We’re getting down to the nitty gritty – the last few weeks until our summer break back in the States. I, for one, am getting excited. You know it’s too hot here as I’ve stated quite frequently in my blog. I’m also getting cabin fever because we can’t do too much. So in just 15 short days we’ll be in London… and Nottingham, and Bath, and Stratford-Upon-Avon, oh… and Wales. We’re gonna sneak over there for a little bit too. So excited.
We’ve had something going on pretty much every weekend in June. The first weekend we went to Dubai and made our way up the World’s Tallest Building – The Burj Khalifa. The second weekend was my drama student’s production of Hansel and Gretel. They were smashing. This past weekend we had a quick mini vacation in Sharjah with a MAJOR side of Geocaching thrown in for me. Here is an in depth (Well as much as I feel like writing) review of June so far…
The World’s Tallest Building.
We’ve wanted to do this trip for months. It opened in February, but we wanted to wait a little bit and let the newness wear off first. We made our reservations a week in advance. Yes, you have to make reservations to take an elevator up to an observation deck. It cost us about $60 total( for the two of us), but it’s a once in lifetime experience to say you’ve been in the tallest building on Earth, so we felt it was worth the price. Driving up from Al Ain, you can see the Burj Khalifa a LONG way before you get anywhere close to
Dubai. It almost looks out of place as it is easily twice as tall as any other building around it. The world’s largest mall (by total area), the Dubai Mall, is at the bottom of the Burj, so we got there early to have some lunch and shop around for a bit. We finally made our way over to the building, which you can access without leaving the mall. We handed over our tickets and moved into a waiting room. There were lots of folks standing around taking pictures of a scaled model of the building. We popped a few pics there, then made our way through security – x-ray machines and all just like the airport, and then took a short stroll through some hallways that told us all about how the building was constructed, blah blah blah. We got to the elevator and hopped in. The walls of the elevator are covered in TV screens that show neat little tidbits about the building as you make your way up to the 124th floor (1450 ft) at a blazing speed of 40 mph. My ears popped a few times for sure. The 124th floor is a large round room with windows everywhere so you can have a 360 degree view. The observation deck is also here, which we hit first. I expected it to be hot out there, but no no, the deck has two large AC units that pull air from above and keep the deck nice and cool. The views were amazing. The buildings below looked like tiny models that you could build yourself. It was a VERY impressive sight. We took a ton of pictures so Logan can remember being there. All in all, it was well worth the price and I’m very happy we got to go.
Hansel and Gretel
We had our End of the Year concert on June 10th at the Intercon Hotel. All the students performed from their fields of study, including my drama kids. We were one of the last groups of the day. We had a quick, final rehearsal, then I spent half an hour getting
them into makeup. Putting kids in makeup is not always fun, I can tell you that. The performance went as well as could be expected. The kids did a great job, the audience loved it, and I came out looking like the greatest children’s director of all time. It’s a pleasure to work with the little rascals. Special thanks goes to my lovely wife Alanna who helped me make the props and masks.
Sharjah
I planned a little two day vacation for us in Sharjah. I would get to Geocache and Alanna would get a nice hotel with a pool and a beach. Works for both of us. Sharjah is the Emirate (think state) above Dubai. It’s only about 15-20 minutes north and a less busy. It also provided a nice starting point North for me to hit a bunch of Geocaches. We stayed at the Radisson Blu Hotel. We enjoyed the place. The staff was nice, the room was fine and the breakfast was superb. The pool was nice and refreshing – even a little cold though it was 110 degrees outside. Logan had a fun time splashing around and all of us got a little sun. I left early at 5:30am the next morning for a day of solo Geocaching. Alanna and the little man stayed at the hotel and relaxed the day away. I had planned a total of 20 caches. My goal before leaving the UAE is 75 caches, so I needed 17 to put me there. I figured I’d give myself a few more in case I missed some along the way. The morning started off great. I found my first 10 caches rather easy, really didn’t get lost and visited 3 Emirates in the process. Number 11 screwed me though. It was near a beach and I tried to drive over some stand and… for the 3rd time since we moved here I got the rental stuck in the stand. Thankfully it was only 10am so it wasn’t too hot yet. I hiked back out to the main road and soon a nice Omani man came along and helped me. He even went and bought some rope so he
could pull me out. I’ll say it again and again – the Omani are an amazingly giving and friendly bunch of people. After getting unstuck, I decided to continue on and not let that little setback discourage me. I continued heading north, almost to the tip of the UAE, then turned around and took a slightly different route back to the hotel so I could grab a few more caches. The day’s totals – 15 caches, which put me at 73 total caches, quite a number of cuts and scrapes, shoes full of sand, 1 car stuck. I had a great time though. It was just as neat to see all of the countryside as it was to find the caches. Now I’m left to find 2 more before I leave for the summer, but I’m already sure I’ll get more than that in the coming weeks. I’m so addicted to Geocaching.
Alrighty folks, be looking for me in the States. I’ll be in NC on July 12th and HOPEFULLY in Chicago around Sept 4th.
More pics…
