Completely Random Stuff

Currently it is about 10 PM here on Sunday and I have plumbers outside my back door clearing a clog in the sewer line.  Matt came home around a quarter till 9 and went upstairs to take a shower.  While he was up there, I noticed that the water was coming up in the kitchen sink and it smelled funny.  (Not good.) So I ran upstairs and suggested he make it a short one which he did.  The water went down and we forgot about it.  Of course, I had just gotten back from my circuit training class and so I was a bit on the smelly side and badly in need of a shower myself.  So, I said keep an eye on sink, I'm going to take my shower now.  Which I did and after a few minutes he came upstairs to say that water was coming out from under the sink now.  So I plugged up the drain and finished rinsing off and went downstairs to survey the damage.  Not too bad, but we clearly would need a plumber first thing in the morning.  The real problem came about five minutes later when I flushed the toilet and then once again water started pouring out from underneath the sink.  Not good.  So I called reception, because they are the only ones around after hours, and they called (or perhaps woke up) the plumber and 15 minutes later there was a plumber at my door.

Evidently the clog in the line caused everything to back up.  They brought in some machine and they cleared it out, problem solved in less than an hour.  I flushed the toilet again and everything worked fine.  I let the water drain out of the tub and it all worked as it was supposed to.  You just gotta love living on the compound.  Where else are you going to have a plumber show up at 10PM to fix a problem?

Anyway, plumbers are gone now but I'm still up.  I have been staying up a bit later these days and sleeping in a bit more.  It's a bit hard not too since it is so hot here during the day.  Also, I have been trying to get my running done outside because I am signed up to do a half marathon in August with my friend Andrea down in San Diego.  I had managed to get up to 8 miles and then my knee pretty much stopped hurting after that.  I am soooo thankful! You have no idea!  I'm not sure if it is the circuit training or what but my legs feel pretty good.  So the other day, when I had a long run of 10 miles scheduled and it was 102 degrees out at night, I just went ahead and did it.  At halfway I felt pretty tired, but once you get past halfway, it just seems to get easier.  And I wanted to be sure that I would be able to complete the half with no problems.  Once I get home I will only have about 2 weeks to train before the half, so I needed to get in a good long run before I leave.  But seriously, it is too hot to do that again.  I felt a bit sick once I was finished.  I just had to lay down for a bit.  Then I filled up the tub because I was too tired to stand up in the shower.  But I survived and am none the worse for the wear!

I have no idea how I will do on the half-marathon because it is my first one since I got the ITBS.  I feel rather slow, but I think that a lot of that has to be from the heat, although my treadmill runs aren't much better.  It took me an hour and 55 minutes to complete the 10 miles outside.  Not that I was trying to go all that fast.  I think I will have a better idea of what to expect once I get home and can run outside properly in temperatures that are not trying to cook me from the inside out.

So other than that, not much is going on here.  Ramadan is coming up, so many people are leaving or have already left.  On my way home, I am stopping over in Dubai again where I am going to get to hang out for a couple of days with an old friend from high school.  I am SUPER EXCITED!!

But, I really haven't gone anywhere all that interesting lately, so I am just going to post some random pictures now.

This is an ice skating rink in a mall.  The arrows point to which side you are supposed to line up on depending upon your gender of course. I don't know why they bothered because it appeared to be only men and boys.

Back home this would be a Carl's Junior.  Here, it is called Hardee's.  Still haven't gone in but every time look at it I think... That's Carl's Junior!!  Do they perhaps call them Hardee's back east? Anyone?

Yet another mall in Riyadh.

There are deer around there too.

Back home we call these persimmons.  But you never know, Kaka Fruit could catch on...

They sell monkeys in the pet stores here! I have seen them in more than one pet store.

And while there is no alcohol here, it is always nice to have mixers I suppose.

(Imported from the USA!) Virgin Pina Colada anyone?

 And here is the pool at the Ritz Carlton Riyadh.

Looks refreshing but sadly, ladies can only look! (Whilst the pool is closed that is.) Men only!

And apparently you can have your Burger King delivered here!  I've never had it delivered, but hey, twenty minutes in the car can only improve it right?

So those are just some things that ended up on my camera.  Just thought I would stick those in randomly.

Dubai

The day after the Madonna concert we had been planning to rent a car and drive out to Dubai.  Luckily, however, in our usual laid back, lazy fashion, we had neglected to bother renting the aforementioned car.  I say luckily because the next day we were both EXHAUSTED!  We barely got up on time to make it to the 10:30 AM cutoff for the breakfast buffet.

Part of the reason we were so tired was because after the concert it was impossible to get a taxi out of there.  If you could find a taxi, they wouldn't let you in the cab because they were all looking for fares back to Dubai.

There were, however, a bunch of guys in regular cars offering rides to people (for an elevated price of course) in their own cars.  After about 40 minutes of walking around trying to find a taxi we ended up getting in the car with some dodgy looking guy who said he would take us back to our hotel for 100 dirham.  (This is about $27 US and about 45 dirham more than a taxi.)  Fine, whatever!  We got in.

