Dubai - girl

Dubai 18-23 February 2010

I write this sitting in a small hotel room in Delhi - just three hours away but a far cry from Dubai in every other respect.

The main point of our time in Dubai was to see A, P and H. We were also extremely lucky that K and D happened to be in the city at the same time. This made for some wonderful nights out. The typical day for us in Dubai consisted of a late start, late breakfast, some sitting or walking and then an evening drinking and eating. Complain? Certainly not, there’s not much else to do in Dubai. We did try the gold souk - tacky (my favourite item was a transformer head ring: yes, Optimus Prime style transformer); the museum - dull and not informative; and a desert safari - embarrassed we even tried it.

Friday was P’s birthday so as soon as we were done with dune bashing (and man, did we bash them), attentions were turned to the birthday. The party began in the apartment and continued in a salsa club. Any night that begins with Jaegermeister and ends in tequilla shots and cigars can be defined as a good night and this was no exception. We were in bed by 0430. Ow.

Saturday was D’s 30^th so after a lot of whinging about our heads hurting, we trundled over to D and K’s hotel for birthday number 2. This one came complete with champagne, a beautiful sunset and K in full Saudi get up. A slightly earlier night given how much pain we were all still in. A great steak restaurant with the biggest chairs ever and bed by midnight followed.

Monday. C and I made a big mistake and accidentally wound up on a ‘desert safari’ tour. The ‘safari’ was a waste of time and money but I did giggle when an Indian guy in full Emirati get-up was pulled off stage for improper dancing with women only to reveal his western clothes and Hindu self to the entire audience. The day was rescued by an evening of shisha and A and P.

We only went to Dubai to see friends. We weren’t disappointed, a lot of fun was head despite the place having very little to offer tourists. Sure it’s a little lacking in character but who doesn’t want to see the world’s tallest building or a seven star hotel shaped like a sail whilst drinking cocktails on a pier?

And now here we are in Delhi, a crazy, overwhelming city where I feel totally out of my depth despite a love of immersing myself in developing countries. I’m sure it’ll only take a few days for us to acclimatise but we’re certainly not there yet.

Getting ready to go - boy

Not sure there's that much to say about getting ready to go other than it's packing and packing is a right pain in the arse. Whether packing to go on a long trip or packing to leave your flat; both pains in arses. And we have the pleasure of doing both at the same time.

But now it's done I (we) can relax and we did so with a nice game of vodka Scrabble. Just like normal Scrabble only with shots of vodka; where you start to care less and less about who wins as the game progresses.

Getting ready to go - girl

It's been a long time coming, as some song said. But here we are, just one more full day in the UK. We're sitting in an almost empty flat, C's playing on his phone and I'm on the computer - I'm wondering if this is a bad sign before spending six months in each other's company!

C finished work around two weeks ago, I finished last Wednesday. We're both liberated now although I don't feel as if I have stopped running since I stopped working. A lot of nagging from me, some quality sitting from C, eventually some good organising from C and less nagging from me. We have both been injected up to the hilt (actually all injections were well above the hilt!), have both bought cold weather gear, wet weather gear, warm weather gear - when did travelling get a) so expensive? b) so heavy? I think the answer must be 'when we stopped being 19'. C21 travelling is also different to C20 travelling - iPod? Check. iTouch? Check? Cameras 2? Check. Computer? Check. The list appears to go on.

This weekend was all about family good byes - my family first. Parents, brother and sister-in-law. Different to saying goodbye as a teenager off on first travels. We've all done it before, we all go, we all come back, we stay in touch and know we're all loved. Nothing new. C's family next. Parents, his sister, our two month old nephew. Just miss seeing his brother and our other nephew - real shame. Hugs, discussions, computer problems and lots of dancing with new nephew.

Today, up, tidying, faffing and finally getting all our final stuff in to storage - it all seems to boil down to a few boxes. Reminds me of the old person who died with just some personal possessions in the bedside table. Good or bad? I have no idea.

Tomorrow, should be a bit calmer and then it's 'over and out England, come in world'. Now the excitement is building. We're really going, we really have left our stable jobs for the unknown. I'm proud of us.

Kohlfahrt - girl

It's a while since we actually were in Germany but I'm not sure I'll ever forget the weekend B, C and I joined a bunch of crazy (good crazy) Germans to run around the countryside is severely minus temperatures.

C has tended to take part in kolhfart without me for a variety of reasons but this year I was determined to clear my diary for those pesky little cabbages. For back up (and a ride to the airport!) I persuaded B to join us.

However, the ride to the airport was a severe misjudgment and malfunction. Traffic was atrocious leaving London and a c*ck up between C, B and Tom Tom (I take no blame at all!) meant an extra thirty miles of driving when time most certainly wasn't on our side. We were all convinced we would miss the flight but thanks to some expert speeding from B, some expert speeding from a random hotelier and some expert running from  us all, we made it to the plane with approximately no seconds to spare.

