Hillary Biscay

16 March 10: Home Sweet Home!

Posted on 16. Mar, 2010 by hillarybiscay in Blog | 1 Comment

After over a full day of travel, we are finally home in Tucson. All day today, we could not stop talking about how much we love everything about this place. I had managed to forget how bright blue the sky is here! And now I’m already getting sad about being on the road for four months, beginning in just about six weeks.

I am sure there will be many fun adventures as a result, though. Speaking of which, the UAE trip was an awesome experience, and I would recommened the Abu Dhabi race to anyone. It was truly a first-class event–and for us, the visit gave us some insight into a very different culture (Yes, that’s the first and last time you will ever see me in that much clothing!) .

On Sunday we crammed in as much sightseeing as we could and went on a tour of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque (hence Sam’s and my attire above–required for all women to enter the mosque), which was a crazy-impressive structure. It’s quite new and is the biggest mosque in the UAE; our tour guide said it cost $850 million USD to build!

Of course I’ve managed to have a memory-card issue, so I can’t seem to use any of my own mosque pics of my girls and I in our black attire, minus the blurry crackberry picture above–I just had to text one of Sam and I to our friends back home right on the spot there . . . So here we have the Happy Snapper’s pics. The top ten men and women from the race had their own special tour of the mosque and a couple other of the landmarks in town.

This is the world’s largest chandelier, which apparently weighs nine tons. I was amazed that those are actually not electric lights inside, but just Swarovski crystals reflecting natural light.

Sheik Zayed himself was buried here a few years ago, and at his mausoleum, ten people are employed full-time to read to him from the Koran around the clock–24-7! It was a really neat visit–but wow the black get-up got hot, especially since we had to wear long pants and sleeves underneath.

I must add here that, during our sightseeing day, I had some lovely friends sending me updates on the goings-on in China….It was a big day at Ironman China, as our dear friend Luke McKenzie became FOUR-TIME IRONMAN CHAMPION Luke McKenzie! I like the sound of that!

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