I'm Alive!

Just a quick note so that those of you worried about not hearing from me last night can rest easy..I did not get eaten by sharks..the internet was down, almost as tragic.

I'll post yesterdays soon!

Fun in the sun comes at a price..cranky pants kids

This morning I woke up pretty early..we realized last night when we went to bed that the AC in our room wasn't working, so we kept our windows open. We have windows on both sides of the room so we had a pretty good cross breeze, so it was ok.  We also had the curtains open in order to take advantage of as much breeze as possible and so it was also very bright, very early!

The other reason why I was up early was because Dwayne, in case an emergency exit out the front door was required, locked the door but left the key in the lock so we could make a quick escape!  And thus we have crowned a new Captain Safety...sorry Uncle Dave!  Because the cook, Julia, and the housekeeper, Mardell, were arriving at 8:00am I got up at 7:45am wondering if they tried to unlock the front door from the outside and the key was in the lock on the inside, would the door still unlock and open for them?  When I came into the hall Dwayne was just coming up the stairs from unlocking the door, apparently he had wondered the same thing!

When Julia arrived we all sat on the patio and made a meal plan for the week and then went grocery shopping.  Dwayne decided to come with me to the grocery store and when we got outside the house he climbed into the back of the van and let Julia get in the front.  She said "You sittin' in the back?"  he said he was ok in the back and then she thumbed it over to me and said "She a good driver?"..better than him, trust me.  Though Dwayne said today.."play dumb in the kitchen and you don't have to cook.." I get the drift, play like a bad driver...Leanne seemed pretty adamant that he not drive though, so there must be something there.  When we arrived to the store I asked Julia if I was a good driver, she said "ya, you a good driver". On the drive I was asking her a lot of questions about Barbados..like what are the Barbadian people called?  They're Bajans (sounds like Cajuns); there is little crime on the island, but there are crimes of opportunity so to make sure we lock the doors to the car; most Bajans own their homes and live in a "family home" where they all live together and it passes through the family;  public school is free to age 17/18; there are 4 Universities on the island; their main export is sugar and other stuff I can't remember. I could t get a good idea of what the wages are or how much a home costs to buy..she was sketchy on those type things and said wages depend on what you do (obviously) and wouldn't elaborate even as I asked and homes wouldn't give me a rough idea.  I thought maybe it was because she's private, but then she told me about her period pains and the delivery of her son, so I'm not sure what's up.

When we got back from the grocery store Jay, Trev, Lea and the girls were at the beach.  We changed into our swim suits and they arrived home so we jumped in the pool before lunch and cooled off.  The weather here is pretty much perfect.  Its a high of 29 and a low of 26 every day.  Its humid and so it rains every day a little bit, though today didn't rain at all and yesterday it only rained for about 5 minutes on our drive to the house.

Dwayne read the blog this morning and laughed at all the appropriate places and then later said to me - I want to read the blog again tomorrow...uh, and see what happens?  while here..on vacation...with me...ok...

We had lunch on the patio again and went for another swim.  Dwayne was sitting with his feet in the pool and said "Dana, you've opened my eyes to a whole new way to travel - and I like it!"  and Leanne said the same thing later when she came down from their room and Mardell had done the laundry in the hamper and folded it and left it back up on the bed.  They've got the baby next year, so might not be able to join us, wherever that trip may be, but they've got the right of first refusal sewn up.  While Dwayne and Trev sat at the edge with their feet dangling in, I was in the pool easing in. The pool is refreshing because it's just heated by the sun, but the air is about 80 and humid, so the pool is 80 and my kids are wimps!  Anyway, Sophie was looking a little cagey and whispered something in Trev's ear. Of course, because I think the world revolves around me, I think she's planning on splashing me wet while I'm adjusting to the temperature of the water. About 5 mins goes by and she's getting really restless, I've asked a couple times what she's up to and she just giggles. Then, no one is paying attention and all of the sudden Dwayne is in the pool!  Haha - her plan was for Trev to push him in!   Later when we came back from the beach to get in the pool Paige stopped in her tracks, looked at Dwayne and put up her two hands and said "I am not the one that pushed you in the pool!" Haha - I said to Sophie that she should tell him "no, I'm not the one who pushed you in the pool!".

