Daylight: First Impressions

Okay, so waking up was a little wierd this morning. I couldn't find the alarm (it's literally embedded into the wall, and I was *way* disoriented!) so I stumbled around for a bit until I found it - even though I'd set it 6 hours prior just fine!

So I had a nice hot shower (wierd, such good water pressure for a country that's basically desert!), and went to have breakfast. It must be a really Western-influenced hotel, because they had BACON! No, I didn't have any, but I still sat and stared at it. Breakfast was the usual stuff, with the only exception being veggie fried rice. Wasn't prepared for that, but it was good!

It's early afternoon here, and I'm dying to go take pictures. The building that Cerner has used to be a house. 3 stories, huge staircase through the middle and huge rooms. It's pretty awesome. What was really surreal and reminded me I'm in the Middle East, is that they just had prayer. I could hear it blaring from the mosque next door... At the same time, some guys in the hallway here were complaining about "unclean women", women working, etc. Have I mentioned that I truly appreciate how modern we are in the US, and that we don't hold these attitudes? I mean we're not at equity on women's pay in the US, but at least we don't think they should be chained to the stove, popping out babies!

I've seen about a dozen guys who are UAE citizens (Arabic descent) that are in the full garb (the white flowing sheet variety). Think I'd get shot if I asked to take a picture of one of them, or ask to pose with one? Wait, they don't use guns, right? They use swords. I'm *so* gonna lay low while I'm here...