“Live and always discover”

I’ve always loved traveling! If you checked my travels map you would see I tried to explore each opportunity to see more places, more cultures, new lands, and new stories.

I’ve been given a great chance in my internship and in my project: I am traveling for a business trip to UAE (United Arab Emirates). Actually, while writing these words, I am flying towards Abu Dhabi, where I will spend 5 days! Of course, I cannot miss seeing Dubai, so I arranged that the last 2 days of my trip, the weekend actually, to be spent visiting one of the most famous cities in Middle East!

Everyone kept asking me if I am excited or scared about the trip. Now, I should say it is both of them :) I feel scared for going there alone! But I am more than this excited as it is my first time out of Europe (ok, the Asian side of Istanbul does not count much!). It will be a short time, for sure, to get to know the culture, but it is amazing that I can at least get a glimpse! It is something so different from “our world”, from Europe, from what I’ve seen until now! Will I like it? Will it feel strange? Will it feel cold or too much?

Will write impressions as soon as I get to form some!
Keep fingers crossed, this is such an important part in my project and I have to perform at high standards!

Greetings from the Middle East :)

Later update:
I have to write these thoughts now, when I am lying in my hotel room in Abu Dhabi! First of all, the flight was amazing! From the fact that each of us had our own TV and the latest movies or music; to the fact that you could watch a live camera with the landscape while flying; or to the fact that food and serving was excellent (we even got ice cream); or the fact that they even gave us pillows, socks or covers for your eyes so you can sleep :P…
I arrived at the airport where a lady was waiting for me (everything was arranged by the hotel); she took me through all the procedures (including eye scan, where they actually made me look to a machine and they made a digital scan of my eyes!); the airport is packed and crowded, but amazingly beautiful! Everything is in the Middle-East design…old and new!

But when I got the first “taste” of the city, I must say that the air reminded me of Istanbul! The city looks amazing – lights, palm trees, lovely, rich houses, huge sky-scrapers! It feels like another world…well, it is! And I started loving it! It is so much different from Europe!
Even later update:
I am now writing from the Alcatel-Lucent office in Abu Dhabi. I did not manage to get internet until now to post my thoughts. So I just wanna add how amazing this city looks like in the daylight as well! It is a small city, actually! Just a few streets! But inhabited by about 1 million people, out of which only 10% is local! This place booms with multiculturalism!
I can’t wait for the evening to go for a walk! Ah, and it is so so so so warm! You can wear shirts and you can actually swim in the sea :) It is like summer! I would have never believed that I would have lunch outside, on a terrace, in February, with the HR manager of Alcatel-Lucent UAE and Qatar!

Imagine: a 24-years-old “kid” gets sent to an amazing country to work with the people here! It is an amazing chance that I would not have imagined living some years back! Why are our hopes so low, I wonder?

Gros bisous from a hot, hot country! Soon, pictures!