The only problem was that he kept driving up and down the strip trying to get more people to get in so he could make more money.  When it became clear that he wasn't going anywhere until he got more people in the car we started to become a bit more concerned.  Especially since every time he got someone even remotely interested in getting in, he would tell them some ridiculous price.  (Like 300 dirham.)  Naturally they would wave him away.

Eventually, he got 3 young women to get into the car with us.  Obviously the only reason they got in, was because we were already in there and we looked pretty normal.  Unlike everyone else though, they didn't ask the price.  They told us they were teachers living in Abu Dhabi and they lived near where our hotel was.  While we were driving down the street I mentioned to the one sitting next to me that they might want to establish a price with the guy before we got on the road.  I told her that we had agreed to pay 100 dirham.  So they asked the price and the guy wanted each of them to pay 200 dirham apiece, which was ridiculous.  So they laughed and insisted that he let them out, which he did very reluctantly. Then he proceeded again to drive around very slowly yelling at people to get into the car.  (Picture some greasy looking guy yelling "Come.... COME! ... COOOOOME!!!" at people and you can see why no one went anywhere near that guy.)  So at this point we had been in the back of his car for at least 20 minutes and we decided we had better get out.  So we demanded he let us out. Which he very reluctantly did... eventually, and then proceeded to follow us along the street trying to convince us to get back in.  Finally we yelled something like "GET THE ---- AWAY FROM US!" and he finally drove off in a huff leaving the many people still milling around wondering (and asking) "What the heck happened?"

Then we saw an empty cab so we ran up and asked if he would take us to our hotel.  Again, he said "No!" and then he drove off.  So I said to Matt, "You know, I think we are going about this the wrong way.  We need to say, we will give you $100 dirham if you take us to our hotel."  So we tried this with the next cab we saw and the guy did a quick tabulation in his head, and said, "OK."  And that is the story of how we finally made it back to our hotel and how we are not always all that smart when we are traveling and tired.

So the next day we lazed around the beach and pool all day and did absolutely nothing except rest, eat, and swim.  The following day we felt ready to visit Dubai.  So we rented a car and drove off.

Dubai is about 80 kilometers away from Abu Dhabi and it took us about an hour and a half to get there.   We had also rented a GPS so that we wouldn't waste time getting lost.  First stop, the Burj Khalifa, which is currently the tallest building in the world.  It is 160 floors and 828 meters tall.  I must say that it was quite impressive.  Much more impressive than Taipei 101. (A previous tallest building.)

I couldn't fit the whole thing into a picture so here is a quick video.

As with pretty much everything in the middle east, it is attached to a mall.  So we went in to make an appointment to go up.  Unfortunately, all the appointments for the day were taken and they only had immediate entry available.  (This means about 4 times the usual price.)  But, what is the point of going without going up?  (Tip- Call ahead and make an appointment if you want to see it!!)

So up we went.  Here are some views of downtown Dubai from the top of the Burj Khalifa.

All in all I would say the Burj Khalifa is a must see if you are ever in Dubai.  In fact, my friend's son has a blog that is all about the Burj Khalifa and legos.  So if you want some more Burj Khalifa facts check out his blog. (Or if you really like Legos.) It's called:
Burj Khalego

After our trip up to the top we had lunch at PF Changs, followed by a stroll around the attached mall where we came across this HUGE aquarium inside the mall! I love a good aquarium.

You can see the shops on the other side of the aquarium through the glass.

It had a tunnel that you could walk through (for a price) and also you could go diving inside.  It was really cool.

After that mall, we went off to another mall because I wanted to see the indoor ski slopes that I had heard about.  Yes, you can go skiing in Dubai!

So first off, here is what it looks like from the outside.

The metal thing at the top is the ski slope.

Here is another view from the highway.

Clearly this isn't a double diamond run but it is kinda cool. 

Inside it looks like this:

 Basically the ski slope is up above and down below are other activities.

My apologies for the bad pictures.  There is some glare off the windows as we didn't go inside, we just looked through the windows.  

The whole area is surrounded by restaurants so you can eat and look in at the skiing and sledding going on.  We stopped and had a coffee outside the ski area and this was the view:

And, some more views from all around:

Also, somewhere in there are some penguins.  We didn't pay to see them but I'm sure that kids would love this place.  And all inside a mall.

After that we drove out to the palm, but unless you are in a huge tall building looking down on it, or cruising above in an airplane, (a la Flo Rida) there is really not much to see.  This is a building at the tip of the palm.  Everyone else was taking pictures of it so I did too.

Then the sun went down and we went back to Abu Dhabi.  A very good day indeed!

Also if you want to see some much better pictures of Dubai that I didn't take you can look here:
http://totallycoolpix.com/2012/01/dubai-from-above/