Weather in Nice is Nice

I flew into Nice on Wednesday for meetings all day Thursday.  I've actually been staying in an area called Sophia Antipolis just south-west of Nice, which is like the Silicon Valley of France from what I understand.  The weather has been wonderful, reminiscent of my University days in San Luis Obispo.  Today is Friday, and thus should be a weekend day for me since I'm on a UAE work week.  However, I do have a bit of work to do today, though hopefully it's just an hour or two.

At 2:30pm I've got a flight from Nice to Budapest, which marks the beginning of my holiday.  I'm meeting a group of about 10 friends in Budapest and will be hanging out with them through the following Wednesday.  Our journey begins in Budapest from today through Sunday, and then we take a train on Sunday from Budapest to Munich.  The remainder of the holiday will, I'm sure, be a continuous episode of drunken debauchery.  I hope I'm in control of my faculties enough to remember to take photos.  Actually... depending on how out of control I am, perhaps it's better if I don't remember to take photos...

Oktoberfest Up and Coming

I had flights booked from London long ago.  I essentially am eating the cost of this (they weren't too expensive) as work is picking up the bill to get me to and from my destinations now that I'm in the UAE.  So I finally booked those flights through our corporate booking tool.  It felt good to see the confirmation email come through as I once again have everything including flights sorted.

Huge thanks to Dan O for taking care of booking the original flights and the hostels both in Budapest and Munich, and also to Jonno for doing the same for our train from Budapest to Munich.  Since I had the motivation to finally book the new flight I suppose I should ride the motivation coat tails and transfer the money I owe to these guys for doing the footwork!

I have to say I'm really looking forward to this holiday!!!

Edit: Done and done.  Fellas, the cash should be incoming...

Plans for my time out here, or planning my timing out of here

I've been in the United Arab Emirates for going on a month now.  All of that time has been spent in either Dubai or Abu Dhabi.  I need to get out of here to other parts of the world while I'm here...  Both to experience new things, but also to just get out of here for awhile.

I had a dream last night that I was back in Southern California hanging out.  I was sitting there with a group of friends planning a road trip from San Diego up the coast to Seattle.  I almost never dream about being back in the States.  I think this was probably brought on by the fact that because of the weather, Ramadan, and the culture here I'm feeling a bit stuck.  West Coast of the States is probably where I feel I have the most freedom to be who I am, do what I want, and go where I want because of familiarity, family, friends etc..  I think my mind was dealing with how I am currently feeling about the UAE by putting me in my comfort zone.  So it is this message to me more than anything at this point that is saying that I need to find my way out of here, even if it's just for a weekend.

And the weekend it is.  Unfortunately I haven't planned anything and to be honest I have work to do that will likely preclude me from a last minute trip anywhere.  Plus there are events planned for the weekend locally that makes it that much easier to not do the hard work to try to get out of here just for the day (essentially).

At least I do have some travel plans coming up soon.  There is a decent likelihood (probably around 60% right now) that I will be travelling to Nice, France a week from Sunday.  It will be a business trip, but a trip nonetheless.  I'm now really hoping that this does occur just so that I can get out of here sooner rather than later.  If I don't end up on the business trip to Nice, I will likely still try to go somewhere next weekend as it is Eid Al Fitr here, which means a long weekend.

The weekend following that is also a long weekend for me as it is a holiday trip I have had planned for awhile now.  I'm flying to Budapest on Friday, September 25th and meeting a group of around 10 friends there.  We'll be staying in Budapest for the weekend and then taking the train first class to Munich for Oktoberfest.  We're in Munich from Monday through Wednesday.  Since the weekend is Friday/Saturday here in the UAE, that means when I fly back on Wednesday I'll have one day of work and then the weekend again.  Not bad :).

I believe that my friend Sam will be back in the country by then.  He has mentioned to me that we should rent a car and drive down to Muscat in Oman, which is purported to be amazing.  If we could fit that into the first weekend of October, and if I make it to Nice, then that would be three weekends in a row (two of which would be long weekends) that I'd be out seeing new parts of the world.  I think that sounds like just what my body is telling me I need right about now.

Happy Birthday Nik!

This weekend was a celebration weekend for my friend Nik's 28th birthday.  After work on Thursday I jumped in the car with Alex, Nik and Carl and headed up to Dubai.  Thursday night we went to the Buddha Bar at the Grosvernor House Hotel for the first birthday celebratory meal of the weekend.  Incredibly cool interior design and incredibly good food and drink.  Started with a selection of sushi and sashimi and then made our way through various hot and cold appetizers.  It was a bit like an Izakaya experience.

On the drink side of things japanese beer and much sake was had, followed by an unfortunate number of shots.  My head was not well the following morning...  The sake we had was wonderful - light, flowery and mildly tropically fruity.  Though it had better be good at around £185 per 50cl bottle...  Multiple of which were shared.  The shots that followed wouldn't have been too bad, except for the fact that we ordered shots for everyone, and Nik doesn't drink.   Somehow I decided it would be a good idea to drink his shots for him on top of my own...  Tequila and Jager (as illustrated  in the photo)...

Friday was a bit of a struggle for me in the morning.  Luckily there wasn't a whole lot planned until early evening.  I went to the Mall of the Emirates and wandered around doing a bit of shopping.  Picked up a couple pairs of shorts, which is a win for me because I didn't bring any with me!  While I was there, one of the stores I checked out was a department store called Harvey Nichols.  It was some sort of high £ department store.  ...and let me illustrate what I mean when I say high £.  There was a jewel encrusted foosball table for sale, the price tag for which was somewhere on the order of £30,000.  Uh huh, you read that right thirty thousand pounds for a foosball table.  Needless to say, I didn't pick anything up there...

Alex and Nik picked me up at the mall some time around 5:30pm and we headed out to Autodrome for some Go Karting.  We went Go Karting there last week as well, on the outdoor track.  This round was done on the indoor track.  Alex once again showed himself to be the top dog on top time.  They also have laser tag at the Autodrome, which I'll have to go back for at some point :)

Following Karting was a meal at a restaurant called The Meat Company, which is located right on the water at the Souk Madinat.  It's unfortunate, but for the most part the food sounded much better on the menu than it actually tasted.  Nik ordered some calimari, I tried a piece and it was probably the best dish I had there.  I ordered an appetizer of Boerewors for myself.  This is a traditional South African sausage served with a fine grained polenta and a semi-spicy stewed tomato sauce/relish called chakalaka.  Sounds good, right?  Well it sounds better than it tastes.  For main I had a Wagyu ribeye with steamed vegetables and sauted mushrooms, peri peri sauce on the side.  While the ribeye was incredibly tender and had tremendously flavourful fats (expected of Wagyu), it was also the skinniest ribeye I had ever seen in my life.  Dissapointing...  I ordered the cheese plate for dessert, which came out with seriously over a pound of cheese.  And it was more quantity than quality.  eh, well, you win some and you lose some.  I at least got to enjoy the company of 12 other Infusionites and significant others.

After the meal we headed to Bar Zar for a few pints.  Then it was back to Alex and Jo's place to crash.  Getting ready now and unfortunately have to hit the office for an hour or so before grabbing a taxi for my 1.5 hour ride back to Abu Dhabi.  fun... :(