Time for my first blog entry. Alright so I finally decided to get some air and sunlight everyday for atleast 2 hours. And taking advantage of this decision I was stuffed with a bunch of bills which were due by my dad. Darn! Oh well, another visit to BSNL's office, the guys whom I really adore, won't hurt would it?
Anyways, thankfully the customer care offices out here are more friendlier than the buggers who end up in the technical support, so that went well. That reminds me, I installed a new device on my bike. Its something that sounds whenever I change the gears on the bike. All you have to do is listen up for the "aaah" coming out of my mouth! :) Alright so its not a device, that spider really had a good bite on my left foot. Maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh on the guy. Could have signed a contract with the guy for Pest Control. Ofcourse, I would've had to take the pain of preparing a Specs list which he would have to oblige to and then this would be followed by setting up a good site for his home. And then I would have had to get some rules set apart for cleanliness and noise levels. Hmm...wonder if the corporation would require me to fill some forms for all this. Oh well, guess the kiddo wouldn't be able to handle the pains of reading through my Specs list anyway.
Was gonna tell you people of my hometown right? Not talking about Trivandrum, but Abu Dhabi. So where shall I start? A pretty expensive flight and a huge crappy procedure of purchasing a Visit Visa for around 500Dhs (revised to 1200Dhs now) will give you the access to one of the most happening town of the middle east (NOT! Although an hour and a half drive would get you to Dubai which IS the MOST happening City of the Middle East, this is more like its sleeping brother). Speaking of flights, you do have a cheaper option. Its a tube which is fitted with two cows up front, has wheels similar to the ones on bullock carts and runs on grass and has been christianed Air India Express. You needn't worry about anything as long as you don't get into one of these cheap excuses of air travel. They flight attendants will pretend you're not there, charge you for the air you breath and probably a dollar for the earphones which were used by drunkard who threw up on the last flight. Hungry? Yeah they do provide food, its a round thing the shape of a donut but chewing the same would remind you of pebbles you stuffed into your mouth when you were a kid....(you guys didn't? ok i guess its just me), they call it a vada and charge you 2 dollars for the same. Hmm...oh well lets get back to the flight I went by, Ettihad Airways! That's the true way to fly, not too expensive yet its got features that put Emirates to shame. Sigh, I manged to bug all the flight attendants in there. Coffee, Cappuchino, Hot Chocolate, Arabic Kebabs, Lamp Chops, ..... aaaaah my mouth still waters thinking of it. Poor them, they must've banned me from that airline after the pain they went through in the two and a half hour flight that I had from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi.
Now once you get to Abu Dhabi, you have to go and get your eye checked....or that's wat the security officer said. How nice of them, I was having trouble with my contact lenses anyways. There was this huge line there, but what the heck, its free and I don't really need to take the pains of going to a lousy doc who keeps complaining about how rare I take those lenses off. It was my turn, a stylish "Asalam Aleikum" later, they stuff me onto a machine where I was to show my eyes. Two seconds later an alarm pops up and I find a bunch of security guards around me. Jeez, I never knew having a problem with my eyesight would cause such a big problem. One guy kept his cool and asked me to try again, and well it came off pretty well and the screen showed a green light indicating my eyes were fine after all. Gotta get that report from them and meet my doc. Took me a while to realise that it wasn't a eye test after all...hehe was a retina scan and I was actually identified as a terrorist! Ouch!
A small wait at the baggage counter and I was outta there, a big smile in front of the security guy who opens up bags was enough for him to say "Stop!" Crap...there goes my pirated DVDs, but to my surprise all he said was, "use this door you crazy oaf!". Phew! that was close, I remember a friend of mine being caught for bringing a tape of his tour across India, supposedly they felt it was some porn movie and made him stay for a whole three hours to check the whole tape. Pity the guy! :) Parents were waiting out and as usual I had grown thin. Parents have this funny way of visualizing you as a real thin baby everytime you gain 4kgs! Out into the sun and into the silky roads (as expressed by a British reporter) of Abu Dhabi. A half an hour drive takes you to the island city of Abu Dhabi.
Alright now that you have reached Abu Dhabi, I shall point out a certain pecularity about my town. There is a certain big white thing with a blue stripe across it which you may come across if you are lucky. We call it the Unicorn of the City.....the Govt calls it the Municipality Public transport. The city has the most lousiest excuse of mass transit in the world! They have a bunch of bus stops all over the city, but even a 24hour wait in there won't get you anywhere! Ofcourse you'll get a bunch of cabbies honking at you, mocking you rather than offering a lift. If you have some sanity (its a measely 48 degrees in the shade), you would probably get into one of the white golden cabs. A word of caution, do not sit in the front seat!!!!!! esp if you are a girl.....uhm....no actually the rule applies even if you are a guy.
