It was the sort of event that left me thinking, “Wow.”

Did that really happen? In 2010 print journalism?

An everyone-is-invited, Friday-night newsroom party at a posh new hotel at the nearby (new) world-class race track.

Wait. It gets better.

Major buffet spread. Lasagna, mini-burgers and fries, fish, samosas, chicken and noodles, hummus, baba ghanoush, dinner rolls, Arab bread, salad, fruit … and a huge dessert stand. And both top editors on the premises, hanging with the regular folks.

Wait. It gets even better.

A drawing for about 15 serious prizes/gifts. With all 250 newsroom employees eligible, aside from managers. The gifts included spa treatments at nearby resorts, weekends at luxury hotels in town, dinner for two at a dozen upper-end restaurants in the city … and, yes, two roundtrip air tickets to any European city to which Etihad airlines (the local carrier) flies. Serious prizes.

(Nope, didn’t win anything.)

And the capper to the whole deal (for tradition-minded journos): An open bar for five-plus hours on a terrace of the hotel, overlooking the Formula One-class race track where sports cars were taking hot laps and not quite negotiating a turn about 60 yards from where we were sitting/standing.

This is not bragging. This is not gloating. This is just letting you know that this sort of interest in employee relations, this sort of willingness to invest in newsroom morale still exists … at one English-language newspaper, anyway.

(This sort of thing doesn’t translate directly into a good newspaper; but it has to help.)

Just an amazing concept. Like something big newspapers in the U.S. might have done 20 years ago … except better. As personal as a Christmas party at a family-owned suburban back in the day. Except bigger.

I’m not going to take this any farther because I don’t want to make anyone feel bad. The occasion was the celebration of the second birthday of The National, which began printing on April 17, 2008. They did this a year ago, too. Eventually, newspapers stop celebrating birthdays,  but I understand the first was memorable and I can vouch for the second.

The other part of the evening was soaking up the atmosphere around one of Abu Dhabi’s seemingly built-overnight tourist attractions. The Yas Marina Circuit and the Yas Hotel.

Both are located on Yas Island, a sort of sand spit about a half-hour up the coast from Abu Dhabi City and a few yards out into the Gulf.

The Yas Hotel, where we were, is located in the middle of the race track. Cars drive through a tunnel built through the middle of the hotel.

The hotel is also one of those ultra-modern layouts where some architect got to indulge himself/herself. Check the website. The building is shaped almost like a scaly caterpillar drawing itself up for another lunge. And that caterpillar also has the ability to change colors, has the race track through the middle of it, is tunneled inside with the sort of bright white, maze-like hallways that put me in mind of the Starship Enterprise … and has a rooftop bar with a sort of see-through geodesic-dome-like ceiling, with booths, couches and overstuffed pillows on giant mattresses.

The entire Yas Island development is the sort of thing that boggles the minds of those of us who became used to the decaying infrastructure and shrinking horizons of most North American cities. (Not to mention most European cities.)

They put up grand new stuff in this town … all the time. They make it happen. The oil money comes in, and they invest it. A new race track? Done. A half-dozen huge hotels around it? Finished. (The next island over,  they’re putting up branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim.)

It’s the sort of can-do approach I remember from my youth in California. When a complex freeway system went in and LAX was cutting edge and the UC and Cal State university systems were built.

The sort of things California no longer gets done, now that it’s broke,  crippled by taxes and swamped by unemployment.

Anyway. An amazing place. A great opportunity for staff to get together in a company-sponsored event, make the acquaintance of other people in the newsroom — and see a new hotel and new track.

I feared these sorts of thing — both the newspaper side of it and the local development aspect of it — were over. Relegated to history.

Nope. Still going on. Whether it’s journalism, engineering, construction, finance, hotel management, convention-planning, architecture, curating,  public relations …

You just need to know where to look and figure out how to be part of it.