Fri 21/11/08 04:41
I went hiking today in the Hatta Mountains in Oman. I’d been in the area before, but this was the first time that I just got to wander around a bit. We left at 5:40 this morning and got back at about 2, but only got a couple of hours actually hiking since it’s a couple of hours driving to get there, and then back. It was a good time, and I’d love to go again. :)
Tue 18/11/08 23:48
Yesterday a group of us from school went to Abu Dhabi to view some artwork displayed in a couple of galleries. There really isn’t a lot of time to write about it now, but here are some of the pics that I took. If you want the original, let me know…. Yesterday a group of us from school went to Abu Dhabi to view some artwork displayed in a couple of galleries. There really isn’t a lot of time to write about it now, but here are some of the pics that I took. If you want the original, let me know….
It’s been almost a week since I’ve gotten back to Dubai and as expected it was easy to get back into the “normal” routine of things. In some ways it doesn’t even seem like I’d left, certainly not for the two months that I was away. Thinking back this summer was the longest vacation that I’d taken. The other ones were closer to a month and a half, this one almost two months.
Worried about doing nothing, and even worse, getting comfortable doing nothing, I decided to start walking again… not that I ever stopped, but I wanted to ensure that I kept moving after the vacation. So my first walk was for about two hours and by the time I got back I was embarrassingly drenched in sweat. It was so bad, that my shirt looked like I’d been swimming with it on and my shorts looked like I had a bladder control problem. I decided to stay closer to home and would stay on the school’s track instead of on the streets. Why am I telling you all this? The simple reason is that it led up to me actually starting to run instead of walk. Admittedly I ran slowly, but I am running much to my own surprise. Over a kilometer at once which isn’t bad for a middle-aged, overweight smoker in ninety-degree heat, who hadn’t really ran for about thirty years. Oh, I ran a little bit here and there, usually just to see if I could run at all, then for a few years, about fifteen years ago, I ran on a treadmill.
The trip was good, I saw some things that I didn’t plan on seeing, and to my surprise I think that is what made this summer’s trip the best. The Leaning Tower of Pisa and Pompeii are the two that come to mind right now, but hanging out in the smaller cities of Greece was also a highlight. Now that I’m back I’ve got to start planning my next vacation. A little known fact to many of my friends is that the school pays for a roundtrip ticket to the US every year, this year I didn’t use it in the summer like I usually do, so I may use it to go to Australia for Christmas, or maybe even Argentina.
That’s all I got except to thank my Brother for reading the blog religiously while I traveled. As far as I know he was the only one, and it felt good to know that someone was out there so to speak. If you did read but didn’t let me know, thanks too.
I’ve been working at getting the info for the trip done. I’ve still got some problems with the video camera, see last post, but in the meantime I’ve been uploading all the images that I took. The good, the bad, the out of focus, tilted, poor composition, and other imperfections are there for everyone to see. The link is http://s517.photobucket.com/albums/u332/ken_curtis/
Remember I’m still in the process of putting everything online, so although most images are up now, I still have to label them… if I actually decide to do that, and then add the video that I took with my regular camera (not my video camera).
Fri 15/08/08 00:42
Okay, so I’m back in Dubai. That doesn’t mean that I have to stop having fun right? That’s at least what I told myself, so I took off for a walk at about 7 this morning. I couldn’t sleep last night so I got up and started transfering my video camera stuff to my computer. At about 7 I decided to go for a walk. When I stepped outside I was hit by a heat that I didn’t expect. I’ve taken a snapshot of the current temperature at 930, 2 hours later.
It happened like I knew it had to one of these days… I’m back in Dubai. :(
The plane ride was uneventful and except for the 6 hour layover in Atlanta the flight was pretty good. In fact I don’t think I can complain about anything, except it was a reminder that the best time I’ve ever had in my life was coming to an end. I want to write more when I’ve had a good nights rest and am able to better put my experiences into context. For now, I wanted to let those of you that have been following my progress know that I’m home and safe.
Ken
