Is This Real Life?

I am truly speechless.

Literally no words exist that can properly describe how amazing this week has been. And even if I tried to describe it all, this post would be as long as a short novel (sorry for the length even with excluding details). I am going to just briefly go over things and there are a lot of things I am leaving out but don't worry I will tell you all the details if you are interested. With that in mind...here is an overview of the week 10 American exchange students lived like royalty.

Thursday

After sleeping just a couple hours (believe it or not, it is incredibly difficult to sleep knowing you are about to leave for a trip of a lifetime) I woke up early to finish packing when my phone rang. It was one of our drivers and he was already on campus. After rallying the troops we all rushed out of our rooms, said good bye to the dorms and ran to the cars.  We loaded everything and were off to the Dubai Airport to catch our flight. It was surprisingly easy to get all eight of us checked in since they let us do it like a family (we collected all the passports and checked in all together). Next thing we knew we were on the plane (with two other people) and ready to start this trip.

We saw Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi while landing in Abu Dhabi

Sir Bani Yas Island here we come

 After a stop in Abu Dhabi we were almost to the island. The moment we spotted it we were amazed by how beautiful it was. We got off the plane, walked through the super tiny airport where we were greeted by the resort staff and led to our cars. And so began the extreme royal treatment.

Sir Bani Yas in all of its beauty

Airport at Sir Bani Yas

The group in front of our plane

 We were greeted at the resort by name (sneaky how they used our passport pictures to learn our names) and given a tour before going to our villas. Come to find out our villas are the Sheikhs' personal villas and are only used by them and their guests. Which makes sense because they were huge!

Master Bedroom (my room) with a king size bedding looking at the beach

Heaven in bed form

Our private beach

View from the balcony on top of the villa

Right behind our villas were the mountains and the sunset so the first night we went to the balcony on the roof to watch the sunset.

We finished our first day with an amazing meal in the Italian restaurant within the resort. In one day we managed to fly to the island, go swimming in the ocean (some of us even got stung by jelly fish), organize all of our excursions and watch a beautiful sunset. Quite successful I would say.

Cool part is how on top of stuff the staff there was. When we got back from dinner they had turned down our beds, replaced all the towels and essentially re-cleaned the entire room. I opened the doors so I could hear the ocean and drifted to sleep (similar to the night before I had trouble sleeping because I was so excited) because we had to be up by 530am for a sunrise safari.

Friday- Sprinting a Marathon

We woke up before the sun to go on a safari. It was really great and my friend and I rode most of the time on the roof of the jeep which made it even more amazing. We made some giraffe friends too.

Our new friend the giraffe

Gotta love that wind blown hair from riding on the back of a jeep

Part of our group during the safari

When we got back to the resort it was only 8am (that is the beauty of waking up with the sun, lots of time to do things) so we grabbed some breakfast before heading out on the tour of the Christian Monastery and a nature walk. I was super pumped about seeing the Monastery because it dates back to 600 AD (pre-Islam) and is one of the first places that people inhabited throughout the entire Arabian peninsula. There are about 40 other archeological sites like this one but here is what we saw. 

 Then we went on our nature walk and were able to get as close as the animals would let us. We saw so many cool animals but obviously my favorites were the giraffes. We found an entire journey of giraffes and did everything we could to get close but this is the best we could do.

 If the day was not full enough yet, we went and had lunch at the other part of the resort. We ate on the porch with this breathtaking view.

Walking back from the rock pier.

Lunch time!

We did not take the mentality that this week was a marathon because we most definitely sprinted through it all. It felt like almost every minute was planned. After lunch we went to the desert for archery before coming back to get all fancy for the big meal. Since most of the other villas were full now there was a big buffet style Italian meal on the patio where we spent the rest of our night eating and talking (the chef was actually Italian and from the region that my host grandmother lives so we chatted and I got some great food from the kitchen out of it). It was a great way to end a crazy long day.

Saturday- Welcome to Al Ain

Despite not sleeping very much, we woke up to go horseback riding before we left. I don't mind waking up early when this is what I see first thing.

I took this while laying down still.

Good Morning, Sun!

Just riding some horses in the desert.

