Arriving in the land of grand mosques: Abu Dhabi

 This is the blog I had meant to start writing in 2008, however I did manage to start a travel blog along the way...It  was early 2008 when I first landed in the exotic and strange place that was Abu Dhabi..

 Where was this place I had landed?Arriving at night with a chauffeur car to collect me I was driven in to Downtown AD and one of my first sites was of the stunningly blue lit Grand Mosque, with its domes and minarets reaching in to darkness like something out of a fairyland dream.... I couldn't believe where I had been transported to from inner city Melbourne to this! The first site of this mosque under blue and magenta lights has always stuck with me.. 
 
This was a very different world for me. My existence had been quite sheltered up to now and I had not been exposed to the way of life in a Muslim country nor a country with an 80% expat population, among many other things.


The striking differences were so visibly noticeable to me.. my artist eye was used to noticing everything, all the details and taking it all in. I took to the streets with my camera and I haven't stopped since.

My first impressions were of a city full of contrast. I was living amongst tall glass sky scrapers next to crumbling old houses..There were new buildings going up at a fast rate , a tower of cranes, alongside crumbling footpaths and old shops and rundown small housing compounds. Abu Dhabi had really only begun to develop in to a city since approx 1970 after the discovery of oil, taking it from a pearl diving village in to the modern metropolis that it is today.

I cant read nor speak Arabic, however I love the Arabic script and calligraphy. So for me even the neon signs in Arabic were a feast for my eyes... arabic number plates, shop signs, menus, street signs, were probably more appealing as I couldn't read them. I have always been drawn to  ancient scripts, the shape and flow of the letters, mark making...I guess it has the element of mystique and exoticness when you can't read what it is saying but are looking purely at the shapes and design.

Arabic music, traditional dancing , belly dancing, the smoking of sheesha pipes, the sweet smell lofting through the outdoor cafes... the men & women in their abayas and dishdash... walking in groups, an otherworldly feel about it all... these were some of the sights that belonged to the new land I was now in.

The call to prayer out over the loudspeakers all across town was something very new for me... Although the first call was quite early, I loved it, this reminded me constantly I was living in a very different land to the farming community I had grown up in..It was foreign, exotic, different , interesting, I had been transported to a world that was not at all familiar to me. In Downtown Abu Dhabi there were mosques on nearly every corner, so the call to prayer became a chain of song, coming from every direction. At night all the mosques were beautifully lit up accentuating the shapes of the domes, minarets, carved details, archways, marble & stone features. Lighting was such a big part of life here... from dimly lit lanterns and lamps hanging in cafes and streets, to spotlights lighting from below the towering structures of new glass sky scrapers surrounded by palms and plants and water features.

It was a heady mix to take in at first. Everything I was coming across was so different to my life back in Melbourne. The life I had living by the bay, riding my bike along the beach and canal, hanging out in the lane way cafes of the city where my studio was upstairs above one of beautiful arcades... the life of a practicing full time artist, working towards exhibitions , popping in to galleries to see shows all around the city, meeting artists for coffees in the lane ways, traveling to the country for inspiration for my landscape paintings... all this was missing as I ventured in to life in Abu Dhabi


 
Oh and the other element that was completely new to me was the heat... for most of the year 40 + everyday... This is something that took quiet a bit of getting used to. To always be in air conditioning, and to not have the freedom to go out walking any time of day... not that it wasn't safe, it was just too hot!
 
Being an island, AD was also a very humid place so at times it was 90% humidity and 40 + temperatures. Only the lightest linen or cotton dresses would do, preferably loose to allow some air movement, not that there was often a breeze, the heat was mostly stifling and oppressive. For a big part of the year I could only go outside before say 10 am, then it became too hot for anything other than a necessary trip out. Always following the shady side of the street, however mostly in cars going from underground car park to to be dropped off at your destination and always carrying water! There was a lot to get used to as a new expat!