The Odyssey

I knew that working on an international job during a surging global pandemic was not going to be business as usual. And when it came to the logistics of actually getting here… well thereby hangs a tale. Buckle up, kids, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

COVID rules in Abu Dhabi require incoming travellers have a negative COVID test within 96 hours of their departure. And though I knew what day they wanted me to fly, for a long time there was no flight booked. Frustrating though it may be, this is normal for these sort of jobs. Often the flights are booked by a third party and they tend to leave things to the last minute because changes are common. It’s usually not an issue, but when you’re trying to schedule a COVID test to leave the most possible time for test processing, but not so much time that a slight change in plans means the 96-hour window expires, then not having a confirmed flight and not knowing test processing times is a toxic combination. Add to that an extra layer of faff caused by the fact that I’m not actually a Canadian resident anymore, so I’m not covered by the Canadian health system. This means I can't log onto the government web portal to get a test appointment or receive results. Instead I have to pay a consultation fee to a doctor at a randomly-chosen local clinic to get referred for the test, then have the same random clinic get the results to me, sidestepping the unavailable web system. 

Luckily, the people at the local clinic were unfailingly friendly and helpful. This is the first time I’ve been back in Canada for any length of time since I relocated to the UK, and I must say that anyone I’ve dealt with here in a professional setting has just been really, really nice. Whether it’s the guys at the Bolt Supply House who special ordered 5/16” aluminium hex nuts for me, or the clinic doctors who renewed a prescription so fast that it was available at the pharmacy next door before I hung up the phone, or, well, kind of everybody. It really is true. Canadians are generally nice, friendly, and disposed to help if they can (or commiserate if they can’t). I probably notice it more because I’ve been away, but it’s clear. Sure we have our share of assholes. But I think the average Canadian is much more likely to jump-start your dead car battery than steal your hubcaps. Way to go, Canada!

The clinic referred me for a COVID test and the people at the testing centre phoned me back so quickly that I actually had to request they defer my appointment a bit to preserve more of the precious 96-hour window. Of course they were happy to reschedule because… Canada. I was also slightly concerned that the production company hiring me had asked for a very specific sort of documentation of the test results, largely based on the system in the UK, where most people were traveling from. Actually the fact I was coming from Canada threw everyone for a loop in general. For instance, the UAE airline's list of acceptable global test centres didn’t even have an entry for Canada. (Really?) Also, I was asked to suggest the best way to get from Saskatoon to a flight in Toronto, as if they expected that part of the journey would be by float plane or dogsled with a short portage between. (“Just use Google Flights,” I said. “And make sure you click the CANOE option.") 

Nonetheless I got the test booked and I alerted them it was for travel, which I hoped meant it would be flagged for especially timely processing (cue ominous background music). And on a Tuesday morning I went and got the stick shoved up my nose. In the interim, my flight was booked for the following Friday around noon. With nothing else to do but wait, I got to grips with packing, having decided I was going to bring the fabulous rolling toolbox workbench for its maiden voyage. 

Meanwhile, back in London, the helpful Piran volunteered to drive to the marina to visit the boat and root around in my drawers extracting things I didn’t bring with me to Canada in March, but are mission-critical for a job, like my steel-toed shoes, hard hat, hot weather work clothes and spare bourbon cream biscuits. He even arranged a rendezvous with the equally helpful Kieran to hand over the goods, which Kieran then schlepped to Abu Dhabi.

And unasked, Kieran also brought me TWO giant jars of Marmite. For their good works, both he and Piran are officially awarded the Go Stay Work Play Live Honourary Canadian Maple Leaf Award for Excellence in the Field of Inherent Niceness. (GSWPLHCMLAEFIN for short.)

Back in Canada, I fretted. Wednesday passed with no test result. On Thursday I waited as long as I could stand it before calling the friendly random clinic (FRC), and they called the test processing lab to see if anything could be discovered. (I was, after all, scheduled to fly in less than 24 hours, so I don’t think I was being overly needy.) They clinic called back quickly with the less-than-heartening news that the lab had placed my test sample “in the wrong batch” and hadn’t even started processing it. At this point I may have started hyper-ventilating because the whole precarious house of cards was tumbling down around me. With no test result I couldn’t fly the next day. And I knew there were very other few flights from Toronto to UAE that fell inside my precious 96 hour window of time. This might mean cancelling the existing flight, scheduling another test, and then booking another flight. And there was the intervening weekend to throw off test-result timing. And and and… it was just awful.

Gratuitous photo of grey October weather on the prairies, which matched my mood appropriately.

I spent a disconsolate Thursday evening texting with friends and trying to decide what to do. Eventually I determined the best option was to get up early and be ready to fly, on the ridiculously slim chance that a test result manifested itself in the tiny window of time between the clinic opening (9:00am) and the moment when the production company would have to cancel my flight (about 10:00am), which was also when I’d have to leave the house to get to the airport in time. Let’s just say it was not a restful night. 

The alarm rang at 6:00am and I packed half-heartedly, because it really felt like it was wasted effort. At 9:00:01am I called the FRC and the receptionist remembered me and promised to get right on it. So with the clock ticking I sat, unshowered and already exhausted, stared at my packed toolbox that wouldn’t quite close, and waited for a call back.

And then a miracle happened.

At 9:19am the clinic phoned and the I heard the words “I have your test results IN MY HAND.” Then there was a frantic 45 minutes in which I called the production company to tell them to please not cancel my flight, had a shower, finished packing and got everything into the car.

I call this photo “Luggage and Snow”

We drove to the clinic on the way to the airport so I could pick up a hard copy of the coveted test results. (Negative, obviously. Phew.) Check in for the Saskatoon-Toronto part of the trip was smooth, and surprisingly, they marked the box to travel straight through, which I did not expect. And even at 60.4 pounds, it was within the luggage weight limit for my ticket, so no excess baggage fees! Things were definitely looking up.

The Box, ready to fly the nest. Travel safely, little box! 

