Al Ain- Day 5 Thursday -Afternoon

Feeling a bit better, though the car ride to Abudullah's place made me clench my stomach. Yeowch!

A word of explanation is in order I suppose. The people that we are staying with here in the U.A.E. are all Police officers, Lietenants, who graduated at the top of their class and were given the option to study advance traffic policing methods in the U.S. They chose to come to Chicago so they could learn U.S. methods of traffic management, better their English, and see American culture with their own eyes. These guys are some of the sweetest most gracious people I have ever met and every American could learn a lot from them.

So there are five of them: Sulaimon, Khalifa, Jaber, Abdullah Al Khabi, and Abdullah Hammoudi, whom everyone calls Hammoudi. Khalifa, Sulaimon, and Hammoudi are the ones getting married this month though we won't be staying for Sulaimon's wedding. El hamdulelah!

So, today is Khalifa's wedding, and before the wedding we're going to Abdullah Al Khabi's house for lunch.

Abdullah picked us up aroun 11 and we went through Oman to get to his place. Another check on my map!

We stopped at his father's date and cucumber farm to see some stuff. He has a bunch of green houses and it was all very impressive. One thing that strikes me is that all of the guys we're staying with are pretty well-to-do. This farm itself yields a lot of money because cucumbers are at a premium.

Lunch was nice, we had fish and goat, as well as hummus, salad, and other stuff. Food is a big deal. It hink this may be true the world over. Jaime- you need to do a travel show on this place to be sure, just bring a man too, so you can capture both sides of the family since men and women are separated.

Abudullah's dad was a real joker and we had a blast with him. I gave all of the kids some American coins and candy and Abdullah's day got in line to get his. A true goofball. These guys love to joke around and laugh.