Just arrived

Saturday, December 31th

I expected to find a dark city, with empty streets and an almost ghostly hotel.

I fantasized about having dinner in the hotel restaurant, accompanied only by brief and incomprehensible words from a Pakistani waiter who wouldn't care about the New Year's change.

Couldn't have been more wrong. Even the exit from Abu Dhabi hinted at something different. Traffic jams on the highway, a green laser trying to split the sky in half. The Pakistani taxi driver tries to explain the obvious to me, that it's New Year's Eve and there are parties everywhere.

The entrance to Al Ain was easy to recognize  even though it's nighttime. The wide avenues are generously lit, and the flowers in the medians, the palms, the imposing traffic lights welcome me again.

As soon as the suitcases are in the room, room 138, I go down to the street to take a walk and see the atmosphere of the 'city.' The streets near the hotel were overflowing with people and a festive atmosphere. In the hotel itself, a party had been organized on the upper floor, and young girls in black dresses... and barely anything else... were heading to it. I suppose they were the young neighbors from Al Ain Square.

Sunday, January 1st

I don't wake up early. This time it's harder for me to adjust to the time change, and the truth is that the trip has left me tired.

I have breakfast at the hotel buffet, everyone is smiling and saying 'Happy New Year, sir.' The most complete buffet I've ever enjoyed. A perfect opportunity that I miss to put into practice the tourist strategy in Spanish hotels: one meal a day, breakfast at the hotel.

Going out determined to walk and explore the surroundings of Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium. To the west, the new residential neighborhood where the hotel is located. To the east, a huge block where there is a mosque surrounded by, at this moment I though so, impossible gardens in the middle of the desert. The remains of the 'picnics' (drinking parties) from the previous night.

I have lunch at a pizzeria next to the stadium. Once again, everyone is kind. They don't have wine or beer in this place, so I start the year with mineral water. I remember Captain Haddock!"