As expected, the airport was mostly deserted and it was quick getting through security. That emptiness made it all the more inexplicable when I finally got to the airside Tim Hortons and they were COMPLETELY OUT OF DONUTS. How is that even possible? It’s like McDonalds running out of fries or Donald Trump running out of stupid. Hadn’t I endured enough already? (Spoiler alert: Oh no, I certainly had not.) And how can they not have an emergency system in place for this kind thing? There should be Donut Special Forces shock troops that abseil in from a helicopter with a dozen each of old fashioned plain and maple dip. (Full disclosure: there were actually a few French Crullers left but they are basically just deep-fried air and do not count.) Luckily, I managed to secure the last six Timbits and a large coffee and finally got to draw my first deep breath in about 18 hours.

The flight to Toronto was uneventful, which is good because it turns out I was going to need what strength I had left for what came next. Back in Saskatoon the agent had tried to issue my Toronto-Abu Dhabi boarding pass, but couldn’t get it to work because they’d only resumed International flights into Abu Dhabi a day or two earlier, and there were apparently still some bugs to work out. I’d assumed this would be the case, because Kieran flew a day earlier from London and said there was a whole rigamarole at check-in that involved the agent having to email someone in Abu Dhabi, then follow up with a phone call. What could possibly go wrong?

I was braced for this when I landed in Toronto, but the first step was to get the shuttle to the international terminal. Simple, right? Bwahahahaha! Instead of a normal, uneventful shuttle trip, here are the steps I took, because apparently things weren’t stressful enough already:

1. Wait on comfy bench between two train platforms. 
2. Notice signs on the right indicate that’s where the next train will arrive.
3. Realise there’s a bit of time to wait. Take some things out of carry-on bag to get at something on the bottom.
4. Notice train arriving on left side of the platform.
5. Realise at the last moment that left-hand train is actually going to the correct place before right-hand train will arrive.
6. Dash for left-hand train, board, and congratulate self for getting to check-in a bit sooner.
7. Realise that things taken out of bag are still sitting on bench on platform.
8. Itemise things in head: brand new hand-made notebook, Kindle, iPad Pro with Apple Pencil.
9. Immediately swear loudly and effusively.
10. Disembark at new terminal, swear more, pace, sweat profusely.
11. Wait ONE MILLION YEARS for train back to previous terminal.
12. Get on train, continue swearing, desperately hope aforementioned niceness of Canadians means everything is still there when I arrive.
13. Arrive.
14. Become suffused with joy at goodness of my fellow man, recover abandoned items.
15. Go back to Step 1.

It was an interlude I really did not need. Still drenched in sweat, and definitely in no state to pass a temperature check, I found the check-in desk and braced myself for whatever fresh hell awaited. The agent at the desk was friendly and helpful, and accepted my passport, my precious COVID test paperwork, and my visa, and then started tapping away on her computer. Minutes passed. There was more tapping. Photos were taken of the visa. More tapping. Phone calls were made. More minutes passed. Hope dimmed. There was a problem with the visa. “How could that be?” I asked. I had colleagues who’d flown from London the day before on the same type of visa! “Yes” she said, “But this visa is only valid for travel from the UK, not Canada." 

Of course.

Finally, the agent escorted me to a chair, murmuring apologies all the way, and promising that it would be sorted out, it would just take some time. Astute Go Stay Work Play Live Readers will of course realise that time was not something I had a lot of. If I didn’t make my scheduled flight, I only had until about 2pm the next day to get on a plane to Abu Dhabi, or my COVID test results would be invalid because of the magic 96-hour window. If I was still sitting in Toronto at 2pm Saturday I’d have to start the whole cycle again, but as an added bonus I’d be doing it from a hotel room in Toronto. Or possibly from back in Saskatoon where I’d retreat to lick my wounds. It was all a bit much, I don’t mind telling you.

Eventually, after a lot of waiting, and with growing certainty it was all doomed, the agent came back and reported that whatever “special permission” that was needed had been granted, and I was free to check in. Angels sang. Crowds gathered in the streets spontaneously to celebrate, heedless of social distancing rules. CNN news helicopters circled the airport reporting live, and I was finally, finally, issued my cherished Toronto-to-Abu Dhabi boarding pass. (You probably saw the live stream.) And as a parting gift the lovely agent put me in an exit row, on the aisle, with three whole seats to myself. 

Soon after I secured this very large glass of wine and breathed again.

The exit row seat turned out to be a much-appreciated, because a flight from Toronto to Abu Dhabi is very long. Very, very long. Like, twelve hours long. I watched a few movies, and slept a bit, and hoped that my little toolbox was safe in the cargo hold. And then because I was bored and a bit fuzzy-headed and this is just how my brain works, I started anthropomorphising the box. It was kind of nice to feel like I wasn’t alone. That me and the box were in this together. So I sat in the darkened cabin with my recovered iPad and drew this guy:

Introducing… J. S. Bachs. (Name courtesy of the one and only Anne Tanaka.)

Finally we landed in Abu Dhabi, and after getting the stick up my nose again and making it past passport control, I finally got to the baggage carousel with my heart in my throat, hoping J.S. wouldn’t arrive broken and bleeding out underwear and KD Snack Cups.

J.S. Bachs’ triumphant arrival! Still in one piece, though now with one wonky wheel. Somehow it seems appropriate that we both came out of that journey with some scars.

And now I sit in quarantine in a pleasant hotel room, kind of over the jet lag after seven days, and just having had the stick up my nose again (third time lucky!). I’ve been working from here, spending hours conferring with Kieran on speaker phone, even though he’s just down the hall. Meals arrive packed in a thousand plastic containers, and the days are passing agreeably. I’m also proud to report that J.S. Bachs is performing exceptionally well, tucked away in the corner of the room. We’ll both get to relocate to the work site soon.

Let’s just hope that journey is a little bit smoother than our last one.

The trusty J.S. hard at work.

Merry Belated Christmas. I got you a blog.

