Day 1: Friday and Ramadan

This is a not great picture of business class on Etihad airlines. The chairs adjusted so you could be entirely horizontal. I got maybe 4 hours of sleep during the 12 hour flight-- which isn't bad since it was a daytime flight that arrived in Abu Dhabi at 11:30 PM Boston time.



I've had a few hours out on the town to walk around. Actually, the city is really pretty cool. What I like best is it's international feel. You walk down the street and you see people from all over Asia who live here. The cab driver who brought me from the airport is Syrian and has lived here for 20 years. His wife and child live in NYC, but he can't get a visa to get in. And inflation is killing him. It's up about 120% in the past year.

It's Ramadan-- a month during the year when people don't eat or drink during the day. An advertisement for KFC to break the Ramadan fast.



Today is Friday, so it's a double whammy... the streets are pretty deserted-- but probably more pedestrians than you'd see in the Financial District of Boston on a Sunday.



If you click on the picture below you will see some guys lounging on a bench in an otherwise pretty barren urban environment. The streets are just too wide. They've built some very fancy underpasses to help people get across. Needless to say most of the people I saw take their chances going above ground. That might change on heavier trafficked day.



Men going to the mosque for Friday noon prayers...



This was a cluster of about 30 or so bikes that workers have parked to go work in a factory -- on a Friday during Ramadan-- safe to say these workers nor their boss are Muslim.



I found a very cool and surprisingly cheap supermarket to buy lunch. If you eat in public that's a no-no during Ramadan. So rather than eat in the hotel restaurant I bought a ton of food for about $7 -- including knife.



Yum!