Some Firsts For Megan

On Monday we took ourselves off to the 'Irish Village' near the airport. This is where the Dubai Tennis Stadium is and where the Dubai Tennis Championships were taking place. Monday was the first day of the women's tournament and tickets were only 30AED (less than a fiver!) so we thought we'd go along and watch a bit of tennis. This was Megan's first 'first' of the last few days, the first time she's watched a live tennis match. She really enjoyed it and we saw some great matches. We saw Kirilenko vs Bondarenko (ranked about 26th and 27th in the world) and also Schynder vs Dementieva (ranked 12th and 13th in the world) among others. It was a great day out and the weather was cracking. After arriving at 1pm we stayed until about 10pm so I think we definitely got our money's worth!!

Megan's second 'first' came the next day at Ski Dubai. She has never been skiing before and didn't know whether she'd like it so we booked her in for a 'Discovery Lesson' and she absolutely loved it! She took to it really quickly and where better to try it out than at the largest indoor ski slope in the world? Better than booking an entire holiday and realising that you don't actually like it! Whilst Megan was in her lesson I went onto the slopes and tried a few jumps and also the worlds first 'indoor black run'. It was incredibly good for an indoor ski slope but not quite what you find marked as a black run in the Alps.
Ski Dubai is really strange, it's weird being in such a hot country (30 degrees again today) but then putting on your thermals and going off for some fun in the snow! A great place and typical of Dubai, generally building things (usually the biggest in the world) just because they can.

Today we are relaxing by the pool again, trying to make sense of the fact that this time yesterday we were in -1C and now we're in +30C and we've only travelled into town and back!
The general plan for our last 2 days in Dubai is to relax and generally not do a lot! We've seen a lot of what Dubai has to offer and we've really enjoyed it. It's easy to see how it has become such a popular tourist destination and place for people to move to. Megan even admitted yesterday that she'll miss this place when we're gone.

But not to worry, we'll be in Singapore on Friday!!

Wild Wadi

Wednesday was planned for us to take a trip to a waterpark and luckily, the weather didn't let us down. It was possibly our hottest day so far, so a great one to be in and out of the water.

The water park was "Wild Wadi" and is a 12-acre tropical paradise with waterfalls, rapids, waves, rides and attractions. The main ride is the "Jumeirah Sceirah" and is the tallest and fastest speed slide outside North America hitting speeds of over 80kph and a drop of 27m. It was an absolutely awesome experience, slightly scary too but it all adds to the fun! Most of the rest of the rides at the park are connected and are ridden in big inflatable tyres. You don't even have to climb any steps as part of the ride is getting shot up by powerful jets, just to slide down again! The height of laziness!! This was a nice day out in a really nice setting, overlooked by the Jumeirah Beach Hotel (looks like a wave) and the Burj-al-Arab (looks like a sail). If you haven't heard of these, look them up on the net and get a picture, they really are extravagant hotels!

Thursday began with beautiful plans involving getting a bus into town, linking up with a river cruise then wandering around the Old Souk before meeting Louise and Marc that evening. Unfortunately our best laid plans were ruined when the bus didn't turn up (so we had to get the more expensive taxi) then the river cruise was cancelled due to high wind (giving us an extra 2 hours to kill) and then the Old Souk was a lot smaller than expected and only took about 5 minutes to walk round! So for all our planning we just wandered around town for a bit and then went to another of the many malls in the city. It was nice but not quite what we were hoping for from our day.

Friday, on the other hand, went exactly to plan. We went along to what is apparently a bit of an institution over here. We went to a Friday brunch. These start at about 11.30-12ish and go on until about 4pm and are just massive buffets with everything you can imagine on offer. The price of 179AED (about 27 pounds) includes as much food as you can eat and all drinks including beer, wine and spirits. A very good price and we all certainly made the most of it before heading to another bar for a few more and then home for even more! We finished the evening with drunken karaoke on "SingStar", a PlayStation game. Fun, but I think it only highlighted the fact that I really shouldn't sing!!

As you may imagine from the description of Friday, today was a slightly subdued day, what with the fuzzy heads, furry mouths and funny tummies!!

Desert Safari

After exploring the city of Dubai on Sunday, today we discovered that there are two sides to this Emirate. The side that we we shown around today is the desert part of the country. We were picked up late afternoon by our driver in a nice big comfy Toyota Land Cruiser and were driven out of town towards the dunes. It is amazing how quickly the buildings disappear and how quickly the landscape changes, giving way to scrubland and then suddenly to sandy desert.

