World Future Energy Summit Part Two!

John has certainly been meeting the great and the good of the world where future energy is concerned. I think he has had meetings during the summit with the Presidents of Greece, the Maldives and Estonia as well as the Crown Prince of Denmark and Prince Albert of Monaco. He finally met the UAE Crown Prince who made at least two visits to the actual summit and came along to talk to the Young Future Energy Leaders which is a complementary program run by the Masdar Institute. There were probably many more but it got a little bit hard to keep up at the week has progressed! He has also been giving presentations and speeches, though I think tomorrow is the big one, when he presents to the UN Climate Change Committee at the Emirates Palace. I had hoped he would get at least one day off before going back to the reality of daily work but he has also been asked to sit on a committee looking at the overall future of education in Abu Dhabi and guess what? They suddenly decided that the committee should meet - all day Saturday. I can't imagine that happening at quite such short notice in the UK! The expectation round here is definitely that the expats are here to work, not to experience the Emiratis lifestyle. Not just John, but most of our friends, seem to work with great frequency at weekends, late nights, early mornings and undertake lots of travel. The slower pace people talk about and the importance of family life is not one the expat community can really join in with. I am assured that it will be the same for me once I get my feet properly under the table and into the many tasks ahead.
We did have a very enjoyable treat as part of WFES though. Last night we went out for dinner with one of the speakers, Nigel Brandon from Imperial, who is a former colleague of John's. We had a lovely evening with him and his wife Jan and took them to Al Fanar, the revolving restaurant at the top of the Royal Meridien, so that they could see Abu Dhabi by night. It has to be the best view in the city. I've only been in the summer when it isn't nearly as clear. It was a slightly unfortunate choice of venue on my part though, as it turned out there was a dinner going on at the hotel which John should have received an invite to but somehow didn't so we met a lot of his colleagues and I think the organisers were a little embarrassed! Database management and planning is not really top of the agenda in the UAE though I'm working on it from my small part. Even more nightmare planning as it turned out I'd erred on the side of caution and booked the restaurant too early (over a week ago). Clearly no-one does this and they didn't have my booking on the computer and my phone doesn't keep text messages for long so I couldn't even show them the confirmation. Luckily they were far from full so after a wobbly few minutes we did get let in. We also had to walk as the summit had clearly used up all the available cabs and although I rang at 6 I was told to call back at 7 and when I did that there were surprisingly none available! John had nobly given his driver the night off as he has been doing a lot of running around. However, it was a lovely evening so apart from slightly eccentric hair (on my part) we got there on time and in one piece!
I expect they'll be a part three on WFES and there are certainly some photos to add when I get the use of John's laptop over the weekend so don't go away if you're interested in this amazing event and its impact on our lives!