Merry Christmas Infidels - Holidays 2013 in Dubai & Abu Dhabi with Holly & Pokes

Admittedly this post is extremely belated. I'm trying to play catch up after neglecting my blog for the past year due to the all consuming task of wedding planning.

Christmas and New Years 2013 were a blast because both Holly and Stephen came to visit! At the time Holly was living in Thailand and the original plan was for Stephen to fly here from the States and then the three of us would fly to Phuket to visit Holly and then back to Dubai. However, being that we were trying to orchestrate this a month in advance, we could not find a pup hotel that was not fully booked over the holidays. So we changed the plan and decided that Holly would just come meet us in Dubai. Holly arrived first and Felipe and I were waiting at the airport to pick her up. I had my phone ready to take a picture to document the "Holly arrives in Dubai" moment, however upon seeing the sweaty, disgruntled person who emerged from the terminal I thought better of it and put my phone away. We got back to our apartment and after a shower, a change of clothes and many kisses from the pups, Holly was in a much better place. She also brought with her some bootleg dvds from Phuket, including my absolute favorite show (well next to Disappeared which is my shit), Modern Family! Needless to say any time we were in the house over the next few days, Modern Family was playing. 

That night we decided to check out the nearby Irish pub, McGettigan's for a few cold ones. We enjoyed one of my favorite combinations, wings and beer. We each ordered a different type of beer and were a bit perplexed when Holly and Felipe's arrived normal, pint size and mine arrived approximately the size of my head. We surmised that perhaps there was something about me that screamed "raging alcoholic"?! 

Confession - I'm a meticulous planner and can be a bit of a control freak. I was so pumped for this trip and wanted everything to go perfectly so perhaps I went a little overboard with the planning. Think Excel spreadsheet. Holly, Stephen and Felipe had a field day with the spreadsheet. If something was suggested one of them was quick to say, "whoa, whoa, is that on the spreadsheet?" or "maybe we need to consult the spreadsheet." They also took to calling me the general, which I didn't really appreciate. In my defense, we were able to pack in so many activities in 10 days and really hit some of the best of Dubai.

Stephen arrived on Christmas Eve a couple of days after Holly and although quite jet lagged, he was ready to hit the ground running. Christmas day we went to Abu Dhabi to see the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. It was stunning and the tour was so interesting, we all really enjoyed it. After heading out we were starving and being that we're not that familiar with Abu Dhabi we were unsure as to where to stop for a bite. Our hunger got the better of us and we ended up going to the first thing we saw, Burger King. An unconventional Christmas day to put it mildly. We then made our way back to the Marina and hit the pool at our building for awhile. 

Yep, that's Stephen, me and Holly!

After the pool, we showered up and made our way to 360 bar, getting there just in time for sunset! Side note - before we started hitting the bars and restaurants we had to make a quick stop at a mall because Holly realized that although she didn't need heels in Phuket, she most definitely needed heels in Dubai:) (we wear different sizes, otherwise of course I would have lent her some!)

After we got home from 360 we introduced Holly and Stephen to one of the hidden gems of Dubai, a little takeout Chinese spot called Chin Chin:) Chin Chin is not glamourous and it's not expensive but man is it good. Holly and Stephen were immediately as obsessed as we've been since discovering it. The next morning I found Stephen pulling leftovers out of the fridge saying "Chin Chin, you are my bitch lover". Towards the end of the trip I asked Stephen what he wanted to do with his remaining dirhams (local money). Without hesitation he said "Chin Chin."

One day Felipe had to go into work for a bit and I had scheduled for the three of us to take a boat tour through the Marina, around the Palm and up to Burj al Arab. Holly was feeling a little under the weather so decided to stay at the apartment. Stephen and I had a great time on the ferry, the views were awesome:

While we were enjoying ourselves on the ferry, we did feel a little bad that Holly was missing out but weren't concerned since she didn't look like she felt that bad. I then got a phone call from Felipe. He had arrived home and asked me what the hell was wrong with Stephen and I that we would leave Holly looking like that. Apparently Holly had taken a turn for the worse. I filled Stephen in and we felt like such jackasses. Felipe was asking where we were and if we were far. I had to tell him we were on a boat in the ocean and couldn't exactly get back asap. He said he was going to take Holly to the hospital. Stephen and I just looked at each other and said "well shit. we look like such assholes and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it." By the time we got back it wasn't long before Holly and Felipe got home. It turns out she had a flu and the doctor gave her some meds to help her feel better. The spreadsheet had us scheduled to go to a beach bar on the Palm that night but of course we decided to deviate from the almighty spreadsheet and stay in to continue our Modern Family marathon:)

We obviously had to take a trip to the world's biggest mall, the Dubai Mall. While there we checked out the aquarium and made our way over to the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building (did I mention that Dubai loves guinness world records?) Upon reaching the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa, I learned that Stephen is afraid of heights. He was quite jumpy and began sweating profusely. We encouraged him to get close enough to the glass to get the full experience. At one point, Holly looked over at him and said, "how are you doing?", Stephen just looked at us and said "not good" haha. He was relieved to get on the elevator and get back down to the ground but we were proud of him for going up in the first place.

View from the top! 124 floors up

The aquarium, sharks and all, which is actually in the mall!

Of course I had to take Stephen and Holl on the infamous desert safari. It is one of the most touristy things ever but it's a blast and a must when in Dubai. We had a private morning safari so it was just the three of us. The driver picked us up in a 4x4 and we headed out to the desert for some dune bashing. I'll admit, the dune bashing is intense. Even though it was my second time I was not any less scared. Holly and Stephen were loving it but I couldn't even open my eyes and definitely let out the occasional scream.

We stopped in the desert for some quintessential "jumping in the desert" pics. The pictures make it look effortless but for some reason the three of us had such a hard time jumping at the same time and getting it right. Stephen, who the driver referred to as "boy" kept jumping before us. After a couple tries he said, "boy, you jump too early!" Holly and I were dying laughing and referred to Stephen as "boy" for the rest of the day. 

After the photos we attempted some sandboarding. Stephen and I did fine, but leave it to the accident prone Holly to make it all the way to the bottom of the hill and then flip over and roll in the sand. It was classic Holly!

We then continued on and rode some camels!

I forgot to mention that the dune bashing was also challenging because we had been at Burj al Arab's Skyview bar the night before for drinks. Burj al Arab is the "world's only 7 star hotel", whatever that means ha. It's a beautiful building and you need a reservation to get past the guard to even get close to the hotel. Once you get inside it is really something to see though. There's a minimum required to spend per person at the bar but the prices of the drinks makes the minimum quite easy to hit:) The walls are all glass so you can see the coastline of Dubai all lit up. 

Skyview bar:

Lobby of the Burj al Arab:

We also hit up Barasti Beach Bar and the Dubai Marina Yacht Club for happy hour. Of course we had to make another trip back to McGettigan's to show Stephen the unofficial "Whitlow's of Dubai" as we dubbed it.

Yacht Club:

McGettigan's on NYE before the fireworks (when Dubai broke the guinness world record - shocker I know haha):

At the end of the trip I told Holly and Stephen that although they had given me a hell of a time about the damn spreadsheet, they had to admit that the trip had been a huge success and we had fit in an unbelievable amount of things. Stephen said to me, "all joking aside, you killed it."