Born to be Wild

Today we again awoke and had breakfast. Once again, this breakfast was not fantastic, but was far from terrible. I just ate multiple bowls of coco puffs. We decided that we would start out the day by visiting the Museum of Cycladic Art. However, it took slightly longer than we had intended it to take. First, we had trouble finding it, and walked past several turns, then right past it, though this allowed us to wander through the national gardens. The gardens were densely forested, with pools for koi. Next to the gardens was the Parliament, so we were able to see it, and the guards dressed in traditional uniforms. Also, we got sidetracked by the War Museum, which we stopped in. It took us through the Greek resistance in World War 2, then the modern ... read more

Wednesday was a pretty uneventful day. We packed up very early as we had an early morning flight to Athens. Jerome gave us a ride to the airport about 6:00 and we bid farewell. He was a superb host, and Dubai was an excellent experience for us. We caught our flight to Athens, via Bahrain, on Gulf Air and settled in for about 5 ½ hours or so. We arrived in Athens early afternoon where it was raining heavily. So, we checked into our hotel, went for a short walk to get something to eat, and then settled in to catch up on some admin work (postcards, blog updates, etc). Tomorrow, we start our exploration of Athens and our look at Greek history. ... read more

We decided to spend Monday back in Dubai with sightseeing in the city. As Jerome had some things to do, we took a taxi to the Dubai Museum, and agreed on a time to meet later at the Dubai Mall. The Dubai Museum is located very near to Dubai Creek, the historic location of the heart of the emirate. The museum is exceptionally well done. It appears small from the outside, but has an extensive underground section that one to walk through examples of historic Bedouin camps, towns, etc. An interesting factoid. . . human artifacts have been found in Dubai dating back to at least 5000 years ago. This is consistent with much of this part of the world which has been inhabited, and fought over, for a very long time. After completing the museum, ... read more

We did not do too much today, but what we did was really cool. The day was really broken up into the morning and the afternoon. In the morning, we woke up fairly late, and had breakfast down at the Costa Coffee virtually right next to Jerome’s apartment building. Then, we left for The Mall of the Emirates, one of the world’s largest malls. There, we saw a mall larger than you can possibly image, stretching on forever, with employees just milling about to help you get where you want to go. It also has a claim to fame: an indoor ski area. The people there literally built a huge hill, covered it in snow, refrigerated it, and set up ski lifts and the whole shebang. Amazing what money can do. After that, in the afternoon, ... read more

Today was quite amazing. We started out the morning early, and did not even have time for breakfast before whisking ourselves away to the Oman Dive Centre. We were supposed to be there by 8:00 am, so we thought we would leave by 7:00 am. Well, Dad’s watch was an hour off, so what we thought was 7:00 am was really 8:00 am. Luckily, we left a few minutes early, and did not encounter any traffic, so we arrived there only a few minutes late, and in time to get all our gear and get on the boat. We made 3 dives today, 2 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. The first dive was Novice Bay, then Cave Site, then Mermaid Bay. On all of the dives, there were rock reefs, as well as ... read more