Baby facing you: able to see eyes, nose, mouth
Close up
NOT TWINS: first picture is of arms, second legs
Measuring length, at 12 weeks= 1 1/2 inches
Wrapping up the School Year
6 years ago
17 December 2007
Grandest adventure yet!
Due date: 3 July 2008.
Baby facing you: able to see eyes, nose, mouth
Close up
NOT TWINS: first picture is of arms, second legs
Measuring length, at 12 weeks= 1 1/2 inches
Baby facing you: able to see eyes, nose, mouth
Close up
NOT TWINS: first picture is of arms, second legs
Measuring length, at 12 weeks= 1 1/2 inches
08 December 2007
03 December 2007
National Day Weekend in Liwa Oasis
Liwa Oasis: Getting There Is Half the Fun
By
Randall D. Ball
We had a long weekend thanks to a holiday; it was National Day (2 December) in the United Arab Emirates. Thus, Friday morning, the beginning of our weekend, found Christine and me once again at the bus station, this time heading for the Liwa Oasis. We boarded a crowded mini bus (a van), and my knees became closely acquainted with my chest for the next two hours.
I unfolded myself at the very green town of Madinat Zayed, where we had to change buses. After kindly offering to take us all the way to Liwa for a “special price” (about twice as much as a cab ride), the mini bus driver told us that the next regularly-scheduled bus would leave for Liwa in about three hours. We opted to wait for the bus in Madinat Zayed rather than let the driver give us a personal escort to the oasis. After a deliciously-spiced beef-and-vegetable pastry at a Bangladeshi restaurant, Christine and I settled under a tree to read in the cool shade and appreciate the unnaturally-green, heavily-irrigated town.
An hour later, we were in our own personal mini bus being escorted to Liwa. Tired of waiting, we had bargained the guy down to half his original offer. As the van hurled us toward the oasis, we saw a group of oryx grazing on the side of the vacant four-lane highway and a few lone camels on the tops of the sand dunes in the desert beyond.
Liwa is not a town; it’s a region. The Liwa Oasis is a series of communities, separated with long stretches of the romantic desert, the desert of film and many pictorials, the desert of dreams. Liwa is far prettier, much more scenic, than the desert around the city of Abu Dhabi and along the Emirates’ coast. The coastline’s desert is comprised mainly of salt flats mixed in with low-lying white sands. Liwa, on the other hand, has the picturesque reddish-orange sand dunes, the subject of many photographic books of Arabia. It is at once romantic, inspiring, beautiful, and quite solitary.
We were dropped off at the Liwa Resthouse, one of only two options (unless you count camping, but we don’t have such equipment—yet) in the entire oasis. The other option is the Liwa Hotel, a huge four-star resort built to fool people into thinking they’re somewhere else. It’s silly; why travel out to the middle of nowhere to be surrounded by people and civilization? The resthouse is run by the government—and looks it. It is a simple concrete structure, with little adornment and little to love. It’s a state hospital without the scrub suits and the little florist’s shop. It’s the DMV without lines. The beauty is outside. However, the resthouse is clean with private bathrooms and hot showers and satellite television for those quite evenings. It has a restaurant with a rather extensive menu, mainly containing items that are not available, and is a third of the cost of the Liwa Hotel. (We are teachers and thus on a limited budget, remember!).
The next day, we arranged to have a cab take us to the Moreeb Dune, the tallest dune in Liwa at three-hundred meters. Adventurous sorts in four-wheel drives race up the side of the dune. The entire area is popular for such dune-bashing, but it’s still so isolated and so big that you could easily find solitude on a grand scale.
Leaving the resthouse, we quickly discovered that the hotel’s backyard was in fact the red-tinged desert. The oasis ended with the resthouse. We were at the edge of the famed Empty Quarter and ready to explore it. Saudi Arabia was a mere fifteen kilometers away. Every turn in the road gave us another picture-worthy scene. Much of what we saw looked more like a Martian landscape. The feeling was nearly surreal, this excursion into the Red Planet. Moreeb Dune stood tall in front of us, reaching toward the sky, and we struggled to find a way to capture its magnificence on film. The scale itself is not easily perceived.
