Day 33– Monday 15 2018

Upon Reflection – 3,438 photos later

Visiting the Middle East was never on our bucket list, the only reason we went there was because of Monica, Charles & the grandsons.  We were very pleasantly surprised!!  Our first stop in Dubai was amazing, clean, big & very modern.  I never thought that I would call a jungle of high rise buildings beautiful but in Dubai they certainly achieved that wow factor in their very modern architecture. Their malls are enormous with waterfalls, restaurants & huge aquarium or other theme parks attached to them.  The most surprising thing (already at the airport) was the beautiful Christmas decorations right though the shops & mall with piped Christmas carols.

We drove on fantastic roads with Arabic & English road signs.  You knew the desert was there because on the side of the road & if you looked further on the sand was there.  Abu Dhabi is modern & a lot of building going on.  There are big theme parks, Formula 1 race track, mainly attached to very huge beautiful malls & once again everywhere Christmas decorations.  Monica & family live on the 9^th floor in an apartment like a resort.  They do not lock their door when they go out – something sadly in Australian cities we cannot do any more.  There are some things that we are losing or lost in Australia, it’s a way of life over there.  We are still very lucky for so very many reasons to call Australia home. The UAE & Japan (when we were there) are the two places that we truly can say we felt the safest.

The whole family went to Jordan, Christmas decorations in the hotels & in the middle of town Christmas village.  Wonderful experience to swim (more like floated) in the Dead Sea.  The drive past   those enormous barren mountains & then Petra.  Petra was only a dream & to actually see it was amazing.  The people are friendly, they do have police/military check points.  The roads we drove on were very good.  The hotels have a similar check in like at the airports.  We didn’t feel unsafe.

Back in Abu Dhabi we had a wonderful Christmas & New Year with the family.

We all went to Oman where they still had wonderful Christmas decorations up in the hotels.  A beautiful place.  A great experience driving through some big barren mountains & to see the Jebel Sham canyon.  Friendly people.  Always felt safe.

We are very happy that we went to visit the UAE, Jordan & Oman, it opened our eyes & minds to a different culture.  It was amazing to see how they have the Christmas magic in Muslim countries where we visited, it is very sad how some want to end it in Australia.  We are comforted that Monica & family live in a lovely safe place & the boys are getting good education.  Monica, Charles, Jackson & Austin made our time with them very nice & special, couldn’t have asked for better.  We miss them like crazy.

It is nice to be home & to have caught up with James, Venetia & grandchildren here today for lunch, we missed them like crazy when we were away.