Dubai

Sunday- Dubai

The flight to Dubai was only 6 hours, and was overnight. We didn’t do much sleeping, well at least not good sleeping! So we were pretty tired when we landed.

We only had one day in Dubai (our flights was for 10:30am the next morning), and didn’t want to miss out on experiencing this amazing city, so after we checked in super early we headed out to explore.

It was a lot warmer in Dubai then we expected and we didn’t really have weather appropriate clothing. I wore a t-shirt and jeans which was getting uncomfortably tight due to the rubbish food and excess of carbs we have consumed this holiday. Luke is feeling the pinch in this regard as well, something he is entirely not use too!

We caught a Big Bus Tour (the same company we were with in London), and this was a good way to see the sights. Dubai seems to be obsessed with ‘themes’. I’ve never been to Las Vegas, but I imagine it’s similar. We stopped at this massive Egyptian themed shopping mall and restaurant complex and ate Italian food.
It’s kind of impossible to explain just how odd it was, and how detailed all the theme-ing is!

We went to an aqua-zoo, which is just a zoo of water animals. It was quite the experience, we definitely recommend it! It was like Under Water World on steroids…

I’ll admit that much of our bus ride was spent either poking each other to wake up, or trying not to fall asleep ourselves. We were beyond tired all day. We decided to have a quiet, early night despite the fact that we’d booked a night tour.
By the time we’d had pizza for dinner it was about 7:30pm and our bodies had no idea what time it was, or how they were ‘meant’ to feel anymore!
It took ages to go to sleep, and the mix of loud aircon alternating with heat from not having it on gave us an interrupted nights sleep.

Our hotel, by the way was awesome! It’s called Arabian Dreams and for $70 AUD it was huge! It had a kitchenettes and couch etc and was definitely the best hotel we stayed in.

-T

All in 40 years!
A city? Or big theme park?
Modern, yet… Arab.

-L

An English Day in Barnes

Saturday- Barnes

Barnes, the place we’re staying is beautiful.

We spent the day walking around shops, cafes and parks and just generally exploring English life.

Stella, the owner of the B&B we were staying at was kind enough to let us hang out there in the afternoon when our feet were tired of walking. Pretty soon though we headed off on a bus, and then train to Gatwick airport. Our flight left that evening so we just checked our bags in, had some food and played on the computers in a store and on the iPad.

-T

-L

The First Day of Rain…

Friday- To London

Today we left Amsterdam, drove through Belgium and the edge of France, caught a ferry across the English Chanel and arrived back in London to end our tour!

Not much to report, as we really just chilled out on the bus from 8am till 7pm (6pm Europe time).

The funniest thing that happened was first thing in the morning. We had to leave at 8am because we had the ferry to catch across to Dover, England. Anyway, Kim our tour manager has been strict with the times and told us the night before that if anyone wasn’t there at 8 we were leaving without them and they’d have to make their own way back to London.

Everyone dragged their hungover selves onto the bus and during the counting we found that we were missing two people. Suddenly one of the girls comes running down in her pjs with the most TERRIFIED look on her face! It was beyond priceless!
Another girl went to help them get dressed and packed and then we were on our way.

After we got into London we had to make our way to the random Bed & Breakfast we were booked at. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere, and we took a cab because the train instructions were really complicated… It ended up being expensive though, which was a pain.

When we got into the B&B we went to the local pub for dinner. It was quite the experience!

-T

Holland to London
And a 50 quid cab ride.
And a real Barnes pub.

-L