A little while later Paige asked me if I would go to the beach with her since I missed it this morning so I said sure!  The girls, Dwayne, Trev and I ended up at the beach - Jay was sleeping and Avery said "I'm too tired to go to the beach" which suited Lea just fine, who I'm pretty sure was thinking she had totally scored (but then Avery never went to sleep!).

The walk to the beach is a little perilous.  Its across the street and down the road literally a block for the beach access, so close, and yet the roads are so narrow that its absolutely dangerous.  We heard a beep beep beep at one point, a little car giving us a heads up its coming up on us from behind?  Oh no, a HUGE bus traveling 60 km an hour and baring down on us and our little slice of roadside sidewalk/path.  The bark absolutely did not match the bite on that one!  And then it happened again, it really was just a courtesy beep but it should be a HONK! Buses should not sound like Hyundais!

I brought my camera and took a few photos of the beach..Dwayne said "No pictures of this (body sweep with the arms) on Facebook"...I said "same here".

We played in the water for a bit and then decided to move a little further down the beach because it was fairly rocky (like bits of reef rock) where we had set up and Trev said while they were there earlier in the day they were down further and it was more sandy.

We dropped the bags on the sand up near the wall, under this tree and went back in the water with the girls.  There weren't any breaking waves, but there were some big rollers..some big rollers that swept right up to our bag and washed all our stuff out as the wave retreated!  We managed to gather everything while 3 Bajan workers looked on, probably thinking 'stupid tourists' as they laughed inside at us scrambling and screaming to grab our stuff!  So then we dropped our stuff ON the wall instead of BY the wall.

Shortly after that Trev and Dwayne took the girls a little further down the beach where it looked like there might be some waves and I stayed in the water by our stuff to watch for Jay and Leanne in case they came down to the beach.  They came down a few minutes later and I told Lea that Dwayne and the girls were over on the other side of the point where it looked like there were some waves and she asked if you could surf over there, but I didn't think so.  Dwayne and Trev made their way back to where we were all swimming with the girls, the waves weren't that good over there either.  Then a surfer walked across the beach a little later and Leanne said to me "I want to take lessons with THAT guy"..."Yeah right" I said and then "I'm right here.." said Jay "and Dwayne is right there.." and pointed to Dwayne..then Jay says "the only thing that could make that funnier is if Dwayne was going like this" and posed like a body builder with one arm pointed toward the horizon!

Some other fun pictures of the girls climbing the trees and at the beach. 

We headed back to the house, with the wet towels, wet flip flops, and wet beach cover ups that had been dragged into the ocean and rinsed everything off in the outdoor shower and then went for a swim in the pool...rough day!  

The girls had a snack, Trev made tequila sours and then I went and grabbed some chips and salsa and brought them out - only I had bought taco sauce instead of salsa (picture salsa flavour in a tomato soup form).  It turned out to be not so bad...we were chatting about the house later and Dwayne said something about how he liked at the top of the stairs to the bedrooms there are metal gates that you can close and latch..like in case of a home invasion (good lord).  And I said to him, the only problem is that someone would leave taco sauce at the gate for him, like a trojan horse, and he would say 'oh look, taco sauce' and open up the gates!

This is one of the nights that Julia isn't doing dinner, so we went into Holetown and went to a pizza place for dinner on the beach.  Its a restaurant that Lea had found online.  It was really good, but the kids were all tired.  At one point Avery just dropped her head onto the table..and I can't remember if that was before or after we ate.  

Sophie was a bear too all through dinner...finally at home after she had been impossible for so long I said "what's the matter with you?"  She said "I just don't know!" - too much fun in the sun today!

We were sitting down on the patio, just before I came up to bed and to write, listening to music when the music turned off.  I said to Trev "what happened to the music?"  He pointed to Dwayne and Dwayne said "I like to play with the music.." I said "I like to listen to whole songs"..Dwayne apparently likes to listen to the first 30 seconds of every song and then switch...maybe I'll reneg on their rights of first refusal...but probably not, its a first offence.

