Dubai, UAE 18 Feb - 20 Feb 2010

This has been a long time coming but I have been waiting for pictures, apparently we go to Dubai quite a bit that I forget my camera now :( So excuse my Blackberry photos

We arrived on Thursday night, and were picked up by Mutaz and our friend, Shaft. Shaft used to live in Austin, but moved to Lebanon to go to med school about 2 or so years ago, so we haven't seen him since then. We went to a place called Shakespeare's which is near the Burj Khalifa [Dubai].

{Burj Khalifa at night}

Before that, we watched the water show in front of the Burj Khalifa - yes, think Vegas Bellagio, but to Arabic music. Haha.

A bunch of people joined us at Shakespeare's and we had dinner, tea and shisha.

On Friday, we got ready, had lunch at Fuddruckers at Jumeriah Beach 

 {JBR - where there are restaurants galore}

and then went to The Dubai Mall - all I wanted to do was a little birthday shopping at Express. I did that, but I also found the best.candy.store.ever. It even had Garrett's Popcorn from Chicago - imagine. I went all the way to Chicago for that popcorn when it was just an hour flight away!

After wandering around there for awhile, we went home to get ready for our night out.

We had dinner at ShoCho - Japanese food, which was absolutely delicious and spent the rest of our night, where else? At Boudoir - always a good time, and this time there was an insanely large group of us so it was really fun. I wish I had better pictures.

Saturday was an unfortunate hangover brunch at Coco's, then ice cream or frozen yogurt at Mall of the Emirates. 

I really do love Dubai - it's nice for a weekend getaway, plus it's great for meeting new people! We got to meet a lot of new people this last time and having so many people to talk to and get to know was really fun!

 {A somewhat better picture of Burj Khalifa during the day}

Kuwait 29 Jan - 30 Jan 2010

So this past weekend, we took off across the borders with our good friends D and JRay from Bahrain to Kuwait. I don't recommend this to everyone, as you can't just drive to Saudi any old time you want unless you have a Saudi visa, which we all do. If you are in the Middle East and can't drive, just fly! :)

After about 5 hours, 1 spent on the Saudi/Kuwait border waiting for our visa, we were finally in Kuwait. Not before stopping to take pictures of camels of course!

Watch out for camels!

Kuwait was really interesting. I'm not sure what I expected, but definitely not high rise buildings, a legit highway system and green trees everywhere (that weren't palm trees!), not to mention Kuwaiti flags on every street, and not just one, more like 10. We checked into our hotel, Le Meridien Kuwait Towers, complete with a nice lit up green screen behind our bed - wow.

Then headed out to grab lunch. We were directed towards Avenues Mall (everything is in malls there, it's crazy!), after a few wrong turns, we found it, next to the IKEA and full of every Western store and restaurant you could imagine: PF Changs, Pinkberry, Dean & Deluca, and in case you missed the Starbucks over here, there's about 5 other ones throughout the mall - ridiculous and I won't even get into the shopping! We decided to eat at Uno's, famous for their Chicago deep-dish pizza (I had chicken, thanks gluten-free diet) and then headed out to their famous Friday Market. I can't even begin to explain everything they had here! It was full of traditional trinkets and souvenirs, and curtains, fabrics, carpets, clothing, purses, shoes, tools, furniture, I could go on, but it was amazing to see. You could literally spend the whole day there and then have to go back because you probably missed something. We didn't find too many hidden gems but we got a door knocker, it will probably never go on a door but is a nice addition to our cultural treasures. By this time, it was actually cold, the temperature said 68, but it was definitely colder than that with the wind. So we went back to the hotel so J and I could change and grab warmer clothing and then headed out to eat dinner at Burj al Hamam (Pigeon Tower), it was a Lebanese restaurant and delicious! After dinner, we headed to another mall and sat at an outdoor cafe, drinking tea and smoking sheesha.

The next morning, we had a good breakfast in the hotel and then headed out. We set out to find this museum called Al-Qurain Martyr Museum. It turned out to be a house where a large shootout had occurred almost 20 years ago (24 February 1991) during the Gulf War. It was basically a bombed out building, which they have preserved, yet not restored, so what you see is most likely waht was there 20 years ago. Out front you can see a tanker and the cars which were there during the occurrence. Once we walked in the house, I was overcome with so many emotions. It was one of the only historical places I've been where I could actually imagine, picture and hear what must have gone on that tragic day. The gunshots, the bombs, the yelling, the screams - they were all there for me. I was close to tears walking through each room, seeing each gunshot in the wall, the bricks which were shattered.

What made it even worse was knowing just a few hundred miles east, this stuff is going on, on a daily basis. After walking through the house with a guide who was very passionate about it and must have had strong ties to it, we were taking to the "museum" part, which showed each man who died that day and some information about him. There were letters which were written from Iraq, detailing the horrible things they expected to do to Kuwait and their people, and several pictures showing the damage the war had caused. In any case, it was incredibly moving and sombering. The Kuwaiti people went through so much pain and loss and seem to be very thankful to the US for coming in when they did (no matter what our motives were) and they have managed to rebuild their country to the beauty it is today.

