Europe!

Now the real countdown for Europe starts! In just 9 weeks we will be headng off for London. We are spending 2 nights in London before the tour starts, staying in Picadilly Circus. Time is short in London so we will just pick out a few things we really want to do.

On the 2nd of July the bus tour starts, pick up in London, driving through to Dover and then on a ferry to Calais. From there we visit 9 countries over 19 days. Full details can be found HERE (including the itinerary)

Then another night in London before we head back to Dubai so I can prepare for my 'home' holiday.

There must be good and bad things about doing a tour, but for the time we have it seems the best way to go. This way we are visiting nearly all the Western European countries, with everything organised. We will have a taste of everything and know if we want to return anywhere for a more in depth look. I am going to hunt down a Western Europe tour book today as we have 'at leisure' time in most places to do our own thing. Gettin' very excited...

Snakes and Ladders

For the past few months I have been participating in a game of snakes and ladders at my gym.

I am not a big fan of the gym but it is now way too hot to walk outside (or do anything particularly active) outside and Dubai by nature is not a place where you have to walk very far to do anything (I walk about 30 meters to buy the milk, thats about it). So it's good to try and go and do something active every day.
At the club gym they usually have some sort of competition going to encourage members to attend regularly. The rules of snakes and ladders were for each 20 min cardio workout you get to roll the dice then move that number along the gameboard. The snakes had things like 'ate out again' or 'stayed home and watched TV instead of going to the gym' and the ladders had things like 'ate healthily all weekend' or 'did an extra work-out this week'. It's quite a good idea I think, just a little bit of extra motivation. After 3 months of going up and down the board, last week I finally won! YAY! They gave me a food voucher for he club restaurant, where everything is served with fries... Hahahaha....

Bye Jorge

On Sunday night we all went to Seville's, a spanish restaurant to say farewell to Jorge, who is leaving Drydocks to go and work in his native Spain.

The tappas was extremely yummy, but the best bit was the cooking of the Paella, on a big fire right infront of us.

After all the seafood, rice and whatever wlse had been cooked they served it for us straight off the pan they cooked it in.

I should have a photo of Jorge... But he must have been avoiding the camera. Goodbye and Good luck Jorge!

PS I keep meanig to write, Sandie has blogged about their Australian trip. Check it out HERE!

Party Day

As I write this entry I am reminded of my kids... They have all turned 7 or are about to turn 7, and they still get confused about their 'birth' day and their 'party' day..... Anyway, Zadok first had his 'birth'day on Wednesday then he had his 'party' day on Thursday.

Tikkos must have reminded Zadok he is now 24...

Here is a scary photo.... Simon is our next door neighbour (a DD employee) and Dave has just moved to C block, an old navy mate of Simon's.

Stella, Dave and Dianna...
Everyone could have been under the influence of Zadok and my punch, which may or may not have been made after a drive through to Umm Al Qwain (there is apparently a bottleshop there that sells without tax and without the need for a liquor licence, however you have to drive back throuh Sharjah and who would be silly enough to do that?)

I wore shoes after this shot.... No need to give away ones height deficit.... Everyon had a really good night, next birthday is 25 Zadok!

Snowboarding

We have now had 2 snowboarding lessons at Ski Dubai. The lessons last 1 and a 1/2 hours and include 2 hours entry onto the ski slope. The first lesson was very basic, just managing the snowboard strapped on to our feet and going down the beginers slope.

In the second lesson our instructor took us onto the main slope, where we took the ski lift to 'Mid-Way Point'.

You can see the mid-way cafe and the lift in the background of this pic. The first lesson was very difficult, neither of us felt comfortable on the board and I fell flat on my face a number of times.

The second lesson we found much easier, however the crashes became even more plentiful and obviously more painful as our speed increased!

We are now ready to head along for a level 1 lesson this afternoon. They say they are going to teach us how to make linked turns then in level 2 we will do our first trick... I did a trick last lesson, crashed into the safety barrier and ripped it down the slope... I don't think they are talking about that sort of trick!

Here we are before our last assult on the 'mountain', tired, hurting, aware of muscles we didn't know we had, but still feeling rather pleased with ourselves.

Happy Birthday Zadok!

Today is Zadok's Birthday, he is turning 24 (so we are the same age now...)
Last night we went out for dinner, we went to a The Blue Elephant, a Thai restaurant at the Al Bustan Rotana. Today we went shopping for some pressies and I am cooking a nice dinner. Tomorrow everyone is coming round to ours for a party, which should be good. Zadok and I are just making some punch, not quite sure how its going to turn out... Smells fairly lethal!

I am just working on my post about our Snowboarding lessons... The photos aren't great in the Ski slope but I'll blog them anyway.

Mamzar Beach Park

Twice in just over a week I have convinced Zadok that we should go to Mamzar Beach Park. It is really, really beautiful there. This is the same place we I took the kids for a trip last term.

The park is mantained by the government and entry costs dhs 5, which is about AUD 2. It is almost totally surrounded by water as it is located on a headland that lies just inside Dubai, you can see the Sharjah CBD from one side of the park. The best thing about it (other than being beautiful) is that there aren't hundreds of people ther like some other public beaches nearby.

Zadok is enjoying his week of local leave, especially as March was a particularly busy month for him. Yesterday we had our first Snowboarding lesson, which was really good. I only landed on my face twice.... I took some pics but they aren't very good, we have our second lesson tomorrow so I'll try and get another then.

Easter Holidays

YAY! Term 2 is finished. I have two weeks of holidays. Zadok starts his week off on Friday. We are booked in for a beginners snowboard lesson on Saturday. The weather is great, really warm but not awfully hot yet.

Hahaha....