Bar-BAY-Dos

We stayed in a hotel last night at the airport and got up super early this morning (5:40am) to get our 8:45am flight to Barbados.  We got up, had a shower and when I went to brush my teeth Jay had put our toothpaste away and so I grabbed the girls from my toiletry bag, put it on my toothbrush and then walked out to the living room, told the girls to get changed..and I'm thinking to myself - this toothpaste isn't minty, I don't know what the girls problem is, why they don't like it.  Then I realize it isn't really frothing either and then it felt kind of greasy..so I pulled out the tube and it was Cortizone Cream!!! Yuck!  So then I take a kleenex and start to wipe the grease off of my teeth and pull out the REAL toothpaste and brush again..so disgusting.

We got down to the lobby and had a quick breakfast and hopped on the shuttle, which the front desk person had told me will pick us up and take us directly to the airport (8-13 mins depending on traffic) yeah right!  It stops at another Marriott before going to the airport and THEN it back tracks BACK to the hotel and the people in front of us tell us that there are people who arrived at the airport and ordered the shuttle and then got OFF at the wrong Marriott so we're taking them back to the right Marriott before we go to the airport - oh my god.  Now we're tight for time.   And Jay pokes me on the shoulder, twice, and says "now we're tight for time" - yeah thanks. Our flight leaves at 8:45am and we finally arrive at Terminal 1 at 7:15, we have 90 minutes to check our booster bag (which is 25% full of boosters and 75% full of other crap we use on vacation that will fit in the bag - but its free to check so we have a hockey bag sized car seat bag that weights 20kg).  We check the bag, we sail through security with our Nexus and we have 60 minutes to spare!  We see Dwayne and Leanne immediately and then just wait to board.  They start calling boarding and because Dwayne and Lea have Avery, who is 3, we are going to try to piggy back on them when they say "We are now boarding passengers needing assistance and passengers traveling with small children"..I turn to the girls and say "If anyone asks, you're 5" and they say "but no, we want to say we're 6?!?"...hopefully no one asks...

We arrived in Barbados about 2:30pm this afternoon after a fairly uneventful flight.   Jay and I had been arguing, pretty much since we booked the trip, that we didn't need to upgrade to business class for us and the kids for the 5 hours flight ESPECIALLY since the business class seats were pods.  He's been trying to convince the girls how cool the seats would be and would think he had them sold when I would say "So what this means is you can't see or touch Mommy or Daddy for the flight and you're basically flying alone" and they would shrivel into themselves and say "Uh Uh, Mommy and Daddy"...understandable, I mean they're 6!  We got on the plane though and the girls saw the seats and said "I want to fly in one of those!" Oh my God, they're their fathers daughters after all!  Though I still think it would have been a big mistake.  The girls and I are staying in Barbados for 2 weeks, while Jay is only staying for 1 week, so he's flying home on his own in a pod, so he gets that anyway.  And we had paid the extra $40 per person to be at the bulkhead and had TONNES of room, so no complaints there at all...also the bulkhead seats we had were 2 and 2..so no strangers near enough to feel, hear or smell, so Jay was happy.

We had a bit of a mix up with customs and immigration once we arrived in Barbados, or well Dwayne and Lea did - they finally had all their bags and I said "What about your stroller"..."Thanks Dana!"  they forgot to pick up the stroller as they left the airplane, so Dwayne went BACK out past customs to the tarmac to get it (since down here you get off the aircraft on stairs straight to the tarmac) - so then there was a bit of a debacle with Dwayne and Leanne being separated..so Jay, Trevor and I went to the car rental place to start to get the car settled.  Dwayne and Lea met up with us and got Lea all sorted with her spot as a driver and off we went..kinda.  Then there was a hiccup with the rental cars not having anchors for the boosters, though Leanne took that pretty well - their precious Avery would have to travel in 5 point harness comfort without the added security of anchors while the girls are in their top of the line $19 booster from Walmart and just a seat belt - haha!   No, really, it was fine.