When we returned to the resthouse, Christine and I had lunch—only after being told “no” to numerous dishes on the menu. The multi-page photocopied menu should be re-written as follows:
*chicken-and-vegetable soup with French fries
*vegetable-and-chicken soup with French fries
*chicken sandwich with French fries
*Greek salad (without feta cheese or olives); French fries extra
*More French fries
*Hummus with French fries
*Mixed Grill (chicken and lamb) with potato (potato choices: French fries or, well, French fries)
*Dessert: French fries
I’m sure if they had a food processor, the resthouse would offer a French-fry smoothie. Later that day, Christine placed a special order: a grilled-cheese sandwich, but she insisted that she didn’t want fries. The server looked surprised.
“No French fries?” he asked in a tone suggesting that my wife had asked for tartar sauce with her ice cream (not that the resthouse actually had either item).
“No,” Christine pleaded.
“No fries,” he muttered. He shook his head in disbelief.
Christine also had to instruct the server on the grilled-cheese sandwich.
“Chicken?” he asked.
“No, just cheese. A cheese sandwich. Just some cheese and some bread…but toasted.”
“Okay. Cheese…bread.”
“And you can warm it up?” she asked in order to clarify the order for him.
“What?”
“I want it warmed up, toasted,” Christine explained.
“No problem.”
The sandwich arrived, cold—but without fries. Thank goodness we didn’t ask the cook to boil water.
We spent the afternoon in an expansive park next to the resthouse. It was nice to sit under the trees, on real grass, as birds darted from palm to palm. The only sounds were the cheerful chirping of birds and the occasional ATV in the distance. It was relaxing in the oasis, enjoying the fresh, clean air and the warm sun, spending an afternoon reading and pondering what to eat for dinner—besides French fries, of course. (We also learned that the “grilled fish” only came fried. Care to guess what accompanied this fried fish?).
Our journey home the following day was uneventful. We made our connections easily, which was a relief after the effort getting to Liwa. The operator of the resthouse offered to drive us, gratis, to the Liwa taxi stand, and we had a nice conversation with him. He immediately found us a shared taxi for the trip to Madinat Zayed, saving us much time and money, and our connection at Madinat Zayed was equally fast. It was a little after noon when we were home in Abu Dhabi. We were hungry and willing to eat almost anything, anything, that is, but more French fries.
Tal Morib (Moreeb Dune)-no way to show scale, but as tall as the Eiffel Tower!
Dali-esque sand dunes
Bits of green and brown plants
That tiny black dot on the horizon...is a camel!
Camel hoofprints along road
Randy and shadow
By
Randall D. Ball
We had a long weekend thanks to a holiday; it was National Day (2 December) in the United Arab Emirates. Thus, Friday morning, the beginning of our weekend, found Christine and me once again at the bus station, this time heading for the Liwa Oasis. We boarded a crowded mini bus (a van), and my knees became closely acquainted with my chest for the next two hours.
I unfolded myself at the very green town of Madinat Zayed, where we had to change buses. After kindly offering to take us all the way to Liwa for a “special price” (about twice as much as a cab ride), the mini bus driver told us that the next regularly-scheduled bus would leave for Liwa in about three hours. We opted to wait for the bus in Madinat Zayed rather than let the driver give us a personal escort to the oasis. After a deliciously-spiced beef-and-vegetable pastry at a Bangladeshi restaurant, Christine and I settled under a tree to read in the cool shade and appreciate the unnaturally-green, heavily-irrigated town.
An hour later, we were in our own personal mini bus being escorted to Liwa. Tired of waiting, we had bargained the guy down to half his original offer. As the van hurled us toward the oasis, we saw a group of oryx grazing on the side of the vacant four-lane highway and a few lone camels on the tops of the sand dunes in the desert beyond.
Liwa is not a town; it’s a region. The Liwa Oasis is a series of communities, separated with long stretches of the romantic desert, the desert of film and many pictorials, the desert of dreams. Liwa is far prettier, much more scenic, than the desert around the city of Abu Dhabi and along the Emirates’ coast. The coastline’s desert is comprised mainly of salt flats mixed in with low-lying white sands. Liwa, on the other hand, has the picturesque reddish-orange sand dunes, the subject of many photographic books of Arabia. It is at once romantic, inspiring, beautiful, and quite solitary.