Hey remember me? I know, I know. Even taking into account the work factor, it’s been a longer break than usual (or possibly ever). Reminder: I was in Abu Dhabi working on the UAE's National Day show, which I’ve done twice before, in 2018 and 2015. (Shortest job re-cap ever: It was fine.) Then I was in London for a grand total of six days - just long enough to bail out the boat (not kidding), swap shorts and t-shirts for scarves and gloves in my suitcase, and do a quick blitz of Christmas shopping. Then six days in Winnipeg visiting. And now Saskatoon for Christmas. There. All caught up.

I did think I’d manage to get at least one other Abu Dhabi blog post up before work go to be too much. I even sought out a touristy destination and took lots of pictures and notes and then promptly did no further blogging of any sort. I blame the fact that we were on a six day work week, which meant that the seventh day was mostly consumed with life admin like buying groceries and doing laundry and general self care (mostly napping and eating pop-tarts for lunch while sitting mesmerised by endless YouTube videos of van life and tiny houses.) Life, you know? It’s what happens in between blogs.

Qasr Al Watan. Also known as the Presidential Palace. It was pretty. I didn’t blog about it.

I do love this work, and I'm amazed that people continue to pay me to live in interesting places and work on the largest shows on the planet. But the lifestyle comes with sacrifices and one of those is that it can be hard to maintain something like a normality when you live in a hotel, get up in the morning, and sit at the hotel breakfast buffet with your work colleagues. Then get on the shuttle bus with your work colleagues. Then you spend your twelve hour work day with your work colleagues. Then get back on the shuttle bus with the same people to go “home”. And then maybe go for a drink in the hotel bar with… everyone from work. Then rinse and repeat the next day for four months. The people that do these shows are lovely, brilliant, and amazing and I’m lucky to call them not just colleagues but friends. But honestly, I do not need to be with them 16 hours a day. Love ya, but please go away.

One of the things I do to mitigate this is to eat breakfast in my room, which makes life feel a lot more normal. And because I was in town for twice as long as I have been before, I connected with the Abu Dhabi branch of the Hash House Harriers, who have always been my go-to solution for helping get out of the work bubble. As ever, the Abu Dhabi Hash was full of friendly, crazy, like-minded people who welcomed me to the club and gave me a social group outside of work, which can be more precious than all the pop-tarts in the world.

My first run with the Abu Dhabi Hash was only a few days after I arrived, in mid-August. It will not surprise Astute Go Stay Work Play Live Readers to learn that August in Abu Dhabi is, and I’m going to be indelicate here, fucking hot. I was not surprised by this. What did surprise me was the humidity. It’s supposed to be the desert right? How can it be so humid? I remember arriving at the airport late in the evening and walking out of the overly air-conditioned terminal straight into a wall of damp heat, and being consumed with hysterical laughter. I think my driver was a bit alarmed but I couldn’t help it. It was just so ridiculous think that people were expected to exist in those conditions. Indonesia, yeah. Indonesia should be humid. It’s basically a jungle. But Abu Dhabi? Whaaaaat?

Still, on the first Monday I was in Abu Dhabi I dutifully hopped in a taxi and made my way to the start point of that week’s run, the middle of a giant, baking parking lot near the Presidential Palace. And it wasn’t long before a few brave souls arrived to make up a pack of… five. I guess even hashers have their limits. Most of them were either on vacation or not crazy enough to want to be out running in those temperatures.

Because these are not running conditions. These are conditions for making beef jerky.

Regardless, I managed to stagger around the 5k loop in a sprightly 40 minutes. Many many many walk breaks are required when “running” in those temperatures. And I was relieved that after the run we all made our way to a boat and had a lovely evening zipping around the water in the dark before mooring just off a sandy beach where we ate shawarmas and drank beer. Proper hashing!

I even managed to set my own running trail for the group while I was in town, before work got to be too much. This was nice, because setting a trail every once in a while is part of the deal, so I was glad to do it. However this did require me to go scout out the route several times in advance, meaning I was running outside even more than the once-weekly hash run. This proved challenging. I ran the trail at least three times in advance of the actual run date, just to make sure I had things figured out. And this was in mid-September when temperatures were still hovering somewhere between surface-of-the-sun and blast-furnace.

In those temperatures, any breeze might feel good. I say “might". It might also feel like you were running across a giant griddle while an enormous monster with bad breath exhaled fulsomely in your face. You might, while you were running, silently pray for the wind to stop, just for a bit. Then you might run into the lea of a large building where you were sheltered from the wind and you might then suddenly feel the full dead weight of the heat press into you and quickly decide that any breeze is better than no breeze and hasten to the next open stretch.

Yep. Running in the summer in Abu Dhabi is hard work.

However, running in the desert in November sounded like it might be a blast. By November the weather is noticeably more tolerable. It’s still hot during the day, but by evening it cools enough that it’s genuinely pleasant (as opposed to simply less awful). Sometimes you even want long sleeves. Which is why I organised my work calendar and warned my colleagues they’d have to cover for me one Saturday in early November so that I could go for the Abu Dhabi Hash House Harriers annual Rehydration Run.

Re-hy (rhyming with knee-high) sounded like a perfect day. Drive out to the desert, pitch a tent, run a trail full of themed drink stops, get back to camp in time for sunset, sit around a big campfire until all hours hanging out, drinking beer and having fun, pack up the next day and go back to work. Perfect. And because it’s the Hash, it took about three minutes before someone responded to my group WhatsApp request to borrow some camping gear, which was then delivered to me at work, and included a tent, sleeping bag and camp chair.

Setting up the tent in my living room, as a test. 

Getting to the campsite involved hitching a ride with another friendly hasher and then meeting up with a convoy of others at a gas station on the last stretch of paved road before the site. The convoy was a necessary precaution. I later learned that you basically don’t drive out into the desert by yourself because the odds of your vehicle getting stuck in the sand are so high you kind of always need a buddy to pull you out. It would be like leaving on a Christmas road trip on the prairies without jumper cables and a shovel.