We got 2 rental cars, an 8 seater for when we all want to travel together and then a 4 seater for when we're splitting up on activities.  So Lea and I took the kids and hopped in the 8 seater with Dwayne, while Jay and Trev packed all of the suitcases in the Kia and said "See ya later suckers, we're going to follow the directions, see you there, its a race"..we opted to have the rental car rep input our final destination in the GPS, which took a few extra minutes of figuring.   We got about 10 minutes (I'm not sure it was even 10 minutes) down the road and all of the sudden Paige says "I think Daddy and Uncle Trevor are behind us!"  I had just joked with Dwayne and Lea that the directions were completely ridiculous since none of the streets have names (except the directions told you which turn to make at each roundabout by name ie - at Haroldson take the 2nd exit, but NONE of the streets have signs indicating their names) and that if we see Jay and Trev at the side of the road we should slow down at least!  Anyway, they followed us safely to the house.  Driving is on the left side of the road, so quite a few times I turned on the windshield wipers instead of my indicators!

We got to the house and its gorgeous, just like the pictures.  We're staying at a place I found online called Capri Manor.  

Our concierge greeted us and she introduced us to the cook and the housekeeper, gave us some pertinent information and then headed off.  Dwayne asked where the nearest hospital or clinic was in case of a medical emergency..I have never thought to ask that when we rent a house!  lol, worrier vs non-worrier? 

The girls got changed and went for a swim with Jay in the pool while Leanne and I talked to the cook about the plan for meals.  They'll cook 2 consecutive meals a day, either breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner.  I said 'we'll probably do lunch and dinner each day and just do breakfast on our own' - HA!  The cook said (in her own words but pretty close).."Lady, I've been doing lunch and dinner for the last 2 weeks straight and I have problems with my feet, I want you to mix it up a bit and do some breakfast and lunch (and you look like a bunch of push overs from Canada and not some hoity toity bit*&es so I'm pretty sure you'll do what I say)"  So we'll do a couple of breakfast/lunch shifts too!  lol.. She's coming early tomorrow morning to do a meal plan and then go grocery shopping with us to buy what we need for the week.  So we said that Lea and I will likely do a grocery shop anyways tonight for breakfast tomorrow and snacks and she thought we were CRAZY since we have to go to the store tomorrow with her and its about 15 mins away.  But, she didn't know that I wanted fresh limes for, that's right if you remember Costa Rica, tequila sours (so good)..and of course some snacks for the kids.  Plus, Lea is pregnant and you DO NOT make a pregnant woman, let ALONE Leanne, wait for breakfast until after the shopping in the morning!  I said to Lea, "She's going to come in in the morning and see all the groceries and be like 'Silly Ladies, I can't believe they went out last night and have to go again this morning!'"..but those tequila sours were worth it..and Leanne may or not say the same about her pre-bed snack of bran cereal!  HAHA.

The cook and housekeeper made us a nice dinner of pasta, salad and bread and then Jay and Trev went out to get gas and beer in the little Kia while Lea and I went in the van to do groceries.  We got back an hour later (20 mins there, 20 mins shopping and 20 mins back) and Dwayne was apparently ready to send out a search party for us!  I'm beginning to see another side to Dwayne!  Too funny.  We were fine..though Lea is a bit of a nervous navigator..I'm a bit of a ditch hugger driving on the wrong side of the road and she keeps saying "ok, slow down.." and "we are definitely touching the bushes over here.." in a very calm voice..but then deep breathing a bit like she's having contractions!  She CAN not drive with Jay or this baby might just be a Barbadian citizen!

We got home and immediately made a simple syrup and squeezed some limes for the tequila sours..then 2 drinks each (for Trev and I) and half a 26er later (how is that even possible) - we're in bed.  Oh, but...Paige wanted me to tell Leanne and Dwayne the story about the Cortizone cream..so I told them what happened this morning, pretty much as I wrote it above and Leanne laughed..and peed her pants.  haha..so then we were all laughing that she peed - and Trev said "Ok, that's Leanne's chair this trip" and this is a beautiful outdoor patio with 4 big chairs and a couch..and then he says "I didn't know we could mark our territory" and stands up and proceeds to pretend he's peeing all over his chair..well, the girls went CRAZY laughing.  It was so funny.

