This little piggy went..........to the market!

The outside of the fruit and veggie vendor area.

The inside of the fruit and veggie market.

 Front row, center left is the red snapper I bought for dinner one evening. 

He really wanted his picture taken, and for me to buy this fish!

Abu Dhabi has way too many malls and most of the shopping is upscale unless you are in the Indian and Pakistani "areas" which I will explore more when the weather is cooler.  But when it comes to food there are open air markets and they are a delight to the senses!

They are located at Port Zayed which is a huge section on the east side of the island and divided into many sections, one would struggle to cover it all in a day.  My first adventure I decided just to conquer dinner so I started with the vegetable and fruit market.  At first glance driving in it appears to be like many "farmers markets" I have seen in the states.  Especially all the small delivery trucks backed up to many stalls where they are loading up for restaurant and business deliveries.  As I drive toward the back where the large tent is located vendors with turbans and toothless smiles wave at me to come check out their wares.  I concentrate on my path as trucks and taxis weave across the open pavement each taking the most direct route to their location.  I arrive at the large tent with many vendors inside with today's fresh choices awaiting me.  And it's a cool for 11:00am, probably only 95 degrees, and being on the cost there is a nice breeze. Three steps out of my car and from my right and left I hear "welcome madame" repeatedly, which only continues as I walk up and down the aisles recognizing about seventy percent of the choices.

  No signs here like the grocery store which definitely puts me at a disadvantage.  I had the ingenious idea last week while I was at LuLu's, the local hypermarket which makes Super WalMart look like the corner store.  I figures I would make a list of all the fruits and veggies I didn't recognize and then check them out at a few cooking websites to figure out what to do with them.  It sounded like a great idea but I couldn't find a single one of the almost thirty items on my list!  So I ask locals "What is this?" I find they usually don't understand so I have resorted to,  "How I cook?"  "How you eat?"  

Everything green and leafy they call herbs here.  Many I recognize and many I don't.  I found some green onions, well they looked pretty close.  And some wide smooth leaves that were a dull green, they were not anything I recognized.  I found out it was spinach, or least what they call spinach here.  So with my "herbs" in hand I was ready to search for the rest of my dinner.  I head out of the tent with "Madame, look here" as I pass each vendor.  I have 2 bags in my hand so they know I am buying!  I find a few lemons and a half dozen bananas and head to my car.  I have now spent 13 dirhams, which is about $4.00!

I now head for the fish market.  Not having any idea what to expect I have conjured up in my head wood pallets by ocean piers  with fish and various creatures from the sea laid out for all to see.   A day trip into Manhattan last summer with a friend we wandered about and ended up in the bowels of Chinatown on a street that smelled and looked like nothing either of us wanted to remember!  So I was prepared for the worse.  After several wrong turns I located the section of the port where the fish market was located.  I pulled up to a large warehouse with many entrances.  As I stepped out of the car my nose let me know I had found the right location.  

As I walked into the market it was nothing I had pictured.  It smelled strong of fish but not offensive.  The floor was cement and wet from frequent cleaning.  There had to be at least a hundred stalls or more each one with sinks and metal tables full of crushed ice displaying  their wares from the sea.  All the workers had on high rubber boots, aprons, and thick rubber gloves.  Many people were walking about with plastic tubs in hand and I heard not a word of English spoken.  I am sure I had a dumb look of utter confusion on my face as I was approached by a Indian fish monger.  "Madame you need fish?"  Prawns is what I was desiring, the massively huge tiger prawns.  I spotted them right away on his table of many seafood choices.

Only one problem, and here is where I must digress and share my "issue" with shrimp heads.  The nasty, bug-like front end of the tasty creature named shrimp is something I consciously forget each time I devour the yummy crustacean.  I also have to forcibly forget the name group they belong too!  Becoming a complete vegetarian would only take me concentrating on the animals our food comes from.  Anyway, I hate, and that would be mildly put removing this creatures head.  So, my plan was to see if the lovely fish monger would do that task for me, remembering the communication challenges that exist on a daily or should I say hourly opportunity.  So I asked my new friend if I bought some prawns could they take off the head.  He laughed and spoke in his own tongue to his three coworkers and they all laughed.  I am sure at me!  He then picked up the large prawn with it's "adorable" face and beady eyes staring right at me and pointed at the head again asking me if I wanted it removed .  I said "yes, no head" thinking he would then take the prawn along with his little friends behind the counter and clean them.  Oh no, he asked "like this" and twisted the  nasty little head off while every inch of me cringed and who knows what kind of face I made for all four of the men were quite amused!  Thankfully he then sent the balance with one of the workers behind the counter to be cleaned.  When all was finished I had my six prawns, no heads, peeled and deveined with each tail about ten inches long and all costing 55 dirhams, which is about 18 U.S. dollars.

