Days 9 & 10 - Abu Dhabi & Dubai

Day 9 - Abu Dhabi
Woke up reasonably early with good intentions of heading out to visit the Abu Dhabi Heritage Village to learn about the local culture and history. Ended up lazing around the flat instead with M doing blog and sorting out travel/hotel arrangements for Thailand whilst D watched the film 'Munich.' (nice light-hearted film for a wednesday morning....? (sarcasm intended))

Finally headed off at around midday to Marina Mall. Couple of hours spent shopping and having lunch. Managed to get a couple of photos developed & framed for Sam & Jase as a thank you for being top-notch tour guides and hosts. M also got a top.... a nice blue one!

Back to the flat to meet Sam after work. There'd been talk by some of Jase's students that there was a local UAE football match in the evening - all football matches in the UAE, including internationals, are free to attend. If only Liverpool would adopt the same policy. We later learned that the football had been yesterday so we went to The Club instead.

M & D had a quick game of tennis whilst Sam sat in the bar. D won 6-2 (I think) but we were kicked off, mid-point, with a woman walking onto the court shouting...

"vee have zee court booked for official league matches...!" (Guess which nationality!)

Never-the-less, pretty rude. M not amused! :-)
So with international relations restored it was on to the bar to meet Sam & Jase. Evening spent eating, drinking and chatting and entering the 'Pub Quiz.' It was great fun with lots of banter with other teams.


There were some pretty obscure quiz rounds with topics ranging from 'Russia' to 'Cooking.' But, we held our own and walked away with 36 cans of Fosters and 2 polo shirts for our efforts - not a bad nights work. Well done the 'Vaggis 4.' (Our team name.... don't ask!)

D xx

Day 10 - Abu Dhabi - Dubai
Woke up with no hangover, somewhat suprisingly, and again intentions to leave early didn't materialise for one reason or another as we headed off for The Club just after 10. Managed to book a court straight away but neither of us were firing on all cylinders today so perhaps tennis elbow is kicking in?
We followed the game with an hour or 2 lounging around the pool sun-bathing and having lunch. We really are struggling here!

Then it was back to the flat for 3'ish to meet Sam and wait for Jase because tonight we were going skiing.... yes skiing!

Dubai has the largest/longest indoor ski slope so we got a shared taxi to Dubai which took just under 2 hours thanks to the infamous Dubai traffic.
Time for a quick drink and snack before we got kitted out with skis, boots, poles, socks, jacket, trousers and a 2 hour lift pass. Sam & Jase were having a lesson so Mandy and I headed off on our own.

Very very bizarre sensation going from the warmth to -4 degrees inside. We'd worked out that M hadn't skiied for 3 years and D for 5 so this could be interesting.


Thankfully, muscle memory kicked in and after a couple of cautious runs, we were both 'shooping' down all the runs that Dubai had to offer.

Bumped into Sam & Jase (not literally) a few times who seemed to be progressing fast with their lesson too.


With our 2 hours almost up we called it a day - cold fingers and toes beginning to get the better of us. It was great fun and with only a couple of wipe-outs between us we were pretty pleased with ourselves. (D fell over, not so spectacularly, whilst standing still taking a photo.... nice!)

Another day, another bar... on to meet up with Sam, Jase and their friend Nadine for drinks and dinner in a bar called 'Apres' which overlooks the ski slope. Good food although we did have to wait almost 90 minutes for a table. Couple more drinks and then we got a late night taxi back to Abu Dhabi arrived at around 1:15. (All but Sam slept pretty much the whole way)

Another tough day comes to an end.

D xx