubs including The Cock and The Bull. The two competeing pubs used to have competitions to tell the tallest tales - so is it theorigin of teh cock and bull story - or just another fairy tell they tell Americans?