Grand Mosque

A trip to Abu Dhabi can hardly be complete without a tour of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque. I had planned to wear one of my abayas and lend the other to my friend. But I'm enough taller that it didn't work as planned. Instead, she wore a floor length, long-sleeved dress and borrowed a headscarf. Still, this wasn't enough to get through security at the mosque. She had to add one of the mosque's loaner abayas over her dress. Here we are, near the entrance:

We removed our shoes and went into the mosque. At one point, my friend asked me to take a photo of her. I suggested that she step further out into the sunlight, to provide better light for the picture. But as she stepped out, she discovered that the marble in the sunlight was significantly warmer than the cooled marble in the shade. She took a few quick steps and gave a little shriek of laughter before posing for the picture.

As I was handing her phone over to her, a security guard approached us and told us that "only peaceful pictures were allowed". I thought he was objecting to the little dance my friend had done when she discovered the floor was so hot, but his objection was to the still photograph of her standing with her arms extended from her sides.  He insisted that we delete the photo and stood watching as she removed it from her phone.  We were confused, but obedient to his request, so I cannot show you the objectionable photo.

We did later see a sign that expressly forbid the pose she had taken:

As we were leaving the mosque, we saw another larger sign with even more prohibitions. Ironically, the reason we had not seen this sign when we entered is because it was further into the sunlight and I had been avoiding the heat of the sun. I do still wonder if he would have noticed the picture if she had not been shocked by the heat underfoot. And, of course, I really do wonder what exactly the objection is to this pose.

Even with that bit of drama, I was able to take some "peaceful" pictures of her:

After our tour of the mosque, we returned the borrowed abaya and found a taxi. We made our way to a Harley Davidson shop, where we struggled to pick out t-shirts for our respective partners. It turns out that this is a very difficult decision to make for someone else, even when you know them well. Or perhaps because we know them so well - it might have been easier to pick something for someone who doesn't expect you to choose perfectly for them. 

We finished our day by going to the local mall (not the international mall across from our hotel, but a more varied one just a few blocks away) to shop for souvenirs. I will say that the experience made me glad that I gave up buying souvenirs sometime before I had two granddaughters and ten nieces and nephews.