Obviously doesn’t stay in Vegas, otherwise nobody would know about it.
Went there for the NBAA Annual Convention & Exhibition, then spent the first two days locked up in my hotel room sick with the flu.
Vegas was all that it was hyped up to be, yet I was a slightly underwhelmed. The majority of the action is only concentrated around a strip of road a few blocks long. Much like Dubai it is a city built in the desert, with some really outlandish architecture. And that’s where the comparison screeches to a sudden stop. The gambling, flowing booze and nightlife set it miles apart. The big hotels slash casinos are fake reproductions of something else, with the exception of the Wynn and the Encore, which I took a particular liking to. Unfortunately most of the pictures I snapped were from the front passenger seat of a moving car, so I couldn’t position myself for a good shot of them.
Vegas is also a draw because of the concerts and staged events. There are household names like David Copperfield, as well as less known but surely entertaining acts:
The real killer was the flight (14 hours to Los Angeles), following which we had to drive for another 5 hours. And vice-versa. At least I console myself with the fact the we flew over the North Pole, always had the sun on one side of the plane, and I walked away with some nice shots.
I finally get to post the pictures I snapped in Malta. This took so long because in the process of this “holiday” I lost, among other things, my Nexus One. Yes that gadget which made me Android crazy and write up all those heart-felt blog posts. Sigh.
There will be a sense of continuation to the pictures and suddenly nothing, the reason for this being that both my wife and me fell sick – bronchitis with fever sick – for the last five days. We even had to delay our departure by two days. Without further ado:
Unlikely as it may seem the above words were the prelude to the best hotel experience I have ever had.
I booked us a couple of nights at the Atlantis on Palm Jumeirah to satisfy our desperate need for a short holiday, without the hassle of going abroad. Having heard of many people who used it I decided to try booking.com for the reservations, and indeed found very good discounts.
We set off Thursday afternoon, after work, and after the inevitable last-minute packing. In order not to lose time both my wife and I decided to skip the shower at home, so the first thing we did after settling in our room was enjoy a long hot shower each. Later we pondered our dinner options and chose the Kaleidoscope (international buffet), not really knowing what to expect.
It turned out to be a really well-stocked and laid out buffet, and the selection boasted a Maltese dish (which was rabbit stew – no, we didn’t try it). I will not bother to go into lengthy descriptions, I would not do it justice. As is required in such occasions, we decided to take our time and take the small-portion-from-each-course-route.
Half way through the third course I received the fateful phone call from Guest Services. Apparently the leak was originating from our room, but affecting the service areas. Our room was still dry. The lady went on to explain that the whole floor’s water supply had to be shut down until they could fix the leak, and could we please come asap to our room to move our stuff to another room. Before I had time to explain that I had methodically unpacked and used every storage space available in the room, I was politely interrupted and told that we were going to be upgraded to a suite.
The weight of that immediately sank in, but I still didn’t want to let it go without a fight. I thanked her and assured her we would have our things ready within the next 20 minutes. Next I called for the restaurant manager, making a fuss about how we couldn’t continue our meal due to something that was beyond our control. Without raising any protest or trying to sleaze out of it, the man made me pay only for the bottle of wine, and instructed me to call once in the new room to order items for room service delivery (together with our still-unfinished wine) at no extra cost whatsoever – I ended up not paying for any food at all.
We scrambled back to our room, half expecting to find an army of workers waiting by our door, with their arms crossed, tapping their tools impatiently. Relieved that it wasn’t so, we threw everything in our cases in record speed and waited. Ten minutes passed, nothing. I called, they would be there shortly. Another twenty minutes. By this point I’m already putting together another complaint, about how we could have easily finished the meal and what was the rush. Then the porter came, took our bags and grinning said, “you’ll like your new room.”
And was he right. Big living room, big bedroom, 2 TVs (one in each of the mentioned rooms), huge bath, shower, walk in closet, smaller closet, 2 toilets, big balcony, wonderful views. I had to play the video-camera-tourist this time, so you can see for yourself:
From our balcony we could see the big aquarium, and it’s a truly memorable sight, at night seeing those fish and rays swimming in the back-lit water.
Atlantis aquarium
The aquarium doesn’t look too big from above, but to have an idea here’s the aquarium from the Ambassador Lagoon viewing gallery (which now costs AED 25 to access):
Ambassador Lagoon
View down the Palm
It had finally happened, we could no longer pout that the we were always unlucky in these sorts of events. We spent the following day at the Aquaventure water park, and still flush with the excitement of “it happened to us” we decided to take it a step further and booked a slot to swim with the dolphins.
My god what an experience! It felt like the fulfillment of a dream I didn’t know I had. Together with a another group of 3 we spent 30 minutes swimming, hugging, kissing, stroking, dancing, and being pulled through the water (with the dolphin of course – her name was Alice). It is highly recommended. Forget the cost, where / when will such an opportunity present itself again?
Last Friday we were invited by friends to go down to Fujairah to watch the bulls fight. I was immediately piqued, but the wife needed some selling. It’s not like the Spanish bull fighting (hence the term “butting”), but rather two bulls wrestle against each other. There’s no blood that I could see. Apparently it’s quite an old tradition, dating from the times of the Portughese colonies in the area.
I’m still not sure how the rules work and how the winning bull is declared so. But it’s fun to watch nonetheless, because when the bulls are done fighting one of two things can happen. Either their “reins” are picked up by their handlers and they are taken away, no fuss. Or they make it more interesting by running towards the rows of people within the large ring, giving their handlers a harder time. Oh, and this can be safely observed from behind the fence, so there isn’t too much crowd involvement. The following pictures should explain in better detail.
I also tried to take some video. The siren noise you can hear is when the match is declared over (I think).
You can find more details on our friends’ blog here, with additional videos.
This morning I took my wife to her driving lesson, as became customary every Friday. To kill time instead of heading back home I went over to Caribou Coffee in Time Square for a coffee, and while there hooked up on the wifi. I was immediately taken back exactly a year ago, after my first arrival in Dubai.
At the time I did not have internet at home, being a temporary accommodation until suitable quarters were found. My boss lent me his Etisalat 3G modem, but it was very unreliable and slow. I used to trek it to Uptown Mirdif (30 minutes walk) and camp myself at Caribou’s to catch up with my wife on Gmail chat.
I find this happening to me on a semi regular basis. I’d be going around minding my own business, when something triggers a memory recall. Mostly it’s songs or smells. When I hear certain songs they take me back to certain points in my life, or remind me of something I was doing while hearing that song (or album). I used to listen to the same album ad nauseam, so if while doing so I was also (for example) playing a PC game, then the two would become linked.
One particular case is the album Albertine by Brooke Fraser. I had picked it up while honeymooning in New Zealand, and we used to play it during the long trips between our stops. Since we spent a month on the road, and had only a couple other CDs to rotate, I ended up listening to it quite a lot. It is a beautiful album by a very talented artist, and I am still kicking myself for not going to see her play live. She happened to be touring and had stopped in Wellington during the same time we did, but we were exhausted by some field trip we did and turned it down. So nowadays any time I put on her songs I’m instantly reminded of those beautiful times, the rolling roads, the stunning scenery, and the occasional roadside cattle.
My wife is already pining to go there for another trip (it has only been two years), but I have my reservations. I fear that it would not be as memorable to us as the first time round, and I do not wish to spoil the memories. Besides there are many other worthwhile destinations, I just need to convince her. Maybe South Africa.