Our car made it out the to the site, though several others got stuck, and the has rescue team spent a lot of time pulling cars out of the sand before we finally got around to starting the run. This left the rest of us free to set up camp, get the beer on ice, and take photos.

Of the campsite

On the haunted camel graveyard.

And here’s something that is obvious in retrospect: tent pegs do not work in the desert. Instead, tents are secured by tying them to heavy weights like plastic bags filled with the one thing you’re never going to run out of… sand. 

The other thing that is obvious in retrospect: everything you bring and every surface of your body will be completely coated in sand after approximately 4 minutes in the desert. Nothing is spared.

When we finally did get out on the trail, I contented myself with walking most (all) of the way. And how do you stop the sand getting in your shoes on a trek like that? Easy. Leave your shoes in the tent.

On the advice of those far more experienced, I walked 5k through the desert in my socks. And they were right, it was comfy and fine. Anyone who did wear shoes ended up having to stop frequently to pour out the sand anyway, and many ended the run in sock feet with their shoes hanging around their necks.

The run itself was longer than expected, and involved scaling a few wickedly high sand dunes. Happily, it was also punctuated with five different drink stops, each designed after a different TV show, which was the year’s theme.

Our first stop was ER, where we had appropriately anaesthetic libations.

Then it was on to Vikings, where we first had to negotiate with the advance raiding party.

Then on to a couple other stops, including “America’s Got Talent” (featuring a battery powered karaoke machine!) Before we got to the last stop, a golden oldie:

M*A*S*H! Complete with an IV bag of red wine.

Along the way there were ridiculously picturesque vistas

And the beginnings of a nice sunset

Once we got back to camp there was beer and food and a large bonfire. And of course there was a guy with a guitar so there was also a lot of singing including at least one loud rendition of “American Pie” and an excellent solo “Ring of Fire” by guitar guy putting on a heavy Irish accent, which gave that old standard an excellent fresh new sound. I stayed up late, sang songs, hung out, and finally made it to bed in the wee hours, very tired and completely coated in a thin layer of sand and sweat.

The next morning people roused themselves slowly and packed up. I had to be at work later that same day so when I got back to the hotel I had a bite of breakfast and one of the top three showers of my life and left the unpacking for that evening, so that I could attempt to prevent the sand from coating every surface in the room. This was marginally successful, though the hotel plumbing system must have had a bit of a shock when I finally shook everything out in the shower stall and rid my luggage of a few cups of desert sand.

So yes, I’m back. I’ll try to be a bit more regular with the blogging, though no promises about frequency (as usual). It might just be possible that after blogging more or less continuously for eleven years I’m getting just slightly burnt out. ELEVEN. YEARS. 480 posts. That’s probably about a million words. So maybe you should all count yourselves lucky that I’m still here at all, even if it’s four months between posts.

’Til next time.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi

In between working and battling stroppy appliances I've had a bit of time here in the Emirates to be a tourist. So at the first opportunity I found my way to the recently opened Louvre Abu Dhabi.

This is a peek at the building. (Thank you to Francisco Anzola, who’s a much better photographer than me.)

It’s a bit odd to find an outpost of the famed Louvre Gallery here in the desert but the two museums are actually entirely separate entities. They're linked by a $525 million dollar branding agreement that allows the Emirates institution to use the Louvre name for 30 years, with further $747 million spent for “art loans, special exhibitions and management advice. And that’s just for the name and a bit of what’s inside. The other part of this equation is the building itself, which is frankly magnificent. I went with friend and colleague Mika, who, before I stole him away to join the ceremonies circus, was an unsuspecting architecture graduate in Baku. We were both more interested in the building than its contents, but dutifully took in a large percentage of the collection.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi is billed as a museum of art and civilisations (apparently that S at the end is important), so it has galleries for temporary exhibitions of artwork, but also has a permanent collection of historical artefacts arranged in twelve interconnected rooms starting with prehistory and speeding through the entirety of human existence up to the contemporary era. The most modern of the galleries were closed for re-fit when Mika and I visited, but to tell the truth we didn’t make it past about Room 6 before bailing out for coffee and pastry. Along the way I enjoyed the Egyptian room, which has a very nice sarcophagus. And I loved that a display of stained glass showed not just the front side, meant for viewing, but also the back of the piece, revealing charming curls of lead securing the glass to the supporting frame.

I’m sure the front of this was delightful; sorry I neglected to take a picture of that. I’m sure Francisco would not have been so thoughtless.

But I just found this too fantastic

We also spent a good chunk of time in a temporary exhibition of Japanese prints, and a really fun display about Japanese manga comics (which former Go See Run Eat Drink readers will recall from many many moons ago). That gallery let us colour in the walls!

Me working hard at staying between the lines.

And they had interactive virtual reality goggles you could wear to “enter” some traditional Japanese woodcuts. We both chose a print of a boat on water with a range of mountains in the background. It was surprisingly immersive and impressive.

Mika on the boat, turning around to discover there’s another passenger behind him!

So we did take in the artwork at the Louvre, but that’s really not why we went. We went for the building. Because of this:

That dome is unbelievable. (And of course I didn’t take this photo either, because I'm not travelling with my own drone, jetpack or private helicopter.)

The design of the whole building is fantastic. As you can see, the galleries are a series of 55 smaller, almost discrete buildings arranged a bit like an Arabic souk with alleyways between them. The whole arrangement is completely surrounded by the sea, and the top is capped by that magnificent dome - 180 metres in diameter (almost 600 feet) and weighing in at 7,000 tonnes. (Articles about the dome inevitably mention that the weight is almost equivalent to the weight of the Eiffel Tower.) The entire dome is supported in only four places and appears to float over the “souk" giving cover to the buildings below, which are essentially outdoors, but still sheltered. The entire arrangement is completely beguiling but it’s the dome that makes it spectacular. It’s not simply that the structure is big, it’s that the roof is composed of eight separate layers of perforations shaped like eight pointed stars in different scales. Each layer filters the light, and as the sun moves across the sky the points of light that reach through shift and change creating what’s often described as a “rain of light”.

