Andreas, Benedicte and Eystein visiting

Benedicte and Andreas at the beach 28th of Dec.

Andreas enjoying life at the beach

Eystein and me going for a swim

Outside the Jumeira beach park

Benedicte at the Jumeira beach park

Andreas and me at the Ibn Battuta mall

Eystein at Carrfour, I have never seen a shop in my life so packed with people. It appeared that all the indians in Dubai also were here this day. Never go to a store by the Creek on an Indian holyday...

Shisha time at the Creek

At the Madinat

BAA behind the Madinat Jumeira

Dinner at Ryno's

Andreas, Benedicte and Eystein relieved the Middelthon family the 26th of December. Already they have seen much of Dubai, and very much of the shopping malls (mostly due to Benedicte). But you have to take advantage of the good offers at the shopping festival, so we have all gotten to do some shopping this "romjul".

For newyears we are going camping in the desert. When in an arabic country, do as the arabs, dress up in the local dress and hit te desert - so the outfits have already been provided.

We dresses up like this before the dinner at Rynos place last week, we really looked ridiculous.. But I must say, it is a comfertable garment.

Playing air-guitar in "Dishdash".

Another of Ryno's great bbq's.

Benedicte and Eystein waiting for the bbq to be ready.

Ryno and Rachel have just gotten ready for hitting town.

We made it simple and easy and headed over to Sho Cho at the Jumeira Beach Resort and Spa.

Chilling at home at the London Crown hotel. Everybody a bit tired after strolling around Deira and all the shopping malls.

X-mas in Dubai

Around Dubai

Bjarte at the 360 in front of BAA

The Jumeira Beach Hotel

Lunch Mall of the Emrates; Morten and Andreas

Me infront of the ski slope

Anita and Bjarte in the car park at Mall of the Emirates

Anita and Andreas, lunch at the creek

X-mas in Dubai

25th Dec, Relaxing da at the golf course

The Dubai Creek Golf Club restauranat

The club house

Morten warming up in the golf cart

Siesta in the golf cart

Morten

Andreas

Anita

Me

X-mas in Dubai

24th Dec, Christmas eve J.W. Marriot hotel:

Anita and Andreas enjoying the christmas dinner


The other side of the table


The sky bar at the Emirates tower

X-mas in Dubai

22. December, Dinner Burj Al Arab

Andreas, Morten and Anita in front of the fountaine outside the main entrance of BAA. The Jumeira Beach Hotel in the back ground.

Anita and me under one of the several heavy decorated christmas trees in the lobby area.

Bjarte, Andreas and Morten - Burj Al Arab lobby

Apretiser before dinner in the BAA sky-bar

Dinner at Marriot

Another dinner at the J. W. Mariot hotel, and I strongly doubt that it will be the last.

The staff singing the birthday son for Christopher, who celebrated his 28th birthday.

Ryno and Rachel digging in some sushi, snails, oyster etc.

After dinner we somehow found a german "bier-festival" across the Marketplace restaurant, something that we found extremely interesting.

Rachel found some eastern european / russian friends, and suddenly she was in the lead of a mix of kalinka and some gipsy-inspired dance.

Ryno in charge of other business..

And sometimes I just wonder where we get in contact with this kind of people.. (I did not mean yo rachel..)

Dessert Safari

Weather: Sunshine
Temperature: 27 C
Humidity: 52%

Thusday evening Einar and Elise came to Dubai late in the evening. Christopher was at the DNV christmas party with Ryno and Rachel, while I was at a christmas party with the guys from work. Einar and Elise arrived late and were picked up by Christopher, and we all met up at the center court at the aviation club (where also Ryno had heard roumors of some free food, we found him sitting alone around a big round table with 4 plates crammed with delicious christmas food). Well, the night went on and the newly arrived ones managed to shove down enough drinks to get in good mood after a long flight.

Next morning Christopher had booked desert safari at 10 o'clock. I was not to happy about the time schedule at that point, but we managed to drag our selves out of bed and meet the guide and driver (Mr. Neslon).

About 60 km outside Dubai, we took off the road and stopped by a small "village". Air was drained from the tires and we were ready to hit the sand dunes. It had been raining some days before, and the desert was not as soft as usual, so the ride got a bit rough in general.

With the GTs still fresh in mind, we all got problems with car-sickness at some point, however some more than others. Elise had to stop the car several times to go out and get some fresh air, which I have to admit probably was good for all of us.

The local people just love racing in the desert. Here we have a lokal hearo showing off his brand new pirate-flag, attached to the his trike. Respect!

After an exhausting and early start of the day, without any braekfast, it was time to hit the local fast food chain to get energy level back on track again. A Hardys burger can work wonders :)