I then headed home and cooked a lovely dinner of sauteed shrimp in garlic, green onions, and white wine.  Freshly steamed Arabic spinach, which tasted pretty good and have now cooked several times along with saffron rice.

My first trip to the market was certainly an adventure I will never forget.  Now it is often a trip I make several times a week, not always for fish, but definitely for the veggies.  Maybe eventually I will get brave enough to even buy from the butchers at the meat markets there, but not anytime soon!

Taxi Rides

I enjoy every cab ride I take because each one is always an adventure!  The Emirate has never had public transportation until about 2 months ago when a new bus system was introduced.  It has a few major routes and for now is free to ride.  It has been said that it will start costing 2 dirhams beginning in December, that's about 60 cents.  But I digress, which I tend to do often! Even though there are public buses now, they are limited and very crowded so the main source of "getting around" without your own vehicle is taxis.

There are two types of taxis in Abu Dhabi, the older white ones, which make up about 65% of the taxis and the newer silver ones. The silver ones always have air-conditioning, which is a very good thing in the summer months. Flagging down a cab is usually not too difficult, except for rush hour, but no different than it would be in any major city in the U.S. It's what happens after they stop that makes you remember quickly that this is the other side of the planet. 

First off, you have to ask the driver "You have meter?" Speaking with very poor grammar is essential in helping them understand you. Even though Abu Dhabi is a bi-lingual country it doesn't mean you can understand everything said and that everyone can understand you.  I fear what I might actually sound like upon my return to the States!  The majority of the cab drivers are from Pakistan and Egypt, although I have met them from Jordan, Oman, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka. If they click the meter on you are okay to get in, if they say "no problem", or: "where you go?" you close the door and flag down the next cab, because they are an "illegal" cab and will rip you off!

This has only happened to me a few times and I just close the door and laugh and hail the next cab. I love chatting (surprised you, didn't I) with the cab drivers when they have enough English to do so. They love telling you where they are from and often ask where I'm from.  I have only had positive reactions like; I love U.S.A or I want to go to America, and my favorite response; "Go Superbowl!"

When you finally acquire a taxi you have to know where you are going.  It's not a large island and the streets are laid out very easily, with even number streets running up and down the island, and odds running across. Sounds simple right? Well, many of the streets are called by 2 different names and some 3.  Zayed the First is also 7th, but the locals call it Electra.  There is always something to laugh about here. The cabbies mostly use landmarks to get around., addresses don't exist so you just give them a general idea and point a lot!

The thing I like most about the taxis is that they are always an adventure and very cheap, usually between $1.50 and $4.00 U.S. dollars!! There's cheap entertainment for ya!!

Surprising Myself!

I should probably start my very first blog with apologizing to all if I bore you to death!!  I won't profess to be witty or an accomplished writer, i just invite you to laugh with me as I share my perspective of life over here.   I believe I am surprising myself more than anyone else as I venture into this new world (for me) of blogging!  This is month two of living in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and I decided I really wanted a way to share some of the little crazy day to day things of life here with my friends at home.  So this is it, a blog spot!  I hope you laugh along with me as I adjust to my new life.  

As many of you know living overseas has been a desire of my heart for quite sometime, close to ten years.  It was a real possibility five years ago, but the timing just wasn't right for our family and we said no.  I always believed that when the timing was right and when the Lord planned for us to go it would happen.  And here we are!  Some days it feels very surreal, but most of the time I have to say it just feels right.  So when I might be surprising myself in writing a blog, I'm not surprised that we are living in Abu Dhabi.  I'm just very thankful that I get to live out this adventure that I used to just dream and pray about.  And I'm thankful that there is a medium for me to use to share it with you.