Astonishing. On the day we visited it was a bit cloudy so we only got the full effect in the brief moments when the sun broke through, but it was still breathtaking.

French architect Jean Nouvel designed the building and has said that "Sometimes, in the solar noon, the brightness is so dense that it looks like light stalactites are piercing the dome.” Walking under the roof among the galleries and alleyways is exceedingly pleasant. In a climate like this where the temperature right now - in winter - often reaches 36 degrees celsius, indoor spaces are frequently overly air-conditioned. (This sometimes creates the odd effect of having your glasses steam up when going outside, an unsettling reversal for someone who grew up in Canada.) The indoor galleries of the Louvre Abu Dhabi are also air-conditioned but under the dome, while you’re still technically outside in the true climate of the region, the breeze from the sea and the shade from the roof make it temperate, and while I’d never describe it as cool it does feel right. (To be clear, it is NEVER cool in Abu Dhabi. The overnight lows right now hover around 24 degrees and in the summer it gets into the high 40s. Basically, the sun is trying to kill you.)

Here’s a small taste of that stalactite action Jean was talking about.

Naturally, Mika and I were both fascinated by the design and engineering of the roof. As we stared up at it Mika, who actually went to school for this stuff, told me about a professor he had who dated from the Soviet era. This professor was a bit hidebound and taught his students, with unwavering certainty, that any structure must have a supporting column every six metres. No matter what. Every six metres. Which in the case of the Louvre’s dome would have resulted in a close to a hundred support columns around the perimeter as opposed to, er... FOUR. Luckily, no one called that guy to build the place, since he is clearly a twit.

We stared for a long time but couldn’t see how the repeated pattern managed to curve to the shape. Actually, we couldn’t even see the eight different layers. The whole effect was mind-blowing.

The site for the building is the formerly-mostly-abandoned island of Saadiyat near the port of Abu Dhabi. It was in there, in 2007, and long before anyone started building support columns and galleries and domes, that a huge sand wall was constructed to hold back the waters of the Arabian Gulf while the museum's foundations were laid. Pumps ran 24 hours hours a day for years during construction expelling the seawater that seeped through the wall. This went on even during an almost two year hiatus resulting from the worldwide economic slump and resulting drop in the price of oil. When construction resumed engineers and builders installed a waterproof membrane around the entire foundation, which sits as much as 10 metres below sea level, and fitted every one of the 4500 concrete supports for the building with cathodic protection to prevent the concrete from corroding in the seawater. (Hands up everyone who knew concrete can corrode?)

Throughout construction the seawall held back the water as if the entire building was in dry dock and the partially completed dome was held up by a forest of temporary supports strategically places around the galleries below. But eventually the pumps were turned off and water was allowed to reclaim the land surrounding the museum. There’s a really good article about the construction here, which I highly recommend even if you just skip to the short video that shows time lapse footage of various areas of the build site as they’re cleared of equipment and gradually flooded.

And that’s the other remarkable part of Jean Nouvel’s design - the water. It’s always there as you walk around under the dome. There are views out to the sea, and small, almost private spots where you turn a corner and find another unexpected bit of water. The sea doesn’t just surround the museum, it’s part of the place.

You can walk all the way down to the water in some areas. In others there are raised platforms that are completely surrounded, and in other spots what look like man-made tidal pools.

And every where you get views out to the sea. It truly is an island, with just three ways on and off. Look at it on Google Earth and you’ll see what I mean.

Saadiyat Island is very big. I mean it’s not exactly Baffin Island or anything, but there’s still a LOT of space to fill. Plans call for it to become a cultural centre, including a Guggenheim Abu Dhabi designed by Frank Gehry and the Zayed National Museum, along with a maritime museum, arts centre, schools and a residential community. So far though, it’s still mostly sand.

Mika and I thoroughly enjoyed the Louvre Abu Dhabi, but I also enjoyed the quiet evening at home that followed. Since then I've done a little bit more sightseeing, but work is catching up with me and the days are long. Mostly what I want to do in my small bits of down time is sit on the couch or on the beach, because it feels like a long haul since I left my frozen little boat last February and I'm getting a bit weary. I'm very much looking forward to getting this job done and being home - all of my different homes, that is - in time for Christmas.

The Curse of Room 2153

It started with the toaster.

Actually, let me back up. I sort of neglected to mention this, but after I left the sunny climes of Australia I had only the briefest of interludes at home on the boat before starting the next, thankfully shorter, adventure. It was so brief an interlude that when I was buying groceries after returning I actually hesitated before investing in a jar of mayonnaise. Then I came to my senses, because the mayonnaise cost 65p and what’s the point of being a well paid International Woman of Mystery if you can’t be a bit profligate with the condiments on occasion?

Having abandoned my mayonnaise, I flew to Abu Dhabi where I’m now working on another Abu Dhabi National Day show. It’s all a bit same-same as the last time I was here in 2015. It’s a somewhat different group of people to work with and a somewhat higher profile event than last time, but it’s the same stadium and ultimately it’s simply another big show. This year is a bit different because it’s the Year of Zayed, so-named because 2018 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the Founding Father of the UAE. It’s a significant milestone for the country, and it feels like our show is one of the key events of the year. No pressure!

So let's review quickly: Jakarta is ancient history. Australia is a fading memory. I'm in Abu Dhabi, and we’re back in the desert!

Also back in a really fancy hotel which - I never tire of telling people about this - 
has a private beach!

It is unquestionably a nice hotel, and my room is lovely, spacious, and well-equipped. It’s got a kitchen area with a large fridge and a two-burner hob and a microwave and kettle and a washing machine (more on which later). And of course it came with a toaster. The hotel room also comes with an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet downstairs, which would seem to negate the need for a toaster, but bear with me. I know it sounds like the worst sort of ungratefulness, but sometimes I just don’t have the heart for the communal breakfast buffet at 7am on a work day. It’s great for a short stay, or for a treat, or for a slap-up day off brunch. But when you’re in for a long term stay and you’re working every day, sometimes it’s nice to have breakfast “at home” like you’re a normal person. It’s also good not to have to walk past the endless trays of pain au chocolate and muffins and donuts every morning. So a few times a week I shuffle into the kitchen and make myself coffee and a bowl of fruit and a soft boiled egg on toast, with Marmite (of course). It’s a less challenging start to the day. Or at least it’s meant to be.