After that, we needed something a little less depressing, we headed down to the Corniche (road by the ocean) to take some pictures and then to the Kuwait Towers.

We took the elevator up to the top and checked out the view of the city which was pretty cool.

After that, we decided to head back to Bahrain, since it was getting pretty late and we had a long drive ahead of us and some of them had to work (*cough* not me *cough*). The drive back for some reason took much longer, due to the fact it was dark and we missed a turn and luckily we have a GPS but not one that knows about construction turns, but we were fine. We stopped in Saudi to eat shawarmas and then headed home.

All in all, it was a very interesting and eye-opening trip and we're already trying to figure out when we can get back there!

Salzburg/Vienna, Austria 28 Dec 2009 - 2 Jan 2010

A few months ago, we decided we wanted to spend New Years somewhere else than Texas, seeing as we fly through Europe on the way back to the Middle East, somewhere in Europe was the best fit. We finally narrowed it down between Prague and Austria. I've never been to either so I would have been happy with either one, but we decided we wanted a low-key new year so we went to Austria. I was ecstatic because I love The Sound of Music and Austria is on my "must-see countries" list. We also invited Chris's sister, Amy, to join us. We spent 2.5 days in Salzburg and 1 day in Vienna, before flying to London for 1 day before jetting back off to Bahrain.

28 Dec '09
We left Houston on our way to London complete with 4 bags and 4 carry-ons. We got lucky and got upgraded to Business Class which was a treat! Delta did this for us last year on the flight from hell and it was nice, but more like glorified economy class.

British Airways Business Class was the real deal! Free flowing champagne, seared tuna and flat reclining seatbeds. After actually getting sleep on an airplane, we landed in London safe and soundly.

 

29 Dec '09
Our layover wasn't very long for our flight to Vienna, which was nice. Once we landed in VIE, we put all our excess baggage in left luggage, grabbed a bus to the train station and got our tickets to Salzburg. (Our vacation was purely planes, trains and automobiles.) The train ride was about 3 hours but allowed us to get a small nap in which helped us not fall asleep before dinner.

Salzburg was beautiful, it's such a quaint little town. We stayed at a little bed and breakfast called Hotel Weisse Taube - Chris and his family had stayed there when they went almost 15 years ago. Our room was a decent size for European standards, we had 2 separate rooms and a decent sized bathroom. After freshening up, we headed out to grab some dinner and ended up eating at a restaurant called Saran Essbar where we all had Wiener Schnitzel. It.was.delicious. We walked around for a bit before calling it an early night.

30 Dec '09

After breakfast we headed to the HohenSalzburg Fortress. The view from the top was breahtaking! You can see the entire city from the top.

We took a short tour and then walked to the Museum of Modern Art to take pictures OF the fortress, instead of on TOP of it.

There are 2 parts of Salzburg, Old Town and New Town. We ended up in the Old Town and walked down the famous street Getriedegasse,

past Mozart's childhood home

and then stopped to have lunch consisting of goulash and bratwurst (not together).

We went to the Dom St. Rupert Cathedral and then walked around to a lot of booths that were selling trinkets, food and spiced wine. There was also an ice skating rink and right next to that was a statue of Mozart. Luckily, this was also about a minute walk from our B&B.

We got tickets to see a marionette show of Hansel and Gretel at the Salzburger MarionettenTheater, apparently it's a big thing in Austria and the company is really famous, they came to Bahrain last year and do a bunch of shows all over the world! I'm sure it was really good, but we were so jetlagged we all fell asleep in the middle - oops. How the hell do you drag out the story for 2 hours?

After the cultural experience we headed to eat dinner at a place called Zum Fidelen Effen - (The Faithful Ape). We had to share a table with 3 other people (the European way) and they tried to start a conversation, somehow it came out we lived in the Middle East and one of the guys gave me a hard time about not drinking beer and asked if I was Muslim? No, I'm not, I just don't like beer. "Well, then why aren't you drinking?!" Boo.

31 Dec '09
We headed to the New Town and took a long walk, over the Mozart Bridge, climbed up a hundred stairs, and passed a chapel, among other things. The walk was really nice.

We went to the cemetery where The Sound of Music's ending scene was based on. We also went to the Mirabelle Gardens, where some other scenes were filmed. Did I have the entire Sound of Music soundtrack stuck in my head all day? Yes.

Then we ate some delicious pizza - very Austrian. Did some souvenir shopping and then started to get ready for our dinner reservations at Hotel Elefant. We walked around the square with some gluewein (hot wine) and champagne.

New Years' Eve in Salzburg was fantastic. Our hotel was 2 minutes from the center, alcohol was every 5 feet, there was music and people wandering around. Right before midnight we got our champagne and walked to the bridge with 100 of our closest friends to watch the fireworks (Which had been going off since the day before btw), at midnight there was an amazing display of fireworks! We didn't stay out much later because we had to get back and pack to leave the next morning.