We were dropped off at the Liwa Resthouse, one of only two options (unless you count camping, but we don’t have such equipment—yet) in the entire oasis. The other option is the Liwa Hotel, a huge four-star resort built to fool people into thinking they’re somewhere else. It’s silly; why travel out to the middle of nowhere to be surrounded by people and civilization? The resthouse is run by the government—and looks it. It is a simple concrete structure, with little adornment and little to love. It’s a state hospital without the scrub suits and the little florist’s shop. It’s the DMV without lines. The beauty is outside. However, the resthouse is clean with private bathrooms and hot showers and satellite television for those quite evenings. It has a restaurant with a rather extensive menu, mainly containing items that are not available, and is a third of the cost of the Liwa Hotel. (We are teachers and thus on a limited budget, remember!).
The next day, we arranged to have a cab take us to the Moreeb Dune, the tallest dune in Liwa at three-hundred meters. Adventurous sorts in four-wheel drives race up the side of the dune. The entire area is popular for such dune-bashing, but it’s still so isolated and so big that you could easily find solitude on a grand scale.
Leaving the resthouse, we quickly discovered that the hotel’s backyard was in fact the red-tinged desert. The oasis ended with the resthouse. We were at the edge of the famed Empty Quarter and ready to explore it. Saudi Arabia was a mere fifteen kilometers away. Every turn in the road gave us another picture-worthy scene. Much of what we saw looked more like a Martian landscape. The feeling was nearly surreal, this excursion into the Red Planet. Moreeb Dune stood tall in front of us, reaching toward the sky, and we struggled to find a way to capture its magnificence on film. The scale itself is not easily perceived.
When we returned to the resthouse, Christine and I had lunch—only after being told “no” to numerous dishes on the menu. The multi-page photocopied menu should be re-written as follows:
*chicken-and-vegetable soup with French fries
*vegetable-and-chicken soup with French fries
*chicken sandwich with French fries
*Greek salad (without feta cheese or olives); French fries extra
*More French fries
*Hummus with French fries
*Mixed Grill (chicken and lamb) with potato (potato choices: French fries or, well, French fries)
*Dessert: French fries
I’m sure if they had a food processor, the resthouse would offer a French-fry smoothie. Later that day, Christine placed a special order: a grilled-cheese sandwich, but she insisted that she didn’t want fries. The server looked surprised.
“No French fries?” he asked in a tone suggesting that my wife had asked for tartar sauce with her ice cream (not that the resthouse actually had either item).
“No,” Christine pleaded.
“No fries,” he muttered. He shook his head in disbelief.
Christine also had to instruct the server on the grilled-cheese sandwich.
“Chicken?” he asked.
“No, just cheese. A cheese sandwich. Just some cheese and some bread…but toasted.”
“Okay. Cheese…bread.”
“And you can warm it up?” she asked in order to clarify the order for him.
“What?”
“I want it warmed up, toasted,” Christine explained.
“No problem.”
The sandwich arrived, cold—but without fries. Thank goodness we didn’t ask the cook to boil water.
We spent the afternoon in an expansive park next to the resthouse. It was nice to sit under the trees, on real grass, as birds darted from palm to palm. The only sounds were the cheerful chirping of birds and the occasional ATV in the distance. It was relaxing in the oasis, enjoying the fresh, clean air and the warm sun, spending an afternoon reading and pondering what to eat for dinner—besides French fries, of course. (We also learned that the “grilled fish” only came fried. Care to guess what accompanied this fried fish?).
Our journey home the following day was uneventful. We made our connections easily, which was a relief after the effort getting to Liwa. The operator of the resthouse offered to drive us, gratis, to the Liwa taxi stand, and we had a nice conversation with him. He immediately found us a shared taxi for the trip to Madinat Zayed, saving us much time and money, and our connection at Madinat Zayed was equally fast. It was a little after noon when we were home in Abu Dhabi. We were hungry and willing to eat almost anything, anything, that is, but more French fries.
Tal Morib (Moreeb Dune)-no way to show scale, but as tall as the Eiffel Tower!
Dali-esque sand dunes
Bits of green and brown plants
That tiny black dot on the horizon...is a camel!
Camel hoofprints along road
Randy and shadow
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