We're sitting outside and laughing and listening to music and Dwayne says "what time is it anyway.." - oh, its 9pm, almost bed time..we'll put the kids to bed, go to bed ourselves and then get up with the sun and play all day -  - "I love it!"...yeah, I think we'll travel well together!

Racing at Yas Marina Circuit

I'm 2 days behind on the blog, so I'm actually writing this on the airplane on the way home. 

So "this morning" we met in the lobby at 9am to go for our first of two days of organized activities. We had about 10 choices when we registered for the conference, so we opted to go to Yas Marina Circuit for racing Go-Karts.  Yas Marina is located in Abu Dhabi, about an hour away from Dubai. 

Along the way I spoke with our guide, Erica, who is originally from Mexico. Her husband is a Captain with Emirates airline and she has two children in high school. Most of the people here are ex-pats. There are approx 2.5M people in Dubai and there are only 950,000 Emirati in all of the UAE, which has 7 Emirates, Dubai and Abu Dhabi being two of them.   Here only the Emirati get their schooling for free, high school is the equivalent of about $20,000 Cad per year per child.  Emirates Airlines pays for 80% of the school fees, so she said they are a good employer - also, like the hotels, they provide room and board in a community complex for the employees. Even our limo driver the other day, he earns about $1500 a month salary plus tips he receives and is provided an apartment or shared room as part of his employment.  Some interesting driving facts we learned from him:

- seat belts are mandatory. If you get caught without a seatbelt it is a 3,000 dirham fine ($900 approx) and you lose your vehicle license for 1 month (or you can pay an additional 3,000 dirham to get the car back after 2 days). 

- if you get caught running a red light it's a 2,000 dirham fine plus a 3,000 dirham fine for something else and then if you lose the car for a month  and it's 3,000 dirham if you want the car back in 2 days. 

- you get a certain number of driving points every year and they renew the following year. If you run out of points you can't drive anymore until your points renew (unless you buy someone else's points!)

Some other interesting facts we learned along the way...in Dubai there is a Free Zone, where you can start a business and have an office or location without having to have an Emirati sponsor. If you are operating outside of that free zone (like have a secondary location, etc) then the business would have to be sponsored by an Emirati citizen and give up or "share" 51% of their profits to that sponsor. For instance, the Cultural Advisor who we spoke with a few days ago said he was a businessman and had started 40 different companies. I now suspect he sponsored 40 different companies and is receiving 51% of the profits of each as the Emirati sponsor while doing very little himself!

When oil was discovered in Dubai the Sheikh invested a lot of money into infrastructure, free health care (I think for everyone) and made education free for the Emirati people so that they could be educated. Everyone loves the current Sheikh, Sheikh Mohammad, and his father, who they call the Father of Dubai and who many we met referred to as a visionary man as he was the one to have the vision to bring tourism and build up Dubai and as mentioned created the sponsor 'scheme'. Essentially between father and son, they built Dubai from a desert wasteland into what it is now in only 25 years.  

Being Sheikh passes down from father to the oldest son, and if there are no sons to the oldest daughter. However, their are exceptions, the next in line to be Sheikh of Dubai is the second born son of Sheikh Mohammad.  The first born son is the Crown Prince, but he is not business minded or forward thinking and so he has been bypassed in favour of the second son, who will be his fathers predecessor.  Sheikh Mohammad has two wives, and two children by the second wife, who is not Emirati but is a Princess from Jordan. I asked if all children are seen as equal, even though his second wife is not Emirati, and they are, because their father is Emirati.   A woman who would want to marry a foreigner (not Emirati) would be disowned, stripped of any wealth (any businesses she has sponsored) and therefore it does not happen. And also, every woman wears the Hijabi who is Emirati, it is not mandatory but it is mandatory. 

