Weekend Adventures

Our weekend was planned out with precision: Friday- travel to Abu Dhabi with a LivingSocial beach resort stay, participate in a TBWA photoshoot at FerrariWorld on Saturday in exchange for free access, and then relaxing at the beach on Sunday. We had a long weekend due to Isra and Mi'raj, or the Ascension of the Prophet, so we figured a weekend trip would be a fun change of scenery. Well... the trip didn't end up as we planned, but it was still a pretty nice weekend.

The Beach Rotana, the hotel we were supposed to stay at:

FerrariWorld features the world's fastest roller coaster, take a look:

Here's what the weekend consisted of:

• Thursday night: we were both exhausted, so we decided to have a low-key night. We headed over to the Dubai Creek for a dinner cruise on one of the many Dhows. Pretty reasonable price, with a great meal.

• Friday: The day we were looking forward to! After getting a late start to the bus station, due to the metro being closed before 1 p.m. due to the weekly "day of rest"being on Fridays. After a 2 hour hot-and-cramped bus ride that only cost about $7, we arrived in Abu Dhabi. Walking around, you can easily see what everyone means when they describe this Emirate as older, less polished, and less "young." It is the capital of the UAE, but it is very much old-business, with an older population. Regardless, we were excited. We headed over to Al Arish, a port side restaurant that came highly recommended, where we feasted on a buffet of traditional Lebanese and Arabic chicken, beef, fish, and desserts dishes. We then decided to head over to our hotel, but unfortunately we were not allowed to check in; we had given our passports to the agency so that our visa's could be renewed, and the hotel absolutely refused to let us check in without them. So... we headed back on a much nicer, cheaper, less crowded bus to Dubai, and headed to the movie experience of a lifetime. We went to the Platinum Suites in the Dubai Mall's theater, where we watched Men in Black 3 in style: in La-Z-Boy recliners, with pillows and blankets, and waitress service throughout the movie.
• Saturday: We headed over to Wild Wadi Waterpark for the day. Highlights:
• The Burj Surge- A massive, whitewater slide that takes the rafts nearly vertical.
• Tantrum Alley- Another, sister waterside that takes the raft on consecutive trips around what amounts to drains... you circle around it before dropping down into the next one.
• Master Blasters- This intricate network of water raft slides shoots you around the whole park, for what amounts to about 20+ minutes at a time. 
• FISHO- the fish spa. The doctor fish (as gross as this sounds) suck on your feet and legs, "promoting new skin growth."

• Sunday: I took off at about 11 am for the Jumeirah Beach Walk, to 1847. It's named after the year that the safety razor was invented. After an awesome shave and haircut, I was off and back to meet Lisa at the Jumeirah Beach Park for the rest of the day. 

Back to work for the short work week!