What happened when I first tried my calming-at-home-breakfast was this: I got the egg boiling on the stove, prepped my bowl of mixed fruit, put the kettle on for coffee and popped a piece of bread in the toaster. Thirty seconds later the power went out in the entire room. Of course access to the breaker panel is locked so all I could do was call the hotel desk and wait for an electrician to come reset the breaker. I assumed that the wiring in the room just wasn’t up to the task of running a burner on the stove, a kettle and a toaster all at once. So while I was waiting for the guy to arrive I made coffee with the pretty-much-hot-enough water and I let the egg sit in formerly boiling water to finish cooking and I prepared my Marmite on warm bread. Eventually a lovely man came and unlocked the cabinet and reset the power and I asked him where I could plug in the toaster to avoid the same fate the next time I make breakfast. We identified an outlet next to the couch, he went on his way, and I ate my warm bread.

A later, more successful breakfast

The next time I attempted toast was in the evening, to accompany an omelette for supper. While the frying pan was heating on the stove, I plugged in the toaster next to the couch and popped in the bread once again. Astute Go Stay Work Play Live Readers will not be surprised to learn that thirty seconds later I was standing in a dark room, with another slice of warm bread. This time I drew a different hotel electrician who was a bit livelier, and he could tell I had just enough knowledge to be worth the effort, so we did a bit of troubleshooting. We checked the wattage rating on the toaster (a mere 800w) and on the breakers. We even recreated the scene several times - stove on, toast in - and each time, after a tantalising moment of optimism, our hopes were dashed and we were left in the dark. Finally, we turned off everything else and just ran the toaster. And again… darkness. The toaster did it! It was the toaster all along! (It was like a really badly written murder mystery where the toaster, the hob and the kettle are all sitting nervously in a snow-bound drawing room while the famous detective paces the carpet and says, “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here this evening…”)

Finally, the friendly electrician took the evil toaster away for re-education and brought me this fancy new one.

Then I tried to plug the kettle back in where it had always been plugged, and realised it had a two-prong euro-style plug and the outlet is UK style. And I was baffled, because the kettle had always been plugged into the same place (until we started troubleshooting) and all I was doing was putting it back. I assumed the electrician had mistakenly taken an adapter that I hadn’t noticed was there. He hadn’t taken it, but he did offer to plug the kettle in for me. The kettle with the euro-style plug. Plugged into the UK-style outlet. Intrigued, I backed away and let him have a go. He flicked off the switch on the outlet, blithely inserted a screwdriver tip into the hole for the ground pin - thus neatly defeating the safety lock-out - and slid the plug into place.

Well, played sir. Now if only you hadn’t accidentally left your toolkit in the breaker panel cabinet thus forcing the front desk to phone at 11:30pm while I was half asleep so I could let you in to retrieve it. Then again, we did do the Watts = Volts x Amps equation together twice, so I still feel we’ve bonded a bit.

As I said, it started with the toaster. Next was the fridge. The door wasn’t closing properly, which meant a lot of condensation from the humid air in the room was building up and it was basically raining in the fridge. I asked them to have a look at it one day while I was out. When I got home that evening I could see the workmen had emptied the contents of the fridge so they could fix it, because things had gone back a bit haphazardly (or not at all, like the dish of tuna salad that had been left on the counter). Then I looked a bit closer and realised that there was something missing. On arrival in Abu Dhabi I’d stocked up at the Duty Free shop, because it can be a bit of a faff buying alcohol in the UAE. So I was certain I had two bottles of white wine in the fridge. Not anymore. One bottle was clearly missing. I searched around to see if it had just been mis-filed but quickly realised it was simply gone.

This presented a dilemma. I was missing a bottle of wine. People had been in my room handling the bottles of wine. It not hard to think someone might have taken the bottle. Clearly that was not right, so it should have been simple for me to call the hotel and report the problem. Then again, it was just a £10 bottle of plonk and I suspect the punishment for that kind of thing in this country might be quite harsh. Alcohol can be a touchy subject here, and the UAE is already a tricky place for foreign workers. (And everyone in the service industry is a foreign worker. Everyone.) Did I really need to put someone in that position for a lousy bottle of Riesling? Then again, if someone had taken it hadn’t they put themselves in that position? Then again if you’re desperate enough that you need to steal a cheap bottle of wine, who am I to judge, sitting in my five star hotel room? Then again if it had been taken and I didn’t report it, would word spread that the chick in Room 2153 was an easy mark? I had another six weeks to go in this hotel. I went back and forth again and again. I consulted friends and family. I even checked with one of my local staff. Finally, I called. But I deliberately didn’t say “One of the guys fixing my fridge stole a bottle of wine.” I phrased it much more delicately, saying “I can see the guys who worked on the fridge moved a lot of things around and I can’t find one bottle of wine.”

Very shortly after I got a call from a manager who apologetically explained that while moving things in the fridge, one of the bottles of wine had accidentally been dropped and broken. (This also explained why a red plastic dustpan was left on the counter, the presence of which had been mysterious but ended up being independently corroborative evidence.) So faith in humanity was restored, the wine was replaced, and this time my sleep was not interrupted at midnight by any forgetful fridge repairmen who’d left their screwdrivers in the mayonnaise.

It’s not a Riesling, but I’m sure it will be fine. Sadly, the next morning when I opened the fridge to get the bag of coffee for breakfast I realised the bottle of wine wasn’t the only thing missing. I couldn't find the coffee. This time, rather than tying myself in knots again I’ve chosen to believe it was accidentally discarded during cleanup and I simply bought another bag. There’s only so much moral debate I can handle in the morning. 