Anyway, we arrived at the racing circuit and the first thing we did was a pit challenge. We had to change a race tire and see how quickly we could do it as a team of 3, one to unscrew the bolt and re screw it, one to remove the old tire and one to replace the new tire. A pit crew can do this in 2.2 seconds, our best was 5.4 sec. 

After the pit challenge we went to an obstacle course that was set up in a wide open parking lot with cones. There were two courses set up as mirror images of one another and two Toyota Celicas and we did the course racing against one another.  The cars were set up with a straight away and then a hard turn (left or right depending on what side of the course you were on), then you turned and came down another straight away and did an oval loop around some cones and then another hard turn and straight onto an area that was soaked in water, brake and drift (donuts) around a cone set up and then race to stop between four cones...and if you knocked over a single cone you were disqualified. It was so much fun. We each got two turns driving and each turn we did the course six times racing. 

After the racing we were taken to another area to do the Go-Karting, we karted for 10 minutes and then we were SO hot that we didn't do the next 10 minute set. Jay won, he did the fastest time around the track. 

Maurice (pronounced Morris) was second and Tony was third. 

The guys got right into it, pretending to spray champagne. 

After this we had a quick lunch and drove back to the hotel. We had about 2 hours before we had to be ready to leave to go to dinner at a Bedouin camp for dinner. If you wanted to do some dune bashing in 4x4s on the way we had to be in the lobby for 4pm (if you took the bus, 5pm). I left the pool area because I for sure wanted to take the SUV, Jay was going to take the bus but at the last minute joined me in the lobby to go in the truck. 

It was about an hour to the desert and after 50 minutes I asked the driver if there was somewhere to use a washroom before we got there. He said he would ask the Lead Car as we were in a convoy of 6 SUVs, but the lead car said there was nowhere to stop as the only public washroom had a lineup they could see from the highway. So I asked how long we would be driving in the dunes before we arrived at the camp and he said about another hour. I would definitely need a washroom and I let him know. He said "when we arrive at our meeting spot there is a bush". I said "I'm good with a bush". So 15 minutes later we arrive at a meeting spot so that the drivers can deflate their tires, making them float more on the sand and I get out and start to trek over the dune to the bush that I can see the top of. As I get there I look back and the other 20 people are out of their SUVs and taking some photos and a group of six are walking towards my bush. So I have to cup my hands around my mouth and shout "I'm going to the bathroom..."  The group of six get wide eyes and immediately vear off course and the rest of the group laughs. I quickly went from being the girl who volunteered to wear the Hijab to the girl who peed in the desert. All class. 

The off roading was pretty tame, but a lot of fun!

This is the angle we were on sliding down a dune at one point. I have some good video, but it's hard to capture in a photo (and Jay had the camera, so didn't get a great shot). 

We saw a few Arabian Orx, I'll add a photo later (on my ipad I only transferred a few to the iCloud to be able to finish up the blog on the airplane). And I got a few other nice desert photos out the back window. 

It was about 30 minutes of dune bashing before we arrived up at a Sunset Spot where they had set up camels to ride and a falcon demonstration.  And it's a good thing I had gone to the washroom because we were up here for another hour to hour and a half before we had access to facilities, which were down by the camp set up for dinner (about 5 mins away by car).  As we sat up there the President of Manulife, who is a woman, sat down next to me and commented how funny it was that I had to shout I was going to the washroom...and then, right after, two women hopped out of a jeep - they had gotten a driver to take them on a bathroom run, so we kinda laughed as I gave her a little flick on the shoulder and joked about how they were high maintenance. 

Falcons are a big part of the Emirati history as they all were bedouins and relied on falcons to hunt for meat in the desert. If you had a falcon it was a symbol of wealth because you could provide meat for your family. Now falcons are protected, but because they were decimating a small bird population they are no longer allowed to hunt in Dubai if they are not wild birds and they cost anywhere from $8,000 to $750,000 USD to purchase for competition. 

After sunset we took the SUVs down to the camp set up for dinner. 