After a little drive we arrived at the meet point for our safari and 13 other cars turned up. After a lot of waiting around we finally headed off to "bash some dunes"! It was a brilliant experience to drive up what seemed to be near vertical slopes and then go straight down the other side. This carried on for almost an hour when we eventually stopped to watch the sun go down over the dunes. The colour of the sand as the sun is setting is incredible, really deep red and it seems to change colour as you are watching it.

We messed around in the sand and took lots of photos and then were told that we were moving out towards the "traditional Bedouin camp". I'm not sure how traditional this camp really was, what with all the electricity, sound systems and flushing toilets but it was nice, well laid out and still in the middle of nowhere! There were lots of things there like camel rides, sand boarding, traditional Arabic dress but we went over and had some henna tattoos done by the most amazing artist. She was so quick, didn't need stencils and it was free (although we still gave her money for being amazing). You didn't get a choice what you wanted but just gave her a body part and she painted away, excellent!

Our entertainment for the rest of the evening was a belly-dancer and she was excellent. At one point she came right over to me and basically gave me my own private dance about 10 inches in front of my face, shaking pretty much everything she had! I definitely wasn't complaining. At one point, as a sign of appreciation, someone gave a traditional loud Arab shout/shriek/wail and we were both convinced that our friend Tom from uni was right there with us but luckily it was just a local!

It didn't take long before she started dragging people up to dance with her and Megan and I were both taken up separately to try our hand at belly-dancing. Mightily embarrassing but a good work out!

The evening was completed with traditional foods, barbecued by the locals before heading back to civilisation.

Flip-Flops

My flip-flops have just broken, really annoyed!!! they were so well moulded to my feet!!

Arrival in Dubai

After leaving home at 16.30 for a 21.40 flight on Friday we arrived at Heathrow with plenty of time to spare and were treated to a lovely Hilton Hotel Restaurant meal before boarding. The flight itself was very decent with good service and it was comfortable enough. Megan slept for about 4 hours out of the 6 and a bit we were flying so she was happy. I on the other hand slept on and off for about 15 minutes so wasn't exactly feeling refreshed! Our flight was overnight and the highlight for me was when we had just passed over Baghdad and i looked out to the left and saw the most beautiful coloured sunrise with deep oranges and purples, absolutely amazing. I then looked out to the right and it was still absolutely pitch black! Very strange but one of the few perks of being at 38,000 ft at that time of day!

Our first day in Dubai was a very strange one for me as I really hadn't slept so had been awake for about 21 hours by the time we landed! We were taken back to my cousin Louise's apartment (which is lovely and very spacious) in Jebel Ali where we dumped our stuff and were shown around the area to the swimming pool and mall etc. In the evening at about 5.30 we met up with my Uncle, Christopher (who is also on holiday here) at a hotel rooftop bar for half-price cocktails as the sun went down, and then had a meal in the Jumeirah Beach Hotel (a five star hotel that is designed to look like a wave), a very relaxing end to a very long time of being awake!


We decided to get straight into tourist action on Sunday morning and made our way into town via taxi. The taxi's here are very reasonably priced, air conditioned and the drivers are actually polite. Imagine driving on a motorway for 25-30 minutes in a taxi in the UK, how much would that cost? Well here it was 70AED, about £9, absolutely brilliant! We got on the "Big Bus Tour" in Dubai and actually really enjoyed it. It was great because we got to get our bearings slightly, see all of the main things and learn a bit of history and some interesting facts. One of which is about why the roads are so busy here, because petrol is cheaper than water!
1 gallon petrol = 6.6AED, 1 gallon water = 7AED!!!

We picked up the tour at Wafi City, a big shopping centre and made our way into the old town by the creek and stopped at the Dubai Museum in the cool basement of the Al Fahidi Fort. This was good and showed the roots and development of Dubai from a small town in the early 1900's to the booming city it is now.


The tour continued from here and went past the Old Souk (Souk means market), under the creek and onwards to the Gold Souk. There were more jewellers together here than I have ever seen before. More than 400 shops carrying over 100,000kg of gold ranging from 18cts upwards and selling gold, white gold and even purple gold! Brilliant for a wander round.

