Well the India trip started in style. I flew business class on emirates from Dubai to Delhi. The flight itself was exeptionally short, so short that there wasn't even time to watch a movie on the flight. Instead all they showed were TV programmes. However I did manage to catch an excellent episode of Top Gear, one that I had not seen before. This episode was where the boys all went to Vietnam and had to drive 800 miles from the south of vietnam to the north. Well it was just priceless. They were only given 15 million dong to buy [View Full Entry]

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It's been a bit stormy around here recently. We have had massive hail storms, thunderstorms, Shamals and a wee bit of rain! [View Full Entry]

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Well we (myself, David and cousin James) used up all of my airmiles points last night and paid a visit to the Jumana Secret of the Desert Show at the Al Sahra Desert Resort. It was an interesting experience to say the least. We got a bit of a surprise when we stumbled across the access road to the resort. It totally lept up out of nowhere and David practically had to do a handbrake slide into the turn to make it and then we discovered that the access road to this fancy resort is actually un paved. Mr Norman wasn't [View Full Entry]

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Well this week was a real treat. It is Prophet Mohammed's Birthday so there was meant to be a public holiday on monday march 9th. Of course this being the UAE and all the government can't actually get its act together very quickly and announce what day the holiday is going to be on for the private sector (the public sector gets annouced very promptly). The company that we both work for doesn't do the sensible thing and say "right, since the UAE can't get its act together and tell us in advance when the public holidays are going to be [View Full Entry]

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Well the Rugby World Cup Sevens were held in Dubai on the weekend and what a weekend it was. The weather was perfect for the event (even a little on the warm side). But the most amazing thing of all were the results of the quarter finals on finals day. The first game that was up was NZ vs Wales. Imagine my shock and horror when the kiwis lost to Wales 14-15. However the next game was even better. England vs Samoa. At full time the score was 26 all and it was only in extra time that the Samoa's scored [View Full Entry]

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We went to the UK for a long weekend to attend the wedding of a friend of David's in Kent. While we were there we took the opportunity to visit Cambridge as I had never been there. Boy was it cold! More details later when I can be bothered to recount the visit in proper detail :) [View Full Entry]

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Well last night was very interesting. Abdul had told us yesterday that there was a wedding party staying in the hotel. Well at about 10:30 last night, just as we had all gone to sleep the most amazing racket started up from somewhere. There were symbols, and horns and drums and shouting and it was so loud that it actually hurt our heads. The noise lasted for about ½ and hour and then stopped again. We thanked the peace and quiet gods and went back to sleep again. Only to have the noise start up again at 12am. This time it [View Full Entry]

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We got up this morning and went in search of breakfast. It was almost a fruitless search as there was noone in the restaurant that we could easily find . However on a second attempt we managed to rouse somebody and they actually ended serving us up the most delightful breakfast (although mum absolutely hated it). Dad and I both had a truly lovely omelette, followed up by some cornflakes. Mum has steadfastly refused to use the milk in Syria as she cannot find out whether or not it is pasteurised, so instead she has been putting bottle water onto her [View Full Entry]

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Merry Xmas everyone! Obviously when we woke up this morning it was xmas day. How exciting. We had a very busy xmas breakfast at the buffet in the silk road restaurant in the hotel. For some reason there were an awful lot of people there as well. We think they were from another tour group. After eating our yummy breakfast we went upstairs to open our pressies. Most exciting as good presents were had all around. We met Abdul in the foyer of the hotel at 9am and we started our xmas sightseeing day (after father had a wee fight with [View Full Entry]

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Last night was amazing. The thunderstorms of yesterday afternoon continued on into the evening and as we tried to sleep at night the entire hotel room was continually lit up with bright flashes of lightening immediately followed by a earth shaking crash of thunder. It was really quite spectacular, although it did make it frightfully difficult to get to sleep. When morning came the weather had receded somewhat and there was actually some blue patched in the sky. We made our way down to breakfast to find ourselves having the paddle into the restaurant again. Apparently the architects here in [View Full Entry]

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