Where the people like the Flintstones...

I'm in Abu Dhabi. It's possibly the most faceless city I've ever been to. It seems that there's absolutely nothing to do here, except go on living a business-class lifestyle. Doing lengths of the rooftop swimming pool.

Had my first illicit alcohol consumption, managed to find an Irish bar for St Patrick's day. It was in a hotel. The whole walking-through-foyers-of-posh-looking-hotels-to-get-to-bars thing could take a bit of getting used to. Saying that, the amount of time I'm going to be spending in hotels over the next while I've got to hope I'll start feeling not-out-of-place in them.

In Abu Dhabi's defence one thing that it has done very well is the mosque you see when you're first on the island. It looks the bee's knees, I tell you. Fairly much like the Taj Mahal with gold plated minarets. It's brand-spanking new as well, I didn't realise people still did the whole ostentatious-displays-of-wealth-for-religious purposes-thing but evidently they do, and they do it pretty well at that.