Grand Mosque pictures, plus some extras...

This is a picture from my hotel room in Abu Dhabi at the Beach Rotana.  It is not fuzzy because my camera is bad, it is fuzzy because it is so hazy and humid outside that this is really what it looks like outside at night.  It is amazing... now imagine walking outside in that, because it literally feels like someone threw a bucket of water on you.  I have never taken so many showers in one day as I did when I was in Abu Dhabi city.

We saw this tower on the way to the Grand Mosque.  You can't really get the full effect from the picture, but it is leaning.  It was built to do so.  This tower leans more than The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy.  It is the Capital Gate building and I believe it has a hotel in it.  If you google it, you can see it from a better angle- it's amazing!

The outside of the Grand Mosque from the parking area.  It is so beautiful.  It has 4 minarets because no mosque can have more than that because of Mecca I believe.  You can see all 4 in the picture.  The domes (not sure if that is the correct name, but I will learn it soon enough) are so gigantic and elegant.

We had to wear abayas and shaylas inside the mosque.  You can't really tell, but that is me in there.  The shayla kept calling off because the locals and women who usually wear it use pins to hold it in place and they weren't handing those out.  But as long as our hair was covered, we were okay.

This mosque is famous for their chandeliers.  They have 7 and one of them is the largest one in the world.  It might be this one, I took a couple of pictures and I can't remember if it is this one or the other one, but I am pretty sure that you are looking at the largest chandelier in the world!

This is the men's prayer room.  When the call to prayer goes off, this room will fill with men.  The men's prayer room is larger than the women's because men are required to pray in the mosque while women can pray at home.  Muslims (it is pronounced "Moos-lims, NOT Muzz-lims"!!!!!!!) pray 5 times a day.  Men do not have to go 5 times a day, just once.

 

 

The carpet in the men's prayer room.  I want to say that it was hand-woven in Turkey.  The picture above was taken with me standing in the middle of the room looking one way, so this room is enormous.  This is the largest single piece carpet in the world.  It was unrolled and cut to size in the room.  They said it was many, many tons, and when it was trimmed, many tons were cut off of it to make it fit.  That is one large carpet!  It was so beautiful in person and so, so soft.  We had to have our shoes off and walk bare foot on it.  There are ridges built into it to tell the Muslims where to line up while they are praying, but you can't tell that from the picture unfortunately.

Our question and answer session- The tour guides are standing, and we are up close sitting down in our abayas and shaylas.  The licensed teacher men did not have to cover.  It is common to see people wearing what the guides are wearing walking around Abu Dhabi.  It is not strange and now seems like a part of every day life.  Some of the men wear different colors for the head covering, or they will flip it around a different way.  It has to do with the tribe they belong to.  I don't understand all of that yet.  The local women, who we can't take pictures of (this women is not a local) will sometimes cover their whole faces and look out of a sheer piece that is covering their eyes, some will only leave their eyes uncovered, and some will do as this woman is doing.

Another picture from the inside of the mosque.

I was moved to Al Ain on Thursday.  The weather here is much nicer and the pace is much slower than the city in Abu Dhabi.  I can tell that I will like it a lot.  It is very green and more like home than the big city of Abu Dhabi, which can be compared to New York City, except imagine NYC being built with people living there, because that is what is happening in Abu Dhabi!!!  This is a picture from my hotel room the night I arrived in Al Ain.  It is difficult to tell, but the mountain is in the background.  It is much easier to see during the day and so nice to see.  Now we are waiting for our keys to our housing and our furniture allowances to show up in our bank accounts so we can get our houses settled before school starts in one week!!  Otherwise we will still be living in a hotel when school starts, and I can't imagine that will be fun.  I am ready to eat regularly and unpack my suitcases.  Ramadan will be over sometime in the next week, and Eid will begin.  This is a celebration of breaking the fast, and I think it is 3 days long.  Again, this depends on the moon.  When Eid is over, school will begin for the teachers.