After horseback riding I feel like everything went into fog because the lack of sleep was catching up to us. The staff was so friendly and kind as they sent us off to the airport it was sad to go because they had become like our family in such a short time. Once on the plane everyone fell asleep until we woke up in Abu Dhabi where our drivers were waiting to take us to Al-Ain. I LOVE AL AIN! There are trees all over the place since it is an oasis and the huge sand dunes are touched with beautiful hues of red from the copper ore that comes from Jebel Hafeet. Within the first ten minutes in the car I knew I would love this city. As we pulled up to the hotel (where we stayed for the last 5 days) we knew that everything was about to get even more excessive since we were in the Sheikh's hometown. We were greeted by at least ten staff members and checked into our rooms. I had to just lay on the bed and keep asking, "is this real life?"

Our rooms...two people shared rooms this big

We had a nice meal in the restaurant next to the lobby (a full Lebanese buffet) and just chilled the rest of the night because the next morning would be the busiest day yet...and one of my favorite days of my life!

Sunday-Oh man, Oman!

We got picked up at 8:30am to head to Oman. I LOVE OMAN! It was so perfect. We started out near the border looking at the remains of the Saudi influence. In the past, Saudis came to Oman and the UAE in hopes of unifying the peninsula and their villages are still intact today. Being the huge history nerd that I am, I absolutely loved all of this!

Next stop, the old forts. This one was not far away from the Saudi village and despite being rather old is standing tall and strong. These forts were the safe havens of villages and whenever the tribes would be under attack they would all go inside the forts for protection as they fought off the enemy.

We stopped at another fort that was further in the mountains as well.

We took off out of town toward the wadis, mountains and the oasis. We were driving along a super straight road when we saw a river bed next to some amazing rock formations. Casually we asked our driver if he could drive up the river bed and he did! Next things you know we are all half way up the mountain if not more. Needless to say things escalated quickly. More than our drivers had imagined. Before you we knew it half of the group was at the top of the tallest peak. After a while our drivers' honked their horns to being us back down to the cars.

Our view from the top

We finished our time in Oman driving through the Oasis. It was like a someone dropped a rainforest in the middle of the desert. 

 

 Next stop, top of Jebel Hafeet for lunch. Jebel Hafeet is the iconic mountain that can be seen from every part of Al Ain. It has a 13 kilometer road that twists and turns around the mountain that takes you to the top where a hotel is. All day I had been joking with our driver how good of a driver I was and he finally caved and let me drive up the mountain. It was like playing need for speed but in real life, in the Sheikh's Land Rover and up a mountain in the UAE.

Driving up the mountain

Us girls and our driver at the top of Jebel Hafeet

The day was far from over at this point. After surviving a tsunami (actually though it rained so hard the visibility was down to nearly nothing). We went to the Palace Museum and the Al Ain Museum. It was absolutely wonderful!

Loved this quote in one of the museums. It goes along with what Sheikh Mansour always says in class, you have to understand the history behind a country before you can understand what they are doing in the present.

This was in the Palace Museum and I really want a copy of it. The Arabic calligraphy says, "A woman constitutes half the society and keeps the house. A country aspiring to build itself should not keep a woman in the darkness of illiteracy and a prisoner to the shackles of oppression."- Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan

The Palace Museum

We finished the night with Starbucks (Sheikh Mansour loves Starbucks so we weren't surprised he put it in the schedule) and went back to the hotel to shower and order room service. Sunday was one of those days that I am going to remember for the rest of my life. We had so many laughs and stories that I hope I never forget. I can't wait to tell you all more detailed stories about that day because they are definitely worth telling!

Monday- Eid Mubarak!

I was under the impression that we had Monday and Tuesday to explore for ourselves because it was Eid and the drivers would be with their families. After getting lunch, some of us hit the mall and did some shopping. Things were so cheap in Al-Ain and all of the sales for Eid made it hard to resist buying things. We got back to the hotel and decided to make the reservation for dinner. It was literally no more than five minutes after I hung up the phone that Sheikh Mansour's Secretary called and said the drivers would be at the hotel in 45 minutes to take us to dinner. Once again we magically all assembled at the cars looking sharp as usual. We first went to the park that is at the base of Jebel Hafeet. It was packed with families celebrating Eid and you could feel the excitement in the air. We walked around for a bit and then left to eat dinner in the Al-Ain Oasis. It was an amazing meal with an absurd amount of food as usual (over eating had become compulsory on this trip). During dinner the Sheikh's secretary stepped outside to take a phone call from Sheikh Mansour. When he returned he told us that tomorrow (Tuesday) they would pick us up at 4pm to go to the zoo and then back to the Bawadi Mall to do some shopping. Sheikh Mansour wanted to give us some money to buy whatever we wanted. I am sure we all stopped breathing for a brief moment. Honestly, I can't even comprehend this generosity. I can just smile and say thank you over and over again. We got back to the hotel and tried to sleep (not much happened again) because we were catching cabs at 4am to climb Jebel Hafeet.

