BEING DAVE IN DUBAI

Winter Classic - Hockey outdoors in Pittsburgh

2011-01-18T06:20:00.000-08:00

So we traveled by bus with a few hundred Washington Capitals fans to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania to take on the Penguins. I've never been to Pittsburgh and this was definitely the coolest event to go to I can imagine. The weather was rainey, and unseasonably warm for New Year's eve so I was apprehensive, not to be confused with ungrateful for the coolest Christmas gift ever, about if the game could be played! We had New Year's Eve dinner at the Grand Concourse, which is a beautiful restaurant, with mediocre food and service, but we could walk to it and it is gorgeous so no complaints. The news came that the game would be delayed, to 8pm, so we had a free Saturday, and the game was still on. Upon recommendation of a coworker we did a classic Pittsburgh first date activity, travelling up Mt. Washington on the "incline" which is like funicular... And if was free because all public transit was free that day! Reminded us this was THEY way Pittsburgh-ers traveled to the river to get to downtown for years. Only a few remain but, hopefully for a long-long time, and the best way to get a view that 100 years ago would have been the smoke of steel mills and no trees. Some industry may have left but the view is much better. one problem with the free transit, it was New Year's day so all of the Carnegie museums were closed, nowhere to go! Maybe I'll return to see the Andy Warhol Museum some other trip. Now getting to the game was cool too, we tool one of the ferrys across a very foggy Monongahela River (and the Ohio) under the Yellow-painted steel bridges to Heinz Field where the Steelers normally play. The excitement built, bands, ice-sculptures or zambonis..., giant hockey players, face-paininting (no line for the Caps!) everyone dressed for their team. The Pittsburgh fans were surprisingly friendly, and a horde of Caps fans made the trip. Fireworks, more bands, then the puck dropped! Great game even with some drizzle occasionally. A good fight and 3 caps goals! C-A-P-S CAPS CAPS CAPS!

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.

2010-11-12T07:46:00.000-08:00

Visit to Mill Run, Pennsylvania, Frank Lloyd Wright's famous house designed for the Kaufman family. A beautiful, if long November drive from Alexandria led us to a tour of the most famous house in the United States, not because of who lived there, but who designed it, and its unique setting. It really is a beautiful house, in a nice canyon. The scale was bigger than I thought, 4 bedrooms, but huge terraces and an guest house with a pool up the hill. Everything is built-in and "human scale" inside, low ceilings, cleaver windows, everything attached horizontally to the walls. Not 100% practical, but very cool looking. The family rejected his rigid chairs for 3-legged antiques, which are much more practical for the uneven flagstone floors. Great tour worth the time, but wish we stayed a weekend as he designed another house down the road and there are outdoor activities like horseback-ridding and rafting very near by.

Back in the U.S.A.

2010-07-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

We have repatriated back the United States and are happy to be home. I use that broadly as we are not in California or Colorado, but in our new home in Virginia.

We spent Independence Day watching the fireworks from the U.S. Capitol lawn. Great welcome back to America.

Back in the U.S.A.

Wadi Rum, Jordan

2010-04-11T23:58:00.000-07:00

Off into the desert for some catered camping and good stories over tea, between 4WD and Camel journeys. Travelling to Jordan nearly always includes Petra and the Dead Sea, and we travelled there and were impressed, but Wadi Rum is a bit of beautiful outdoors in the Middle East that is also worth the trip. South of Petra and nearing the Red Sea and the deserts of Saudi Arabia, Wadi Rum is the Desert of Lawrence of Arabia fame and the best place to ride a camel and enjoy a sunset that I can imagine.

Dubai Rugby 7s

2009-12-13T02:44:00.000-08:00

The Dubai Rugby 7s is a 1 weekend Rugby Tourneyment for the 7-person rugby teams from around the world. 7's Rugby is fast and fun to watch. The games last 15 minutes and are unpredictable as an individual performance can turn a game. The event itself is a bit of infamous expat fun, where the beverages flow liberally and costumes of all types abound. It is a fantastic time when you can see people dressed as divers, flintstones, cheatahs, cheerleaders and the like along with flag-waving, singing, chanting supporters from teams that cover 6 continents! Dubai si a fantactic place for this because you really do get contingents of supporters ranging from 1000's of English, Austrailian, and South African supporters that live in Dubai, to Fiji and Samoan islanders to Kenyan drummers to a group of 50 Kiwi kids that can shout a mean Haka (Maori chant/dance) the team usally does before a match, but at 7s they did for theur victory lap.

