Middle East 2024 - Day 9 - 12/7/2014 - Qasr Al Watan, quali, and Eminem

Today was a pretty long day amidst a streak of nights with not quite enough sleep. After breakfast at the hotel we took a Careem over to Qasr Al Watan, a grand presidential palace that is used to greet foreign dignitaries but also is open to the public for tours. It was another pretty spectacular building. A (random and) perhaps interesting note is that upon entry you have to take a shuttle bus from the entry building to the main building. A more noteworthy happening was that we didn't realize that there was a dress code so both Brad and I were not up to code in our shorts; when this happens they lend men sweatpants to wear (in our case over our shorts).

We didn't stay at the palace all that long before heading over to the race track via Careem. We first watched Free Practice 3 and then walked around to check out other parts of the grounds and get some food. During FP3, Brad made a wager on one of Alex Albon's flying laps that if Alex topped the timing table then Brad would buy a Williams shirt (he had been trying to decide which team for which to buy merchandise in support - it was between Red Bull, McLaren, and Williams (who were only in the running because Albon was his favorite driver this year)). Well, Albon did indeed go top by a few hundredths of a second, so Brad had to make good on his promise and indeed bought a Williams shirt (for the outrageous trackside price of something like AED 680). We missed out on the F2 sprint race during the walkabout (unlike a track like COTA, you can't get views of the track as you walk around), but headed back to our seats to catch qualifying. Unfortunately, Lewis was knocked out in Q1 due to an unlucky incident where a bollard got caught underneath his car; George did fine, but the car didn't look so great in getting him to P7, behind a couple of midfield cars. Another noteworthy occurrence at the start of the session was a drunk couple coming up to us and belligerently claiming that I and a lady next to me were in their seats. Of course they were wrong, but they showed no remorse nor shame when an usher intervened to direct them to their proper seats. This got my normally cool blood boiling a little bit.

After quali we walked over to Etihad Park (which is on one side of Ferrari World) for the Eminem concert (included with the F1 ticket, if you were able to pick up a wristband before they ran out). We were there at least 1.5 hours (including time getting a bite to eat) before Eminem came on sometime around 9p. The show was meh; I wasn't particularly interested in going, but Brad wanted to. It was certainly not worth the subsequent headache getting home, nor the lost sleep. Traffic was a mess, and there were multiple failed attempts at hailing a Careem/Uber; which brought out a small heated (or maybe lukewarm) exchange between Brad and me. Brad was eventually able to land us in an Uber, though the surge pricing almost quadrupled the cost of the ride to the hotel the night before. We didn't get back until after 12:30a.

--

Trip highlight photos can be found here.