Especially before I’ve had a coffee.

So there was the demon toaster. And there was WinebottleGate. But all that was nothing compared to the main event, and the true proof that this hotel room is cursed. I already mentioned the room has a washing machine, and I took advantage of it on the first day off, putting in a load before going down for breakfast. (It was a day off, so I was in just the right mood for the buffet.) When I got back I could hear the machine was on the spin cycle and a bit off-balance because it was making quite a racket inside its cabinet. I didn’t think much of it, and once the cycle finished I happily festooned the room with damp socks and underwear. (Because the retractable clothesline in the bathtub is exactly four inches too short to reach the bracket on the other side, but I wasn’t about to call the hotel AGAIN. Who knows what mayhem could result from that?)

The next week I put a bigger load in and decamped to the dining room for brunch once again. But this time I came back to a scene that was like the opening sequence to that "the-toaster-done-it" murder mystery from earlier. It was the establishing shot of the murder victim lying prone in an expanding pool of vital fluids. Except this victim was a front-loading washer. Or perhaps it was simply that the challenge of life in Room 2153 had proved too much for the poor washing machine because when I opened the door it looked like the thing had tried to fling itself to its death by launching from its cabinet and landing face down on the kitchen floor.

This is the scene I came home to, with the machine still running, desperately grinding itself into the tilework. The plumbing connection had also ripped apart, which meant that water was spouting energetically from the open pipework and flooding the kitchen floor. All it needed was a bit of police tape and it could have been the first episode of Law & Order LAU (Large Appliance Unit).

Considering the seriousness of the situation, I was a bit surprised at how long it took for one of the hotel engineers to arrive. Sure, I’d closed the cut-off valve for the water so it wasn’t actively flooding the room. But I was still expecting a slightly more energetic response than one mostly disinterested guy. Then again, as soon as that one guy took in the entire scene of the crime it didn’t take long for a whole team of people to arrive. Soon there were two workers and a supervisor and a manager splashing around and the supervisor guy quickly diagnosed the problem. Apparently in the two years since the machine was installed no other guest had ever used it. Because if they had, they would have been the ones to discover that the stabilising bolts that are put in place at the factory to hold the internal drum solidly for shipping had not been removed when the machine was set up in the room. This meant that the drum couldn’t move freely on its shock-absorbing mounting and instead any imbalance in the load was transmitted through the whole appliance while the drum was spinning at 600 RPM. It must have sounded like someone swinging a sledgehammer around inside an oil drum.

The offending parts. They are not small. 

At this point I feel like I should put the hotel maintenance staff on my Christmas card list. They’re here so often they’re practically family. My colleague Kieran and I have discussed setting up an pool to predict what might go wrong next. I think it’ll be something that takes out the phone, so I’m unable to call to for assistance. Kieran suggested that if blood starts to seep out of the walls I should really ask to move rooms, but I’m sort of enjoying the frisson of anticipation that comes every time I get home.

In fact things have settled down, though I’m nervous saying that out loud. And I hasten to add the really, the hotel is lovely and the staff are very friendly and helpful and good with a mop when called on. And despite the suicidal washing machine I did manage to salvage most of my day off and went down to the beach to enjoy the end of the afternoon.

There really wasn’t much wrong with this at all.

And definitely nothing wrong with this.

Desert Adventure, Day Two

I’m back in Canada where it is appropriately cold and windy and snowy and where I’ve been doing an excellent job of doing nothing.  Well not actually nothing.  I’ve reached Olympic-level eating and sleeping and up until now have also been managing some fairly high-level blog-ignoring.  But cognisant of the fact that there's still a whole day of desert adventuring to tell you about, I’ve finally roused myself and ventured out into my natural habitat (a café with free wifi) to dust off the blog.

When last we left our intrepid desert adventurers the sun had set on Day One and we were full of sweet tea and sheep brains and liberally coated in sand.  Having already ridden camels, visited a random castle, seen Abdulla’s farm, hugged baby goats and cavorted in the dunes, we were at a bit of a loss as to what there was left to do.  How wrong we were.

In the morning there was a generous spread of breakfast(ish) food and more arabic coffee and milky tea.  When we convened with Abdulla to find out what was ahead for the day, it seemed he was also at a bit of a loss, until he said “Do you want to meet the Camel Lady?  She is the only woman in the UAE who keeps camels.  They made a film about her.”

Naturally, we needed no encouragement whatsoever.  So Abdulla made a phone call (he is the kind of guy who, I strongly suspect, either knows everyone interesting in the country, or at least knows someone who knows everyone) so we soon piled back into our cars to find the Camel Lady.  Her camp was set up not far off and even though there were 13 of us, she welcomed us into her tent and made us sit down and served us coffee and dates and other delicacies.

Here she is pouring us tiny cups of arabic coffee.

And here’s the warm camel milk I tried, which was not bad.

Fatima Al Hameli is one-of-a-kind, literally.  She is the only woman ever to participate in the Al Dhafra Festival with her own camels under her own name.  Apparently the first year she went to the festival the organisers told her that women were not allowed to participate.  Undaunted, Fatima held her ground and pointed out that there is, in fact, no rule preventing women from taking part.  Eventually, the organisers relented when the Sheikh agreed to let her in, and she has been a fixture every year since then.  (Note: even my above average Googling skills did not reveal what year that was.)

It was awesome and also kind of surreal.  How do you even process something like that? Hanging out in a tent in the desert in the company of the country’s only female camel baron(ess) drinking camel milk, with her dividing her time between taking calls on her gold iPhone, snapping photos of us and posting them to her Instagram account, proposing to kill a sheep to cook for our lunch, and dosing us with the scent of burning oud wood.

I think this picture was on Instagram before we'd even sat down again...

In this form oud is the burning charcoal of the agarwood, which is a dark, resinous heartwood from a tree that has been infected with a particular type of mould.  The resin the tree produces in response to the infection makes the wood rare and very valuable and the oil from it is processed into perfume.  And apparently it’s also burned as a sort of desert incense kind of thing.  We were encouraged to allow the smoke to bath our faces.  It was not exactly refreshing, but I suppose when you’re stuck in the desert it’s better than spending your whole life smelling like a camel.

