Just to prove to Jeremy that I do put embarrasing photos of myself out there in the public world as well. He snapped this of me when I was asleep one night. [View Full Entry]

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This time the train was much more to his majesty's liking (someone had complained a little bit about the first train and wanted to go first class on the return trip to Vienna). Our return to Vienna was not auspicious and the weather was very cold, grey and windy. Our first impression of our new hotel was that it was in the middle of nowhere. We went out for a walk in the afternoon after we arrived and our impressions were being reinforced, right up until the point that we stumbled across the main shopping street that was two blocks away [View Full Entry]

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Well we finally made it onto our first holiday from the UAE. Dubai airport was a nightmare with bizillions of people all around. We were most thankful for our new E-Gate passes that let us skip all of the queues and go through customs within about 2 seconds. V cool. Austrian Airlines didn't meet with our most favourable impressions however. The plane was packed in like a tin of sardines and the food was awful (this did however improve somewhat on the return flight). We flew into Vienna and then went straight from the airport to the sudbahnhof train station to [View Full Entry]

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Well today we finally managed to go up in the hot air balloon at Ibn Battuta Mall. You may remember that about a month ago the first attempt ended in tears with the lady telling us that it was too hot to flyy. Well we found out the reason behind that comment (we think). The balloon is helium and if it is too hot outside then the balloon can't rise. Anyway the view from the balloon was pretty darn cool. We did it at nightime and could see the construction on the palm all lit up. It would be nice to [View Full Entry]

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Well we have just been cruising along for the last week or so. We went for an interesting visit to Ibn Battuta mall the other day which coincided with with a visit from the rather strange people on stilts (check out the photos). We had tried to go sailing but decided to postpone that little idea once we discovered that it costs AED200 each to enter the area where they rent the yachts, and then another AED110 each to hire the boat for an hour. We though that it wasn't quite worth that amount of money in the end. We also [View Full Entry]

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We went out to Festival City today and had a bit of a shop at Ikea. Not the most interesting thing I know but the interesting thing is that I finally managed to get a photo of myself with Modhesh. I tried to get a photo of Jeremy with Modhesh, but he flatly refused. So it was left to be a photo of me with Modhesh. We had to try twice as the first time I was snaked by a three year and his mother! Festival City mall is pretty amazing. Most of the shops aren't open yet but when they [View Full Entry]

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We had the decided glory of going to the Burj Al Arab for high tea on Friday. It was totally fab. I have been told that you either love or hate the Burj and I have to say that I loved it. I thought that it was just wonderful. So colorful and full of life. The Emirates Palace in Abu Dhbai is more to the taste of a lot of people, but I found it a bit dull, all palcid colors and heavy with gold. Whereas the Burj was jsut totally over the top, and proud. The water fountains there were [View Full Entry]

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Well, phew.... I have just spent the last week recovering this blog site after the HUGE travel blog crash. Where I lost EVERYTHING. All my blogs disappeared and I have now decided to back them all up elsewhere as well. Luckily we are now back in business. So on the weeked Rod and Jess, Jez and I all headed out to Bab Al Shams for dinner and to scope the place out. It was amazing. Bab Al Shams is a part of the Jumeirah chain of hotels and this one is about 1/2 an hour out in the desert and is [View Full Entry]

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I decided to try and take Jeremy out for a treat surprise on Friday since he had been working so hard. So I did my research and found this really cool hot air balloon at one of the malls which is tethered to the mall and only goes up and down. However it gives you great sweeping views of the Dubai metropolitain area. Well at least that it what the brouchure said. So we went all the way out to Ibn Battuta Mall to try this thing out, walked up to the counter and the lady said that they don't fly [View Full Entry]

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It was most exciting. We went all the way over to Wafi City ( a shopping mall in Dubai) last night to look at handbags and discovered that they have opened a whole new retail area there. And it was totally fantastic. All of Wafi City is based on an Egyptian theme and there is gong to be a new raffles hotel there, in the shape of a pyramid (I actually use it as a landmark when I am driving around). And the inside of the mall has a whole lot of mini pyramids inside of it. The best part is [View Full Entry]

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