A Slow Week

After my adventures traveling back from the States, I had a very quiet week here in Abu Dhabi. Craig caught this picture of my curled up on my "window seat":

I saw him at it, though, so this picture doesn't truly capture my relaxation, I'm afraid. But I spent most of this week recovering from my travels and adjusting to the time difference.

One side effect of waking up so early, I saw the "school bus deployment" several mornings in a row. At 6:20 a.m. a parade of school buses appears. I've counted 22 going through a single light cycle in one direction. As this series of photos shows, they are coming from every direction and heading out in every direction. It's difficult to describe using cardinal directions, because the mall is east of me and the streets are at a diagonal. So I'm probably going to make a few mistakes.

In this first picture, you can see eleven school buses. Four buses have come from the NE - two are in the left turn lane to go SE and two are in the right turn lane to go NW. The three buses heading NW came from the SW, making a left turn. At least one bus from the SW went straight, heading NE.

This picture is taken in a different direction. You can still see part of one bus directly below me at the bus stop. And you can see three school buses coming off a side street onto the street below me.

Back to the primary intersection, you can see buses coming primarily from the SE. Four of them will go straight (NW) and three are in the right turn lane to head NE. There are two other buses visible, but I'm not sure where they came from or were going...

Another shot, showing more buses coming from the NE. This is the side of the intersection I can picture the most clearly. As you can see, the buses are in every lane, heading in every direction.

I think each school must run its own buses. That's the only explanation for the number of buses I've seen in the morning. I'd guess that nearly fifty buses go through the intersection on each complete light cycle, and this lasts for at least twenty minutes - several light cycles, before tapering off. In the afternoon, the buses are more of a trickle. I don't see as many at a time, but I do see them for a couple hours.

I'm not sure what my fascination with school buses says about how I spend my time recovering. I also had to look up the spelling for the plural version of bus...so at least I'm learning something?