And of course she showed us some of her camels, including a baby with its mom (Possibly the source of the camel milk?  I didn’t ask, though it seems likely.  Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever met the beast that produced the milk I’ve drunk before.)

She really loves those camels.  She kept feeding them big balls of mashed dates.  Of course.

We begged off lunch (thus hopefully sparing another poor sheep) and headed back to camp where Abdulla had already arranged a feast for us, including a local fish called hamour.  It was served, like the sheep, on a huge bed of rice, and we ate with out hands again (at least those of us who weren’t pansy cowards).  The hamour was delicious - a meaty white fish that must have been very large in life, considering the size of the bones.  After lunch I think I managed to beg a half hour nap before we were off on another random adventure, courtesy of Abdulla.

We decided we’d like another visit to some nice sand dunes, so we hit the road again and Abdulla led us to the top of a high ridge of sand where local crazy people drive UP in their fancy four wheel drive vehicles with their sand buttons on.  Instead of doing that clearly insane thing, we instead decided to run down the dune.  Of course.

It was big.  And surprisingly tiring to get to the bottom of.

Luckily, Abdulla and Nick drove the long way ‘round to the bottom of the hill to pick us up. Because if you think running down a big sand dune is tiring, try crawling back UP.

And then possibly the coolest random thing of the whole trip happened.  We sat for a while at the top of the dune waiting for Nick and Abdulla to find their way to the bottom. (We are smart, and decided not to run to the bottom until our ride back also appeared at the bottom.  See aforementioned difficulty of climbing sand dunes.)  And as we were sitting, we saw a group of men at the bottom of the valley training falcons!  Falconry is a huge deal in the Emirates. Huge.  Owning, training and racing falcons is a very popular and traditional activity in the region, and we’d stumbled on a couple of regular guys, our with their birds.  Once we were all down from the top of the dune (and because he’s awesome) Abdulla hopped out of the car and talked to the guys and soon we were all out looking at the birds and watching the guys and birds do their thing.

I found this weird, but apparently they just transport the birds in the back of the car.  I suppose it's like throwing your Irish Setter in the back of the station wagon to take him out for a run at the dog park.

Traditionally, falcons are trained with a feathered lure on a long string.  The trainer will swing the lure around and the bird’s job is to catch it in its claws while in flight.  Our guys were doing that, but they were also employing a much more modern and cool method for higher altitude training… drones!

They had two different drones, each equipped with a lure on a long string.  The lure was hung from a clip that would pull away from the drone when the bird struck.

Of course the falconers were keen to show off their birds and their technology, so we got to see them both in action, thus satisfying both our traditional touristy inclinations and also the more techie among us.  One guy would release the drone and pilot it way way way up until it was hard to see at all, and the other would take the hood off a bird and launch it from their arm up at the target.  The bird then made a long, spiralling ascent towards the lure before finally grabbing it and returning to the ground.  The first time the string on the lure got caught in a power line and the falconer had to go fetch the bird, who was NOT interested in giving up that lure.  The second time both bird and lure made it back fine and as a reward the bird was allowed to pluck and devour the formerly living small bird that had been the lure (I’m pretty sure it was dead when it went up…)

There were, quite literally, feathers flying.

And to top it all off, a few of us actually got to hold the falcons.

At this point, we figured Abdulla was slightly magical, and would have followed him anywhere. In this case it meant that we followed him (in our Lost Boys car, piloted by the eminently trustworthy Nick) on a quick dune-bashing jaunt through the desert.  Sources in Abdulla’s car report that most of his comments were along the lines of “There used to be a road here” and “I hope Nick is doing ok”.  Most of the comments in our car were along the lines of “Oh my God!” and “Nick, no please don’t”.  Happily, Nick has some experience in dune driving and was just fearless enough to make thing interesting but just sensible enough that we didn’t go nearly as high up the 45 degree slope as Abdulla did.  And we all survived unscathed.  And Nick got to have a bit of fun.  And the sand button was well and truly used to full advantage.

And yet the day was still not over!  Off we went to find another picturesque set of dunes where we could watch the sunset and have one last romp in the sand.

Me and Abdulla, racing along the inside slope of a dune.  He outpaced me by a long way, even in his kandora, but I bet I could beat him on skates any way, any day.

And, of course, the sunset

This was followed by a pitstop at the fancy hotel located near the camp.  The hotel exists basically to serve people visiting the Al Dhafra Festival, though they’re trying to build a clientele outside the festival, though I suspect it’s a hard sell.  It suited us fine though, and let us have a bit of a breather, and even a glass of wine, before heading  back to camp for one last enormous supper.  By this time, the construction of the camp was advanced enough to include a whole kitchen enclosure, so we had grilled meat and fresh flat bread cooked on site. Of course.

We even got to go back to the kitchen and take the bread right off the grill, and have the grilled meat sliced onto the steaming bread in our hands.

And of course then they made fried dough balls dipped in honey and sesame seeds.

Arabic Timbits!

I stumbled off to bed some time later after another evening of sitting by the fire, chatting, drinking tea, and force-feeding myself fried dough.  I think we talked about what an amazing experience the past two days had been, and how we needed share our photos, and how stupid everyone who HADN’T come on the trip was going to feel, and, of course how totally awesome Abdulla was.

The next day we packed up relatively early and Nick got to give the sand button another workout on the way back to the highway, and we had a last few hours of each other’s company on the way back to the hotel where were arrived utterly exhausted, and smelling of campfires and camels.  We then did that thing you do when you’ve had an amazing, intense experience with a group of people but no one can quite accept that it’s really over so you kind of hang around on the sidewalk for a bit before everyone finally drifts away with promises of drinks later.

And then you shower eleven times in a row and have a very very very long nap and dream of camels.

Best road sign. Ever.