We continued onwards and after lunch went to Al Karama which is famed for it "genuine fakes". We were asked by someone as soon as we stepped off the bus if we wanted bags, watches, wallets, clothes etc. and luckily we did. We followed him for quite a long way and started to get a little worried about where he was actually taking us but we ended up in a shop (always a good thing) and were guided out the back and upstairs to a secret Aladdin's Den of bags and wallets, Megan was in heaven! There was such a wide range that we ended up staying for quite a while longer than we anticipated before meeting up with Louise and Marc and heading off to my Aunt and Uncle, Michelle and Derek's house for dinner.

This is where Christopher and Susie are staying and where we'll be staying too and I must say it is an absolutely amazing place! 3 giant double bedrooms, a massive kitchen/dining room, an even bigger lounge/bar area but best of all is the swimming pool outside with a wet/dry bar. Lovely!

Leaving Spain

The last few days in Spain left us with very little to do having seen all of the small town of Chiclana more than once and having been to most of the local attractions. We would have gone to the beach but it was very windy and we didn't think a sandy beach would be the most forgiving environment in that sort of weather.

Friday saw the continuation of the Carnival but with the day being more child-based. At midday we went to Megan's cousin Hugo's school and watched each year perform a song on stage whilst dressed in various costumes. Hugo's year (9 yr olds) were dressed as tourists while the others varied between hippies, old people and wearing pyjamas. As soon as we got home we had to help out to finish the costume for the afternoon parade. A few of Hugo's school were going out supporting Cadiz FC, the local team. To do this they were dressed as footballs and cheerleaders. The effort that is put into dressing up is impressive as most of the costumes are handmade! In the parade later in the afternoon we saw groups of ghosts, cowboys, hippies, babies, witches, police, skeletons and various assorted others.

That evening we were treated to an almost private performance by another group of singers, this time dressed as (and singing about) Sherlock Holmes. Amusing, not least for the fact that they couldn't quite say Sherlock Holmes properly and also they were apparently singing about being from England and dunking biscuits in their tea!

As I'm sitting in departures in Jerez Airport (after being early enough to be first checked in!) I think we've had a pretty good 12 days or so, we've seen and taken part in Spanish culture and enjoyed it very much.

Seville

Seville was next on the agenda as recommended by lots of people that had been so off we trekked to the now familiar bus terminal for an early (for us) bus. An hour and a half later we arrived, once again lacking a map and any idea where to head for. We luckily found ourselves a big map outside a Starbucks in town and located three things that were necessary.

1: Where we were
2: A tourist information centre
3: A morning coffee and snack!

The first and main tourist attraction to visit in Seville is the Cathedral, from the outside it is big and ornate but from the inside it is just incredible, really the only way to describe it. We spent about 2 hours wandering around looking at everything there including the extravagant and huge tomb of Christopher Columbus, the "Cathedral Treasures", the first elliptical room ever built and a floor designed by Michelangelo. One of the highlights was the "Giralda" which is basically the bell tower. You can climb to the top and see all of Seville. There are no steps but instead a series of 36 slopes, designed so that people could ride horses up to the top when it was first built in the 1200s, for what purpose i´m not sure!
After a pint of Guinness at the local Irish Bar we spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the river and through "Parque de Maria Luisa" which was beautiful and full of orange trees (which Megan decided she wanted to pick - dicing with death!). A nice relaxing afternoon was only slightly spoiled by breaking into a fast walk/slow jog when being pursued by a guitar playing hobo, but that was just amusing rather than annoying!

Day Trips to Cadiz and the Beach

On Monday we had no real plan when we got up, we were up late and had a relaxing morning before finding out it was a public holiday in Cadiz for the carnival. We took ourselves to the bus station and took a gamble on which bus to get on, luckily this paid off and within 30 minutes we were in Cadiz town centre. We had no map and no idea at all of where we were heading so we immersed ourselves in the carnival crowds and atmosphere and went wherever the flow took us. There were thousands of happy people all enjoying the carnival, watching the little singing groups and watching the tractors pulling big floats full of even more groups. These moved along ridiculously slowly and occasionally stopped for the group to have a bit of a sing. We wandered about for 2 hours before thinking that maybe we should try to find our way to the bus station as this may take some time!! Following Megan's advice, we took a series of alleyways and side streets and found ourselves at the sea just as the sun was going down which was a nice end to another unplanned day.

