Bahrain and United Arab Emirates

On December 21, 2007 I travelled to Bahrain to visit my friend Maryam. This is the second time I have visited her in Bahrain. I met her at a leadership conference in Europe in 2004, and have been good friends with her ever since. It was really fun to see her and her family again and speak a little Arabic...even though Bahraini Arabic is much different than Egyptian Arabic. It totally threw me off guard!! Also, Bahrain is beautiful!! There is no pollution and trash in the streets, and everyone lives in huge villas and drive really nice, clean cars! I almost felt at home...except it was very expensive!!! haha oh well, I window shopped at the malls instead...and I think I saw half the population of Saudi Arabia. Many of them had a vacation due to Eid al -Adha. And Bahrain is an easy drive over the King Fahd Causeway from Saudi Arabia. I was watching the news and they reported that the Saudi Arabians spent $15 million dollars in Bahrain in one week!! Talk about wealth!! Even though I had already been to Bahrain, I learned a lot more about it. I visited the public beach, explored some more tasty restaurants, saw the Alumni country club, and the new financial buildings that were under construction when I was there in 2005. I also learned that the island used to be completely covered in palm trees and is considered to be the place of the Garden of Eden. To read more history, check this out: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107313.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahrain


One week later I flew to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to visit my roommate (Petra) from Seattle. She is American but her family has worked in hospitals in the Middle East her entire life. And I have to say that Abu Dhabi is amazing!! It is very similar to Bahrain in that everything is clean, quite, and fancy but there is a lot more vegetation....but on the downside, Abu Dhabi uses the most water in the world. oh well, its worth it because it is absolutely gorgeous! I spent my days hanging out with her crazy high school friends, being spoiled in the spas with a Moroccan bath, facial, and body massage, and they put Henna on my hands. What a tough life! hahaha. I was even able to celebrate New Years in one of the coolest cities in the world! It was really great:) Unfortunately I became really sick and slept almost 2 days straight. But I did manage to gather some strength to visit Dubai for 3 hours. The main mall was decorated in the Chronicles of Narnia theme, the skyscrapers were extremely tall, and the burj of Dubai was as awesome of the pictures. I also visited the Dubai cultural center. Its amazing how quickly Dubai has developed! In the 1930's Dubai consisted of Palm tree huts, and now it is one of the most modern and richest cities in the world! It's amazing what technology can do! For more information of Dubai and Abu Dhabi check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Dhabi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai


I loved the two countries and I would definitely return in the future!!

Bahrain and UAE