1 Jan '10
We took a train back into Vienna. Once there, we hired a taxi to drive us into town. We saw a lot of sights and ate a lot of food (That's all we seemed to do!) I enjoyed Salzburg better just because it was smaller and more quaint. Vienna is still beautiful but has the bigger city feel.

2 Jan '10
Arriving into London in the morning, struggling with our massive amount of bags (Back to left luggage) and then into town to our hotel. Chris's high school bestie, Alex, met us there and took us on a very long walk through London and to eat at Wagamama. After that, Amy and I went shopping, while Chris and Alex went to have a few pints. Eventually they had managed to walk to Hyde Park Corner, so Amy and I strolled through Kensington Park and then Hyde Park to meet them. After that, we did a bit more shopping and then went to eat sushi near Picadilly Circus. I didn't take any pictures because I've been to London several times and it wasn't a "sight-seeing" trip, but more of a layover and wandering trip.

All in all, I would love to go back to Salzburg again someday, it was incredibly relaxing and everyone was so nice and helpful!

xoxo

Muscat, Oman 21 Sept - 25 Sept 2009

We recently had a long weekend over here for Eid Al Fitr, these weekends are the perfect excuse for a mini vacay that's close enough to here, but far enough away to be a getaway. We decided a few months ago we wanted to go to Oman, neither of us had ever been there and we have heard great things about it. So tickets were bought, hotel booked, Ramadan came and went and our weekend was here!

We flew on Oman Air and stayed at the Crowne Plaza.

Day 1:

We arrived in Muscat late afternoon and some of the first things we noticed were how different Oman is from the rest of the Gulf. The people are super friendly, everything was very clean, driving was normal (our driver actually SLOWED down for Chris to take a  picture of the Grand Mosque...these things just wouldn't happen anywhere) and...there are mountains! Not just a regular, flat desert. Also, there are no high rise buildings, it's all very old school Middle East and it was a breath of fresh air. Once at the hotel, we were upgraded from a city view room to a sea view room, so that was great, and our view was amazing!

That afternoon we relaxed by the pool and enjoyed the seafood buffet - hi grilled lobster and bottomless wine, yes please.

Day 2:

After starting our day with the best breakfast buffet ever, we decided to rent a car. In the end, it was much cheaper to do this than take taxis everywhere, so we got our cute Nissan Sunny and headed out with our maps.

We started off by going to the Muttrah Souk, it was a neat place to shop for cultural souvenirs and gifts, not to mention nice to get out of the hot sun.

After wandering around there for awhile, we kept walking down the Corniche (road by the sea) and climbed up the steps to the Muttrah Fort - except you can't go inside, so that was awesome.

After walking even farther, we decided to turn around, because it was so hot!

After getting back to the car, we drove to our next stop, a watchtower that looks like an incense burner, but couldn't find the entrance to walk up to it,

so we kept driving, stopped to take some pictures of the Old Muscat Gate, it's signifies where Old Muscat used to be (still is, but it's what remains).

We found a (very steep) mountain slope to drive up for a scenic view, it scared the crap out of me, but it was so worth it.

The best idea we had for the whole trip was to rent a car, we were able to drive everywhere and explore. We found a small village with a bunch of goats wandering around (dinner?), a small beach and walked around the Al Bustan Palace Intercontinental Hotel - amazing.

Day 3:
We went to the Grand Qaboos Mosque to start our day. I had to cover not only my hair (which I knew I would have to), but my wrists and button my shirt to the top.

I was so freaking hot. Chris got to wear shorts, even though the "rules" said he wouldn't be able to. Figures - that's what you get for being in the Middle East. The mosque was absolutely breath-taking, the details were so intricate. The pictures just don't do it justice. It apparently has one of the world's largest carpets in the main room.

We went to Bait Al-Zubair, which is a museum with a lot of Omani culture, it showed things like khanjars (daggers), clothing, etc. It was interesting and nice to be in the AC. We also went by the palace, you can't go inside, just take pictures from the outside. The colors are a bit cheesy, apparently the Sultan doesn't actually live there (doesn't like the colors either?).

After deciding we were over the heat, we made an executive decision to go on a driving tour, we turned down seeing 2 forts since we had already seen one and wouldn't be able to go inside anyway. We drove through mountains and by the beach by a town called Yiti. We drove through Wadi Mayr, it was a bit of a rocky drive but beautiful to go through all of the mountains. It was really hard to believe we were in the Middle East at times.

Day 4:
Wwoke up late and headed out for our scenic drive. The mountains were beautiful and we ended up driving to a small town called Quariyat. We were able to go inside a fort, which was cool. Drove around the town (which took about 5 minutes), saw a lot of goats, walked near the beach and then headed back. It was a good last full day here.

Oman is really amazing, the beauty there is out of this world. The mountains make it unlike any other Gulf country and the water is fantastically blue and the views! Fabulous! It was an incredibly relaxing vacation.

We're already talking about heading back sometime soon!
xoxo