Wonderful K and S picked us up at the other end with the, now fully expected, beer box and we headed off down snowy lanes to K and A's home in Worpswede where the other fahrters were already assembled. The night began with large quantities of wine, moved on to food, vodka and a little smokey smokey before we all, eventually, passed out at 4am.

After an enormous breakfast on Saturday we wrapped up in every item of clothing we had and set out on the kohlfahrt. Minus 15 was the coldest but minus ten didn't feel much warmer. Everyone donned the fundamentals of kohlfahrt: shot glass on a string and pretzel on a string; everyone admired the wheelbarrow FULL of beer, schnapps, sausages and sweets and, after the first of many jagermeister shots, we set off.

Games, shots, walking, shots, walking, shots, shots, shots, games - you get the picture. After about three hours of walking/drinking and one wee stop (not fun in that weather), we upped our pace and headed to the finale destination - a great big restaurant/beer hall - for supper and partying. Supper followed tradition - sausage and cabbage, the music followed tradition - pure german cheese and the drinking was as drinking was.

Around 1am everyone was kicked out and we headed once more down icy paths to get home - this time considerably warmer as the drink fire warmed us all from the inside. The party continued back home but I seem to remember some sleeping time between snacks and breakfast on Sunday. Despite being convinced we'd never warm up again, on Sunday we headed out again for a couple of long, sober, walks.

Always a pleasure to spend time with C's friends in Germany and certainly a pleasure to have B with us.

As far as weekends go, it couldn't have been more fun, although next time we'll take the train!

Kohlfahrt - boy

To the airport there went three,

Wife C, me and Scottish B,

Took a car but didn’t see,

That every bugger in London town,

Would take their car and slow us down,

We arrived with barely time to spare,

And then fucked up royally by turning back onto the motorway for which I should probably take the blame since I was the designated navigator.

And I was using a GPS.

Long story short: 50 minutes left; no exit for 15 miles; realisation that we have to do an extra 30 miles; lots of disappointment; some profanity; sense of helplessness. After 15 miles in 12 minutes; some hope; umpteenth call to the hotel where we arranged “airport” parking to request a taxi primed to go; more hope; fast driving; arrive at hotel; throw keys at manager; no taxi but manager takes us formula one speed to airport; profuse thanks; throw tenner at manager; run through empty check-in; hop on flight; breathe. The hotel manager mentioned that “the best trips start out this way”. Couldn’t agree more; simply arriving felt fantastic.

It’s always great to see my friends in Germany and fortunately events and celebrations are frequent, meaning many people are gathered in the same place making it easy to see everyone at the same time. We were picked up at the airport by S and K who planted Becks into our hands and whisked us away in their beer chariot to the pretty village of Worpswede. K was this year’s Kohl Queen (J was King), which meant a lot of organising and rounding up of the loose Kohlfahrters while en route.

Kohlfahrt. To drink and eat from a cart while playing games with your friends in the freezing cold just within the outer limits of the Bremer countryside. Literally cabbage run or way of the cabbage, this green vegetable decorated the cart and provided the obligatory green in the meat fest that awaited us at the end of our cabbage run
.

We waited on the Saturday at midday in sub-zero temperatures for all the parties to congregate. This morning’s hangover was gone, multiple layers of clothing were applied and stomach was lined from a hearty breakfast. Once we were all assembled, self-inspections were made: Schnapsglas tied to string and hung round neck, check. Tissue in schnapsglas to mop up spillages, check. Pretzel tied to string and hung around neck, check. Bite out of pretzel, check. Becks in pocket, check. Finally, we warmed up our drinking arms with some Jagermeister and then made our way out of the icy car park to the start of our trail.

I don’t know exactly how far we ambled around the country lanes or for exactly what amount of time we were out (though I suspect around six hours), but we were never short of provisions or activities. K + J had done well. Large containers of sausage, cheese and sweets were passed around frequently; the mountain of beer slowly but surely became a mountain of empties. Vodka, schnapps and other spirits were slowly being depleted as the afternoon wore on; as did our coherence. We played a lot of typical Kohlfahrt games which involved footballs, teabags, potatoes and string though not all at the same time and the reward for winning was either kudos or drink (curiously English drinking games tend to have drink as a penalty). In my blurry recollections I see E with a potato in his mouth trying to speak (German tongue twisters perhaps?). I don’t remember understanding what he said but then again I don’t speak German.

The whole walk was an extremely pleasant experience and gave me a chance to catch up with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time; interrupted only by the odd food stop, activity stop or toilet stop. We managed to reach our destination before the sun had gone completely and were glad to enter the warmth of the restaurant where our meat feast awaited. The meal is always traditional; lots of sausage, pork, potatoes and the N German duo of Kohl und Pinkel, which is (aside from being a great name for a children’s tv double act) basically cabbage + haggis. A new Kohl King and Queen were chosen from a hat (P + V will have the honour next year) and we danced the night away to “traditional” music that we later agreed was probably 8/10 on the cheesometer. All in all a Knacken Wochenende.