They had fire dancers, a belly dancer, two women doing henna tattoos and two women doing palm readings. The palm reader I went to said I will have a long, healthy life, that I will have grandchildren...then she leaned close to me and asked me if I had been with a married man. I said no, she looked again and asked if I was sure...yes, pretty sure...she looked again and asked 'even one time?"...um, no. And then she said - well, maybe he didn't tell you. So bizarre. She said I like to travel, that my husbands business is going well and that money was good, that he loves me very much but loved someone before me and said my business had been slow but was picking up and would be good for the rest of the year.  Interesting and somewhat creepy. 

I had a henna tattoo done on my hand and my foot. 

Last day in Dubai

This morning we were supposed to go on a 4x4 excursion that included the dune bashing, ATVing, camel ride and sand surfing, but because we did the 4x4 last night and I rode the camel we decided to skip the activity and hang out by the pool. 

We didn't set the alarm for this morning figuring we would try to sleep in until 9 and maybe see if we could book another massage today before lunch so we closed the curtains last night before bed and didn't wake up until 10:50!!  By 11 I was down at the pool and Jay went for a workout in the gym. I sat down there for about an hour before Jay arrived and then we ordered lunch by the pool. Once we finished lunch we decided to take a cab to the Emirates Mall. I had exchanged $500 into dirham at home and had only spent about $100 on tips and a couple of shirts for Jay.  So we went to the mall and bought a few things for the girls and a dress for Lily-Anna because we had bought a shirt for Jack in London but nothing yet for her. And Jay bought a wallet and I got a bathing suit top and 3 cover ups. 

Actually, I haven't really mentioned the gifts we have been receiving every night in our room from Manulife but we received the first night the copy of our names in Aramaic. The second night I received a pink cashmere pashmina. The third night we received a package with spices and oil. The fourth night we received a DVD set to learn to tango to prepare you for Burnos Aires in 2016. The fifth night we received a Gucci mens wallet and a Prada ladies wallet (this is what prompted me to write about the gifts..we passed a Gucci store and I said to Jay we should go in and see how much it is worth because it's too big and wide for him, he uses a small wallet. The wallets were sitting out on a counter, so I said "oh, they can't be worth that much, they're sitting out" and everything else was under glass. So I found the price and it was the equivalent of $400 Cad. So then we passed a Prada store and my wallet was under glass so I asked the clerk how much it cost and it's the equivalent of $650!  Every person at the conference received these..wow. I'm going to try to exchange mine - I have the box and the certificate of authenticity and everything, so I'll have to see if there is a Prada in Toronto. But the problem is that if the wallet is $650 then I can't afford to exchange it for anything!). And the final night we got a bag with goodies for the plane ride..a couple of magazines, chips, pretzels and a twix and a snickers. Very thoughtful, over the top, gifts. 

After we were done shopping at the mall we went out to meet our driver again who said he would be back at 5:00pm and was there right on time.  We went back to the hotel and got changed to go for dinner at the Burj Kalifa. We were having cocktails on the 123rd floor lounge, called Atmosphere. I borrowed Kate's dress that she wore in Brad and Allison's wedding in March and got several compliments on it (Thanks Kate!!). I, of course, forgot my camera because I wasn't taking a bag, but I got Lorna to take a few photos of Jay and I so I can add them later.  The view from the 

Iounge was amazing, the building so far surpasses everything else in height that a 70 story building looks small in comparison. 

From there we went down to the 6th floor to have dinner. Outside the bank of windows was a balcony and every 30 minutes they did a water fountain and light show set to music (like the Bellagio, except the Dubai way..meaning bigger and better). We saw 3 or 4 shows during dinner, there was a beautiful breeze last night so it was warm but not hot at all, and almost all of the humidity dissipated. 

After dinner we took the bus back to the hotel and packed the rest of our stuff. We leave tomorrow at 7:00am for the airport. 

Travel day Dubai to Uxbridge

We got up this morning and finished packing the few essentials that we had left out of the suitcase and headed down to the lobby for 6:50am. We got in our transfer to the airport with Mark and Lorna and arrived quickly to the airport. Today is Friday, but the weekend in the Emirates is Friday and Saturday. Friday is the day for worship a and rest, so there was no traffic on the highway. 