F1 in Abu Dhabi, UAE

2009-11-09T23:19:00.000-08:00

Dubai's neighbor to the south sure knows how to put on a show. The event was well organized, traffic no problem. A few hiccups fixed by day 3 or 4. Great course, great races and great concerts! I love Kings of Leon music, but Aerosmith showed them why they are still famous in their 60's!!!

Al Ain Zoo

2009-09-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, certain venues have special hours as sleep cycles of fasting Muslims change. It is also still quite hot. So, the Al Ain Zoo was open from 9pm until 2am! I had never been to Al Ain which is very far inland in the United Arab Emirates. After a 90 minute drive from Dubai we came up to the zoo, which in contrast to the tiny cages of the Dubai Zoo is a refreshing, huge place. It has mostly large, open enclosures with mixed animals and tree cover. It is definitely modelled after the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Parks. Not ass great as the San Diego parks, but very nice and cheap! It hard to take photos at night but here is a shot of the african animals below Jebel Hafeet, the largest mountain in the UAE in the background.

The Nile

2009-05-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

It has been too long since I posted, and I have ideas ready to go, but I need to revisit at least my favorite part of Egypt, the Nile. After Cairo, we flew to Luxor and saw the first of Many Temples, Karnak! It was awesome, and has a great name. All of the temples and tombs were amazing. I still can hardly believe they are 'real' even with my own eyes. I guess what makes them real in time to me is the defacement and graffiti for Christians 100's of years ago that wild sad, reminds me that Disney or whomever didn't just go cast the hieroglyphics in concrete for the tourists. The heart of Egypt though is wonderful to see by boat, cruising the nile. I loved passing calmly by villages, wetlands, felucca (sailboats) ruins and my favorite part, farmers on tiny sandbar islands living in reed huts and waving with no expectation of a tip. I imagine this kid sees 50 cruise boats a week and still takes care to wave, I hope they don't care about global recession or conflict and just deal with the river as it has been farmed for 1000s of years.
Another crazy part was when the cruise boats came upon the locks (ship elevators to get up adn down steep portions of rivers) and had to que up to get through. Apparently it was Egyptian night on all the boats and they encourage you to dress up in costume, where to get a costume... Well as you come upon the locks a floatilla of tiny row boats approach, I thought they were pilots of the locks, but when they swarmed they coulb be pirates, but no, they grab on to lines from the boat and get dragged along and as we gawk from the deck objects get tossed and fall from the sky, costumes in plastic bags that they are selling, its hillarious and trusting, I don't know how you pay, a few pounds go back in a back and you get your damp tacky outfit, I just enjoyed the entertainment.

The Egyptian Musuem

2009-03-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

We started out in Egypt arriving in Cairo. After getting over the small miricle of getting picked up at the airport we were off to the Egyptian Musuem straight-away. We'll a bit of traffic in what appeared to be a parking lot, then a u-turn some security then the museum. I think Cairo traffic is so infamous the tour operators may do this on purpose to satisfy tourists. In any case the Egyptian museum was an interesting place to start, the densest collection of the best Egyptian artifacts ever found. You are at the mercy of your guide for interpretation, but the statues, sarcoughphagi? and the vast contents of King Tut's tomb are all on display. Mummies too, but for extra money, money you need for toilet paper, in the same grand museum. It really is a museum like no other with so much stuff it cannot really all be showcased properly, so they are building a new one (the Egyptian Musuem is more than 100 years old!)

Migration from hotmail/msn spaces to blog spot

2009-01-17T01:46:00.000-08:00

I've gotten frustrated with the poor interface microsoft maintains, and that there new and improved roll out, was no improvement on performance or ease of use, so I'm giving blogger a try, even though someone snatched my being Dave moniker, at least that gave me a chance to use moniker in a sentence.