We blew threw the copy on a slow night at the paper,  and got home early, and I decided to celebrate by slog-jogging 40 minutes around the new neighborhood, here in Muroor.

You see a lot, plodding through the streets, after dark.

Many people out? Are they young? Old? What are they doing? Playing? Talking?

Can you hear conversations coming out of open windows? Smell someone’s dinner? See another jogger?

It’s just a different experience, at night, especially on a Saturday night here — which would be like Sunday night in the West. That is, the final hours of the weekend.

Lots of people out and about. The neighborhood here is 98 percent residential. The exceptions being a fairly big mosque, and the little grocery store next to it.

What I did was go up and down the five streets in the interior of this big block. I mentioned earlier that Abu Dhabi is made up of enormous city blocks, and they have “crusts” surrounding them of commercial or official buildings … and in the sprawling interior are residential buildings with narrow roads between them.

That’s what we have here. Except we don’t have commercial buildings (well, not many) on the outside. We have a couple of schools on the north side of the block (Khalifa University and a high school), and something resembling an expressway (Airport Road) on the west. On the east, there’s a bit of commercial stuff — an ADNOC gas station and car wash, a couple of banks, some little businesses. On the south, mostly residences.

Inside, though, almost only living quarters (almost entirely of the low, sprawling “villa” sort), with a few vacant lots and a boys school. (You know you’re in the suburbs when there’s room enough for everyone to park their cars, and there is, here.)

Lots of people out. Many of them kids, some of them still kicking around a soccer ball on parking lot (too dark for cricket) … and many of them women.

Adults here seem to like to sit outside, during evenings. During the long summer months, it’s the only time you can stand being outside. And in the winter, it’s quite nice. Almost cool. It’s almost like a promenade. People just out to see and be seen.

(It was 70 degrees as I jogged, and I doubt I will have many cooler days here.)

But the people sitting on the grass, and on the benches, are segregated by gender. Only women in this knot of two or three. Only men in that group of four or five. The exceptions being parents with small kids.

Some walkers out, too. Just strolling in the pleasant evening, one made even nicer by a cool breeze of about 10 mph coming off the Gulf. The sort of sea breeze you expect off a big body of water … but that we rarely get here.

It was dark, but not too dark. Street lights every 30 yards or so, on the periphery, and enough incidental light from residences that you can almost always see what’s on the ground ahead of you. Up above, wisps of cloud filtered a pale light from the moon.

Slogging up and down the streets, I could hear people talking out of that third-story building on the right. I could see the stained glass on the second floor of the building on the left. And around the corner I could hear children laughing on a terrace outside their third-floor apartment. I could see them peering over the wall.

I went past the mosque and noted, again, that the minaret is bathed in a green light. I need to find out what that is about.

I could smell someone’s dinner. People here eat late, and since this is mostly a subcontinent neighborhood (Indians and Pakistanis), it smelled like curry. Which is a good smell, in my book.

As usual, somebody made fun of the slow jogger. I turned a corner and a guy in a turban seemed to be urging me to go faster. He may have said, “Go, go!” I wasn’t sure.

I finished with a couple of laps around Khalifa University (which isn’t like taking a lap of UCLA), dodging a dozen or two people just out strolling, enjoying the night. The circuit of Khalifa is where I ought to do the whole jog because for reasons unclear to me, it has a rubberized sidewalk around it. Easier on the joints. But, then, I wouldn’t see the kids riding bikes between buildings.

I was pleased to be done. It was relaxing. Not stressful. And informative.

This seems to be a neighborhood of families and regular folls, and I like the idea of jogging past a pickup soccer game on a patch of lawn and kicking an errant soccer ball back to the guys.

I like this neighborhood. Unlike Hong Kong, you can run around the block where you live and not bump into 1,000 people. And the streets are wide enough to see cars running, and the speed bumps keep the cars from going fast.

Certainly, we all like it here more, in the block bounded by 19th, 21st, Muroor and Airport Road,  when we have mild winter weather. But I think it’s more than that.