Long time no see

I love living in a place that the rest of the world comes to explore! So many people travel here for holidays or stop by during their journeys elsewhere, which means - I get to catch up with said people, sometimes friends I haven't seen in a really long time.

This week, I was actually booked to do a tour for an old guide colleague of mine from my Lefkas days, Therese, and her family. They are in Dubai for the week, but wanted to come see the museum and explore Abu Dhabi, so I helped them arrange a driver for the day and got to give them a tour.

They also went to the mosque, and did a bit of a drive around in the city center, and then Nathan and I met them for Taco Tuesday dinner down in Yas Bay before they head back to Dubai. A quick but such an enjoyable catch-up!

A quick trip to Doha

Nathan and I ended up having a few days off together last weekend, that we had planned thinking Linnea might come down for her February holidays. She ended up not coming, as she felt it was too close to having been home for Christmas.
So, we decided to hop over to Qatar for the weekend, as it turned out Andrew and Anna were also free!
We arrived Saturday night to a beautiful dinner cooked by Andrew, and great views from the Pearl:

Sunday we went for a walk, and had brunch/lunch in a café. We met up with another old Brunei-friend, Mike, and then we relaxed by the pool for the afternoon. We had planned to play some padel, but as it was rather windy we scrapped that and just chilled.

In the evening we did a Chinese take-away, and chatted the night away. 

Then it was time for us to fly home again, but lucky it's only a 45 minute flight. Easy as.

Helios family visit

In the beginning of February we had a visit from the Helios family from Denmark. 
Mads has been a friend of ours since our Copenhagen days, for about 25 years, and he came with his wife Barbara and their three daughters, to experience the Middle East for the first time. 
Safe to say - they loved it!

They didn't do a lot of sightseeing, as they mostly just wanted to enjoy the sun. They spent a week with us (which is like living in a resort, with the beach and the pools, and the supermarket all within walking distance); and the last few days of their trip they had booked a villa on Maya Island. 
They did a desert tour, Ferrari World and spent a day on a yacht, and Mads went to see the mosque by himself. We also of course took them to Craft, which was a super evening.

 Thank you for coming Helios family, see you next time!

About time!

It might be slightly bad timing, as we are moving slowly into the warmer months, but - I have finally returned to the padel court! After a three year (!) hiatus!

We now have two padel courts here in our compound that you can book (well, if you are fast enough once the bookings are released) for free. There is also a WhatsApp group where people look for players, so in preparation for getting back to playing with other people, Nathan, Matt and I booked and went down to hit some balls one afternoon.

It did get a bit hot... 

I managed to remember (mostly) how to do it, so I now I have thrown myself into playing in every game I could get into! So. Much. Fun!

Hopefully I'll get in many more games before the weather becomes unbearable. 

The SwedishLadies enjoying Picasso

The Picasso, the Figure exhibition has attracted a lot of attention since opening. I have already delivered a bunch of tours of it, and this week it was time for the SwedishLadies-group to come.
It's always different to deliver in Swedish, as it happens so rarely. But this time it went rather well. These stories are so much fun to tell, I enjoy every part and every room of this exhibition.

A rather big group this time! A great morning!

Livin' la vida loca

Linda got 2 tickets to Ricky Martin for Christmas from her husband, and he told her she could bring "anyone", not really offering to go himself, ha ha! I put my hand up of course, who wouldn't like a latino evening!
Furthermore I was invited for dinner at Mamsha prior to the concert, as my birthday gift from Linda - so spoiled!

The concert was at the Saadiyat Nights venue, where we went to Michael Bublé last year. It's a really cool venue, and we were excited.

The concert was... ok. He did put on a show and seemed to enjoy himself, but there was no in-between chit-chat, and the stage went dark after every song which lost the vibe momentum a bit. 

We enjoyed the hits of course, but also some of the slower songs. He sure can sing, has a beautiful voice.

Fun to be out for a night, and really nice to hang with Linda. Work, visitors and life has been busy lately, so we haven't seen each other as much as we used to.