Coming back to the ride. Well Taxis are pretty cheap, guess the guys who set the rates do realise that no1 would pay any more for the smell and courteous nature of the cabbies there. You will be greeted with a lovely smile and a smell that would probably get you a one way ticket to the nearest morgue. Try your best to pretend that you don't know hindu or arabic or any other language he tries to speak to you in. Just tell him your destination and pretend your on a call. Trust me, its not worth it. I've made a bunch of blunders by being friendly with these guys....uhm not really friendly, just spoke! Well there was once when these guys started talking about all.....gals close your eyes...the oh crap i can't say it....gals you can open your eyes...anyways, there was one incident that I could tell you about. I was silently sitting in the cab observing the Corniche on my way to my gym (yeah guys I was soo insanely bored I was a regular at the GYM!!) and suddenly the cabbie next to me picks out his pompons and cheers "give me a J...give me an I...give me an H...give me an A...give me a D...goooooo JIHAD!") A strange stare later he starts talking to me...oh no i can't handle this! Keeps asking me to listen to the radio and puts the volume on max...uhm..well I tried...tried hard, but i just couldn't understand Pushto! And there he started off explaining how 3 americans were killed in a bombing in Iraq! Uhm...he rejoices for that?!?!?! oh well a long conversation (owing to my destination being a 5dh journey....hehe guys from Dubai get jealous!! ;) 5dh journey = approx 10kms) followed and I asked him why Islam seems to be preaching hatred when the religion is the most peaceful religion the world has seen. And he gives his views on how Americans has oppressed his ppl and he feels happy everytime an american dies. hmmmm....Just couldn't get this into my system anyways....'coz well I'm Muslim and as far as I know it, Islam doesn't believe in walking around with massive loads of explosives strapped on and blowing up ppl! Fine so Batman did have a utility belt with the same number of explosives....come to think of, I wonder wat would've happened if he accidentally pushed the wrong button on his utility belt. July 4th a little early maybe ;)
Oh well those are the bad parts of it, but well Abu Dhabi is lovely. Get out of your Ice Cold flats, that often remind me of Tensings journey to the Mount Everest, you get to see lovely gardens, malls, and the works. The city boasts of many wonders, as an example we have an underpass on the corniche road which always makes me wonder why only one side of the Dual carraigeway seems to be going under while the other side of the traffic is up, with absolutely nothing above the underpass but a small patch of grass. hmmmmmm architectural wonder. And then you have two buildings with a ball on its peak which houses some of the richest and craziest corporate executives in the country. Its the HQ of the only Telecom company in the country...trust me their rates are alarming! I spent over 300Dhs....uhm...maybe more than that on just telephone cards! Uhm...alright so I was calling IDD but still! (Dad Mom, Don't believe this, I'm just lieing...its all part of a humour exercise that I'm going through)
Talking about rich people, well the city also hosts the most expensive hotel in the world! Expensive in construction, expensive in cost of rooms, expensive in all aspects of life! To give you an idea of how expensive, the cost of the construction is in the tune of 5 billion dollars! Each room has two 67 inch plasma screens and a walk in wardrobe and....oh well I can't get in there so why talk about it? Its the Emirates Palace Hotel. Abu Dhabi felt that they were not in the map and so they built it in the span of two years. Word of advice, sue the guy who sold you the Atlas of America and told you Abu Dhabi wasn't in it. Oh well they are happy and I'm happy to be a part of the construction of that bldg. You see, as i said I was extremely bored in Abu Dhabi and ended joining a company there as a trainee for a month and a half. They were the guys who did the security systems in the Palace Hotel. Trust me, technology can get no more sophisticated than it is in there!
Hangouts? Well you've always got the Marina Mall and the Abu Dhabi Mall...if you're interested in having a petty quarrel over a 11th grade girl, you might as well go to the Grand Al Maria Mall :) Speaking of food, there are a bunch of outlets there that I'm sure most of us would fancy, but well a word of warning you're sure to gain a lot of weight and then repent for the rest of your life! Look at me!!!
Well hope you had a nice visit to Abu Dhabi, hope to see you again when you're out of the Immigration Prison here...
cyaz guys
