Hi everyone! I'm going to try to post a few things about our UAE vacation. I never get as many things posted as I want but we'll see how far I get. Text first, then pictures later (since selecting and posting photos takes a lot of time - and Jess is better at that anyway ...). We started our vacation to the UAE with a 1:30am flight out of Beijing to Abu Dhabi. Working backwards, that meant that all five of us had "normal" Tuesdays (complete with after-school activities, etc) and, after eating a tasty, but ad-hoc supper of Xiao Guo specialties we let the kids watch a movie to stay awake while Jess and I finalized our packing.

We were lucky enough to arrange for Mr. Ren to drive us to the airport. He arrived right on time (naturally) at 10:30pm and we took off for the airport. It felt good to get a little distance from Beijing. We haven't done any traveling since the summer. It's been extremely nice to stay in one spot for a while but two months of non-stop Beijing love is plenty.

The airport experience followed our typical routine, except that right around immigration/passport control Truman lost his mind. It was after 11:30pm so it was completely expected, but still, not super fun. With respect to Truman's sleep schedule: you're sort of damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Do you let him sleep before going to the airport and then wake him up? Or try to keep him up so he sleep more on the flight? Either way, I guess if you have a two year-old awake at midnight, you're screwed. Jess is the expert at handling the kids when everyone's tired. When I'm tired, I default to an authoritative parenting style (which doesn't work when kids are exhausted) and Jess masterfully steps in and does her sympathy/redirecting attention thing. It's like watching a snake charmer, or David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear - I don't know how she does it.

We flew Etihad, which for those keeping airline score at home, is the same airline we flew from Beijing to Nagoya Japan to start our Japanese trip. Etihad is what I would describe as a nice Economy airline. The seats recline at a nice angle but there isn't much leg room. Each seat has nice in-seat on-demand entertainment options but the food is still pretty marginal. Definitely better than United. Henry and Adeline were rock stars. They took naps (it was 2:00am when we took off, by the way) and then later watched TV on their own - basically zero parenting required. Truman was a little more hands-on. He slept on and off, but Jess had to hold him the entire time. Not an easy way to fly but again, somehow she takes it in stride.

We landed in Abu Dhabi at 7:30am. I won't belabor the details, but the airport is nice, clean and efficient, everyone speaks English and no visas required for Americans (but visas are required for Canadians (hah, eat it Stephen!). We were able to pick up our rental car and before you can say "Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan", we were on our way to the hotel.

Driving in Beijing is like driving open track go-karts: it's exhilarating and exhausting all at once, and some of the go-karts are the size of public buses, and no one is looking... oh, and all the go-karts are driven by children that are all following the same rules to a made-up game, a game you don't know but you're trying to learn, and you are in some amount of personal danger the entire time (just kidding Mom! forget that last part. Beijing is super awesome and we still want you to visit us!). In contrast, driving in Abu Dhabi is like standing on a moving walkway at the airport. It takes zero energy but yet you still move along to your destination. Literally, it's a joy.

We stayed at the Sheraton Abu Dhabi Hotel and Resort. We swam in the pools (yes, more than one) and in the Persian Gulf (it's super salty, and crazy hot. over 100 degrees F), and ate at the in-hotel Mexican restaurant (margaritas and guac, oh yeah!), and generally enjoyed our suite. Everyone was zonked and in bed by 8:00pm.