Tuesday-Started from the bottom now we're here, but I'm not going to the top

3:30am the alarms went off and we crawled out of bed and got to the cabs. Once at the park at the base of Jebel Hafeet, five people went one direction to freely wonder up the mountain (there is no official path) and myself and a friend took the road up. Normally I wouldn't mind climbing up rock cliffs but considering my track record with injuries I decided to take the road. It was so beautiful. It was dark for the first hour or so until we saw the most amazing sunrise of my life. I don't know how but the sky was so many different colors and we were able to watch it all from an almost 360 view.

It was our full intention to go all the way to the top but we stopped at 9km. Alice and I stopped at the top of a ridge because we knew we would see the group come over the edge. Not too long after stopping we see them come over the ridge. See if you can spot them.

It turned out to be super fortunate that we waited to see them because one of the free climbers had a bit of a fall. Right after he fell we all panicked and asked if he was ok and in he replies, "I'm not going to the top." He definitely made light of a not so ideal situation. I was able to run to where they were and help get them to the road so we could get our friend some help. No worries, he is totally ok but is just returning from this trip with a scar and a heck of a story. The advantage of starting the day at 4am is that we had a lot of time left in the day to sleep, eat and get ready for the zoo and our shopping trip. Tuesday night like something you hear about in magazines. At the zoo we were VIPs and rode around in golf carts that were loaded with water, juice and pop. We even got to feed the giraffes!

We ended the day with shopping. This experience is really not one that can be described in words or pictures, just know that it was amazing. The night ended at 11pm and we crawled in bed because we had nothing left to give, the amount of excitement we have in our days is really tiring.

Wednesday-Helicopters, Sand Dunes and Politics

I have probably said this a lot in my life but Wednesday was one of the very best days of my life. Seriously, every part. We got picked up and drove out of Al-Ain toward Sheikh Mansour's farm. We drove around and saw the animals and landscape before stopping at the hanger. Yep, we were about to take a helicopter to meet the others. After waiting a bit, Sheikh Mansour pulls up and we all get in the helicopter. It was straight out of a movie. He is a licensed pilot and instructor for that matter so we were totally safe as we soared across the desert. We were even able to see the Hili Village (the area that pulled people south in the peninsula) and the ancient irrigation system. After about fifteen minutes we landed at Sheikh Mansour's second farm.

The Farm

The Sheikh's helicopter

Riding shot gun in the helicopter next the the Sheikh

How many people can say they have a helicopter selfie with a sheikh?

Hili Village

Once at the farm we got to see all of the animals that they raise in order to be self sustaining. Sheikh Mansour was telling us how it is their goal to be as organic as possible so they raise all of the various animals to feed their family. Before leaving he even brought out some of his falcons for us to hold.

The falcon and I had a connection can't you tell

Then we went back the first farm for the best evening ever! I really don't think words are necessary for this one.

This was the best one we had the entire time...considering we almost flipped the other times.

This was taken right after we almost flipped at the top of the dune

Honestly, I thought I was used to having the unexpected happen and for amazing things to become even better but apparently not. I was so unbelievably content after we played in the dunes that we could have ended the night there and I would have been more than satisfied. But then it got even better. We sat around on rugs and pillows and started talking about politics and life while drinking tea and eating. It was the most ideal night. The stars were out, the temperature was perfect and the conversation was intriguing. The Sheikh is incredibly laid back and intelligent so even though the conversation was no joke close to 4 hours long it did not seem long at all. At the end of the night he thanked us for coming (I have no idea why he was thanking us after this week when we did nothing but soak in all of his generosity) and offered to bring us back to Al-Ain at some point. Unreal.

The last seven days are something straight out of a movie and not quite comprehendable. Even though I just lived it I still don't understand it. I realized early on in the week just how special this trip was not just for the excessive adventures and royal treatment but for the feeling it gave me. I had no words, could not stop smiling and truly in my heart felt like I was handed something I had never imagined before. I never want to forget that feeling because even though I can't pay back Sheikh Mansour for all he did, I can pay it forward.  I know that there are little girls all over the world who don't even understand the concept of getting to go to college or having their own books and if they were given these opportunities they may just feel the way I felt this week. I want to do all I can to pass this feeling on because there is nothing like it.