The next day once again started with no major plan but we ended up going to the once weekly market just across the river from where we were staying, it was absolutely huge and kept us busy for quite a while before we decided we would brave the public transport once again. We managed to not get lost, as soon as we saw the sea we hopped off the bus and went and relaxed on one of the most beautiful beaches. There were no clouds at all and it was easily warm enough for just shorts and t-shirts, not in the water however, as that was absolutely freezing! Needless to say, we didn't go in! In the absence of watersports we amused ourselves by drawing in the sand and jumping off things like the mature adults that we really are!

Boots

Megan buys expensive leather boots, very nice!

Spanish Weekend

If our weekend was a typical weekend in Spain then a Spanish weekend consists of a series of unplanned events revolving almost entirely around eating and drinking! Saturday began with us having breakfast at 11.30 then going for a walk and not coming back until about 4pm after visiting plenty of bars, drinking lots of beer and eating tapas with the locals! We then went entirely "Brits Abroad" and went to an English bar, not something we´d generally do but we had good reason. . . . 6 nations rugby!! Unfortunately it didn't turn out the right result for us but an enjoyable afternoon nonetheless. After being back in the house for a matter of minutes Vince got a call and told us we were heading straight back out to the Carnival.

It seems the traditional thing at carnival time is for groups of men, dressed in ridiculous clothes with bright wigs on to get together on stage and sing funny/satirical songs, this was fun and enjoyable but we couldn't understand a word!! after joking for a while that we were the only ones that didn't know what the hell they were singing about, a local told us that most of the people there couldn't actually understand because they sing with such strong accents and so fast that most people were just enjoying the atmosphere and the tune too!

On Sunday we went along to Mass as Spain is a highly religious country, we thought it only right to go along. Once again we couldn't understand a thing but got the general idea. The church was absolutely packed, people were standing at the door, standing in the road, sitting all the way round the sides and standing at the windows trying to see in. Maybe you have seen a full church in England but it will have never been like this, i had to remind myself that this wasn't a special occasion. Not Christmas or Easter, it wasn't a wedding or christening, there were no famous people there. It was just a normal Sunday mass. There are benches outside and loud speakers too, this sort of turn out was expected!

As you would now expect, the rest of the day continued with us going to a cafe and then a restaurant along with unplanned manoeuvres such as getting lost and then stumbling upon a restaurant that they have been to before and liked anyway, where we had such dishes as whole squid and partridge. We also visited the neighbouring village of Conil de la Frontera where there is a lighthouse and from the edge of the cliff if you look hard enough into the distance you can see Tunisia.

Its not every day that you can stand and look across the water to see another continent!

Arrival in Spain

We left the house at midday on the 31st and made great time to the airport. We arrived just as the check in desk opened so luckily didn't have to queue but we did have to sit and wait for our gate for ages! The flight was easy and uneventful (apart from the small side effect of me going deaf in my right ear for half the flight, annoying to say the least!). I still find it amazing that in the time it usually takes us to get from Basingstoke to Sutton Coldfield we had arrived in a completely new country, and not even the closest part of that country but almost the furthest away you can get!!

On arrival we drove for about 30 mins to get from the airport (Jerez de la Frntera) to the town where Vince and Esther (Megan's Aunt and Uncle) live, Chiclana de la Frontera. Its a really nice, small town, split into two parts, one on the river and one on the beach.

When we got to their house we were told "Mi casa es sous casa" (if that's how you spell it!!) which means "my house is your house", this is really common in Spain, they are very generous and welcoming. The cultural differences between us Brits and the Spanish were immediately obvious. For them it is common practice to have 4 meals a day and all later than we would eat. A late breakfast, lunch at around 2.30 - 3pm, tea at about 6pm and dinner at 10pm. Strange but I wasn't complaining as we were just in time for a late dinner! Perfect!

First port of call on Friday morning was the food market, we were told that it was a cultural experience and that wasn't wrong! It really was amazing, lots of different stalls with everything completely fresh. The best stall was the fruit and veg, everything was absolutely massive and so colourful, the grapes were the size of our strawberries, the strawberries the size of our apples and the apples were as big as our grapefruits!!

Later on we went and saw Vince and Esthers Beach House which is less house, more mansion! We also had a look at the beach which was around 9km of white sand with rolling waves and a picturesque castle just off the shore, a lovely first day, finished off well with a traditional meal of tapas, wine and beer!