Here are some things I've noticed here:
They don't serve ice with anything unless you ask for it. Mostly bottles of water are served room temperature. Evidently, iced drinks is an American thing!? I accidentally found the ice machine on the club lounge floor. I like to have a protein shake in the morning and a warm protein shake is not as appealing to me as a cool or cold one. So I make up my shake and go up and add ice.
And at home we have hot water heaters. Here they have water coolers. The water comes out of the ground warm and they have to cool it down to be able to shower! Why, you may ask, do I know this? Well, one of the Villas had to have a larger water cooler installed because it wasn't large enough capacity to serve the guest's needs.
Breakfast in the club lounge can be anything:
Someone else was drinking this--I just posed with it...but it is available every morning.
Nuts, cheeses, salmon, fruit, eggs, salads, porridge, vegetables, juices, yogurt
The participants (and therefore the team) are well fed. They get breakfast, lunch and 2 large snacks mid morning and mid afternoon on days of the course. To my mind there is no need to have dinner with all that! I'm not really sure we are getting any authentic Emirates food except hummus, dates and figs.
So, I looked up authentic foods for UAE and here is what it said:
Stuffed Camel-nope, haven't had that...yet! We are planning to eat lunch at the Emirates Palace Hotel and we heard they have camel burgers!
None of the other things listed were as exotic or unusual as camel is.
I love the look of this mound of dates.
I have to remember that dates are not served seedless so I don't break a tooth!
Another large jar of delicious dates. Served with other sweets and fruit on the dessert table.
These three containers of dates sat on a table by themselves!
There's always too much food here. The buffets are huge!
This is the hot bar that looks like any buffet but more exotic items like lamb in mint sauce
and curried seafood and fish with shallots and....and....
The cold salad bar at lunch. See the bread bar in the background?
There's also the soup station and separate pasta bar!
And of course the dessert station and beverage station.
I stay away from this one except for the fresh fruit and dates!!
This is what they serve on the breaks. Some mini sandwiches, sweets, and hot food.
There are three of these stations and this food gets totally eaten!
Along with this for the breaks:
One day it was a make your taco station and this photo is of a station for ordering fresh tempura
No one is going hungry in this course!
This is a table set up for the break time just for the people leading the course.
No way they can eat even half of this.
And this was left in our room last night before bed: Stuffed dates and baklava!
We saved most of it.
This is the last thing we need to eat if we want to sleep all night!!
We are about to have 2 days off before we continue with the last three days of the course. I have some fun adventures planned, including some time at the pool. Just reading and sleeping by the pool sounds so inviting!! Going on a shopping run this afternoon for the course and am going to see if they sell camel meat at the store!! If it is sold in cans like tuna, maybe I'll bring you some!!
Thank you, Sweetheart, for sharing your journey with us. I just read through most of your posts & they sound so much to me like my trip to Egypt - the sand everywhere, the stifling heat, riding camels, more sand, tea, hookahs, baba ganoush, the male/female things, cousins marrying, more sand! I hope you are enjoying it as much as it looks like you are!
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