When we arrived at the airport there were signs for business class check in, which is a separate area from economy check in. We followed the signs and there were 20 or so counters for check-in and baggage drop so we had only one person in front of us in the line. 

Once we checked in we went through security and again there was only one person in front of us, then we went to the business class lounge, which is as big as the terminal in Toronto (the first class lounge was a floor below). We accessed our gate right from the lounge. So we went and had breakfast at one of the 4 buffets and sat and had some fruit, croissants, yogurt and a latte and then walked around for a few minutes before boarding. 

We're now in the air, I've finished catching up. I could connect to the internet for $10 for the flight, but I don't really need to so I'll just wait until we land and upload the blog. 

I watched a movie and had breakfast and then had a nap. Jay woke me up after 30 minutes and said "you said to wake you up in an hour.."  Clearly I needed to use my own alarm clock. Jay went to sleep shortly after, I wanted to wake him up after 30 minutes and tell him he only had half an hour left to nap. It took a lot of willpower not to do it. 

14 hours is a LONG time to be in an airplane. At the half way through point I was very discouraged that we still had 7 hours left to Toronto!  I mean, if you're going to spend 7 hrs in an airplane then best to do it on Emirates..but it's still exhausting. 

When we arrived in Toronto the customs line was short..we had to claim over the $750 limit because of the gifts from Manulife, so we got jammed and had to go into the room for people who have to declare stuff. We had to wait about 30 minutes, but when we explained why we declared over the allowance the border patrol let us go without charging us duty. 

We went out and got our car home, courtesy of Emirates, and we got home about 6pm. The girls arrived home shortly after with my parents and now we're all snuggling in bed - I have a not enough sleep headache and a client appt at 9:30am, so I am off to bed early!

Another somewhat lazy day..

This morning Jay had his half day business session to attend.  We met for breakfast in a really cool room at the hotel called The Music Room, its like a tiered lounge with tables and red velvet banks of lounge booths.  We had breakfast in there at tables set up on the highest tiers and then as the advisors moved down to the couches for their session the spouses ducked out to the pool.

Actually several times during the blog I can insert the same photo over again:

I spent a couple of hours like this before Jay arrived to meet me for lunch.  I actually spent the whole time chatting with Lorna and learning more about her, then Mark and Jay came down and we decided to grab a quick lunch and then take the shuttle to the Dubai Mall to do some shopping.

The Dubai Mall is insane.  It has areas for everything, so we walked in and we were in the jewelery section and you see a Cartier on one corner, a Rolex on the other, a Chopard on the next - complete craziness.  Then, the rest of the mall is laid out in sections and subsections and zones.  So the menswear is all in one place, the ladieswear, etc.  The problem with this is that it is so huge you spend a lot of time looking at the mall and not for stuff in the mall!  I wanted a swim suit and a nice cover up - we never even saw a women's store - Jay got 3 shirts and a pair of shoes in the most ridiculous shoe market you have ever seen!  This is a shoe display...note the one pair of shoes.

Further in the mall there was an ice skating rink, a huge aquarium (I don't like the photos because the store in front of the enormous aquarium is a candy store and all you can see reflected in the aquarium are the lights).  This aquarium was at least 2 storeys high through the mall and 50 yards long, it was massive.  You could also pay to go into the aquarium and underwater zoo and walk through the aquarium tunnel, but we just saw this display from the mall concourse and kept shopping.

Then there was a really cool waterfall with bronze sculpted divers that were scaled to the size of a man.  Very cool.

Once we were done at the mall we took the shuttle back to the hotel and got changed to go out to dinner.  We had dinner on a ship on the creek.  The walls and ceiling of the boat were made of glass and it launched and we went down the creek for an hour and then came back.  The whole time on the boat we sat and ate dinner and when it stopped we got off..a neat restaurant concept, but everything we do as an event is at least 30 - 40 minutes from the hotel.  It takes 20 minutes just to get off the palm!

When we came back to the hotel we all met in the Voda Bar and they announced that this Pinnacle Conference in 2 years will be in ....