Newsflash: "High-speed ferry service for Abu Dhabi" from The National

As much as I love to poke a bit of fun at The National, it really is a pretty good newspaper.

For starters, it's in English.  It's also much more Abu Dhabi-centric than the Gulf News.  And it has a great cryptic crossword (although the Khaleej Times puzzle section beats everyone hands-down).  So I wake up each morning and I read The National online.

I should amend that:  I don't actually read the whole newspaper.  I read the headlines.  When I see a headline that sounds interesting or particularly relevant I read the story.  So I'm probably going to skip things like "Footballer finds career as trick expert despite disability," "The orange blanket sapping the life out of Baghdad," and "Dubai refuses Sex and the City filming."  (Okay, okay, I actually did read that last one as it's going to be my next topic.)

What captured my interest in today's paper was the announcement of a high-speed ferry service to Qatar and Bahrain.  This is great news, because it means if we ever want to go to either place, we don't have to drive through Saudi Arabia:

Not only does that cut the travelling time down, but it means we don't have to EVER have to go through Saudi.  Now that's some pretty good news.