Back in Sweden again, and I’ve had a day to watch movies and come back to life. Just in time for New Year’s Eve! Eeeexcellent…

Here’s a very brief summary of my brief visit to Dubai:

• The trip down there was a complete haze: I hadn’t slept at all, and mixed with free beer on the flight from Stockholm to Frankfurt I ended up having catnaps all the time. Luckily I was rested enough to stay awake on the second part of our trip: the business class flight from Frankfurt to Dubai. This was my first time in business class, and I never want to travel in another way. Flight stewardesses who were attentive and friendly, sparkling wine, lots of leg space, movies and TV series to select from. I almost didn’t want to arrive at our destination.
• But arrive we did, and what followed was a couple of intense days of 12+ hour work days trying to investigate Problems„¢. Here’s a pic of the broom closet we had to spend some of our time in. Since it’s just the backs of people, I don’t think they’ll mind that I post this pic.

• At late lunch one day we badgered one of the other guys down there to take us to the Burj al Arab hotel – Dubai’s seven star hotel. The hotel that we unfortunately couldn’t stay in. Basically because it’d cost more than we earn in ten years. Or something like that. Anyway, we got a few nice pictures of the place. Too bad that my camera sucks, and that the lighting wasn’t very advantageous.

I like this picture. It has so much colour:

• The weather in Dubai wasn’t overly hot, but it was an amazing difference from Sweden’s half-winter. I mean, going from around 0 degrees C to around 20 degrees was incredible. For fun I examined the scales in the first morning and then in the second: in one day I had lost 800 grams; most probably water due to the temperature difference. Oh, and the sea water was warm! Not to mention that the sand was warm and gorgeous and smooth:

• The architecture was very…flowing. They used curves at every possibility, and most buildings were amazing to look at. Unfortunately there were building sites everywhere as well, and that ruined the view. Here’s one of the few buildings that didn’t have cranes around it: a hotel next to the Burj al Arab:

• On the last day we decided to call it an early day, and prepared to drink ourselves senseless in some cool pub. You can imagine our surprise when we learned that it was a public holiday of some sorts, and that no alcohol was allowed to be served…anywhere! Panic! What do to?! Luckily my colleague had bought a large bottle of whiskey. To make it last a bit longer we bought some Coke from the minibar and did the ultimate herecy: we mixed whiskey and Coke in order to have a foul-tasting long drink.
• Of course, semi-drunkards as we are, we ended up downing the bottle and staying up all night. It’s a wonder that we got to the airport in time. Technically, we didn’t though: we were too late to check in, but with some drunken smiles and apologizes we managed to get on anyway. In the last minute before the flight left.
• If the trip down was a haze, our return was even worse. I guess things didn’t get better for the fact that we spent two hours having drinks in the lounge in Munich on the way. Ah well, we got back at least – and no flight personnel found us too drunk! It’s good to be a polite and stiff Swede sometimes.

Now: time for a wee New Year’s party!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.