A day in Sharjah

*Click photos to enlarge

Good day,

Enjoy the photos from today.

Unfortunately, this will be the second time I've written this entry as I already wrote one earlier but it seems to have been discarded.

The day did not begin so well. I rose around 700 and tried to fall back to sleep but couldn't. Rather, I sat in bed staring at the wall wishing I could again fall asleep and thinking about all that was wrong with my situation. I ate a few bowls of cereal, a cross between frosted flakes and honey bunches of oats. Around 1130 I took a power nap 'til about two. The excursion to sharjah did much to boost my morale.

Ed, Kelly, and I planned to head into the city to see what it was all about so we did just that. The cab cost about 25 dhs or 7 dollars. Our trip started at the City Centre Mall where, among other things, I purchased a cell phone, , a bath towel embroidered with a camel ($4.50)and a shower curtain (to match my aquamarine bathroom tile [hideous] $1.75), very lavish. Ed and Kelly came out with a bounty of produce. From the mall we crossed a main thoroughfare through town and walked across a park to the promenade along the corniche (fancy way of saying "bay" in Arabic).

We walked maybe a mile or two north to the Gold Sooq. Along the way we stopped at a dunkin' donuts for some water and some much needed sugar intake. Bottled water here is only about 45 cents. amazing. I dare say they like their dunking donuts here more than they do on the east coast

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The sooq was interesting, full of jewelers, Persian rug dealers, and electronics kiosks. Proved to be rather touristy but we all agreed it'd be a good place to get y'all gifts before our return. We exited the sooq at the call to prayer. we were right next to a mosque so we paused to take it all in. The next endeavour was to hail a cab which proves more difficult than one would think.

We finally flagged down a cab and headed on our way. For the first quarter mile, our driver was chanting Allah Akbar and he spoke all of 10 English words, more than my Arabic though. He kept trying to tell us something else as well. We soon established that he wanted to stop at the mosque for a minute. He pulled the cab over, ran to the mosque and left us sitting there. Quite entertaining. After he got back in, we established that he was from Pakistan through elementary conversation and we told him we were from the state. The first thing out of his mouth, "oooooh bush bad man," but seemed to love having Americans for his fare. He was a very interesting guy, very entertaining. What took 10 minutes to travel in the afternoon took an hour in the evening traffic. He got us there as quick as he could though thanks to his rather unorthodox driving skills. Quite admirable, really. All in all it was probably the most entertaining hour I've spent in a car thanks to our eccentric driver. We think we learned quite a bit of slang Arabic though we're still unsure of the meaning of "Shardah."