Google Earth – Dubai Hotel

Oh yes, this is where I will be staying during my time in Dubai next week! See that little red dot to the left? That’s the Holiday Inn. See that big building next to it? That’s the indoor ski resort. The shot on the bottom is another angle… We’re close to one of the two Palms! I’m in serious count down mode.

Highlights from PDX trip.

I forget how much I like Portland, how close it is, how easy it is to get there on the train, and how great it is for getting around on foot. I had a great time there this weekend with Scott. Some highlights:

Zwicklemania Beer Festival: An Oregon Brewer’s Association beer festival. Scott and I only made it to two of the pub open houses because we were distracted by Words with Friends. Portland is a fun city to wander though… lots of pubs within walking distance.

Wanderlust Circus: I keep saying that this show was kind of like Teatro Zinzanni. It was smaller scale though, with better food, and horrible service. Our drinks were comped, which made up for it. And the show was charming.

Japanese Garden: A reminder of how lush the Northwest is, and how close we are to Spring.

We also went to see Avatar on Sunday, along with everyone else who was inspired to see it on Valentine’s Day! The theatre and adjoining mall were packed! After the movie we hit up Ground Kontrol, a mini arcade in downtown Portland. It was full of single men on Valentine’s Day. I’m not sure what to make of that.

Overall, a great breather from the MBA madness!

Current: Flight to Seattle

I’m on a flight from Denver to Seattle right now, flying home from meeting Warren Buffett! I have a longer post in the works to tell you those details.

In the mean time, I had an idea for a blog series. I’m going to call it “Current”. The idea answers two problems I’ve been thinking about lately. First, I don’t blog as much as I used to because I’m busy with school. And second, I feel like there needs to be a middle ground between what I say on Twitter and what I blog. I’m going to use this “Current” category to write quick snippets about what I’m doing at that very moment in my life. They’ll include more context than Twitter. And since I’ll be writing most of them from my phone, I will try to include photos!

So, I’m currently sitting on a plane from Denver to Seattle. Our flight out of Omaha was cancelled last night, so we were up early to get from Ohama to Denver and then on to Seattle. Our connection was supposed to be at 12:30pm but a handful of us were able to RUN through the terminal to get on an earlier flight. We will be home by 11am!!

I’m starving now because I haven’t eaten all day, and will most likely buy a United snack pack to get me through. I’m planning on sharing a cab to Capitol Hill with Hisan (a 2nd year, evening student I met on the trip) once we are back. Hisan is also going on the Dubai trip over Sprig break, so I was excited to get to know her on this trip!

Mom and Dad’s Visit: Classic Seattle Touristing

My parents came to town last weekend for a visit and to drop off my cat, Luke!

Since they (my parents) have been to Seattle a few times, I was at a loss for fresh and exciting activities to do with them. It turned out my mom was interested in re-doing some of the classics: Pike Place Market and the Chittenden Fish Locks. We also visited the UW campus and took the ferry across the water to visit Bainbridge Island. It was nice to get my touristing on and rediscover some of Seattle’s gems. Love this city.

Australia Days 12/13: The journey home begins!

G’day Mates Pam & Val

We had a nice dinner with Pam and Val to wrap up our visit on Friday. They suggested a seafood restaurant on Moreton Bay called Morgan’s. We sat out on their covered and heated deck, which was pretty much like sitting inside. I had a local fish called barra. If I weren’t allergic to shell fish, I would have gone for another local catch they call “bugs”. Good food and two bottles of wine later, Val almost had to cart the rest of us out the door.

I’m really happy we had the chance to visit Pam and Val. Not only did we get a side trip to Australia out of it, but I was able to get to know my suegra (mother-in-law) and her husband a lot more. There’s nothing like being face-to-face with someone. We talked a lot. We looked at old photos. We compared notes on Photoshop techniques. It was a really good time.

Train Back to Sydney

We took a 12 hour train back to Sydney from Brisbane on Saturday. I originally booked the trip thinking it would be scenic. And it was. But there really isn’t any other advantage to taking the train than that. Looking back I would have preferred the 1.5 hour flight back down on Qantas. It’s the same cost as the train (if not cheaper). And, since our 14 hour flight to LA was the next morning, it would have been much less sitting.

Sleeping in the Sydney Airport

We got into Sydney around 10pm. Our flight was the next morning at 9:30am, so we decided to camp out in the airport. I’d never done this before, and was a little freaked out at first. I didn’t want a mean security guard waking me up and porting me off somewhere. (I’m pretty sure that would have happened if we were in Bolivia.)

Scott found a website that gives traveler accounts of sleeping in airports though, so we were somewhat prepared. Just as we’d read, all the “sleeping in the airport travelers” were ushered to one section that had bathrooms and a small amount of seating. I whipped out my sleeping bag and mat, and slept for a good 6 hours on the floor. Scott stayed up in an attempt to start fighting off the return jetlag, which was nice because he could watch our stuff too. It was great.

p.s. Sorry for no photos! I’ll post some as soon as I can find my card reader! Things are kind of a mess right now.

Australia Day 11: Koalas, koalas, koalas. Oh my!

I didn’t get enough of Aussie animals back at Featherdale in Sydney, so Thursday we went to one of Brisbane’s best animal parks, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

The park is mainly koalas, which was very fine by me. They also had other native Australian animals, which is the parks advantage over the Australia Zoo also located in Brisbane.

First thing inside the gates we watched a short koala presentation. Here are the facts:

• Koalas are cuter than babies and kittens. Combined.
• Koalas live about 10 years, although they have had koalas reach their 20’s in captivity at the park.
• Male koalas have a scent gland on their chests that they use for marking. Females do not.
• Koala babies eat their mothers feces (called pap) for about two weeks. They do this because in order to get the bacteria that helps them digest eucalyptus in their stomachs.
• Lone Pine has over 100 koalas. Each one eats 1/2 a kilo of eucalyptus leaves a day. The park brings in 1 ton of food into the park a day (although we figure most of that goes uneaten) which is gathered from 4 groves of different types of eucalyptus trees.
• Koalas sleep somewhere around 18 to 20 hours a day. ¡Eso si que es la vida!
• Two of the toes on their feet are fused together, and act as a sort of brush for grooming. They also have two thumbs that help them climb.
• Koalas can be pretty active, as evidenced during feeding time at the park. They run, jump and climb all over each other.

The Lone Pine has some more fact here if you’re interested.

The sanctuary was another great animal experience. I was just as impressed as Featherdale… not to mention, this time I had my big camera with a charged battery and a spare battery in my bag. I have 177 photos of koalas in my collection now. Did I mention koalas are cuter than babies and kittens combined?

Australia Day 9: The whale tear jerker.

Pam and Val treated us to a whale watching tour in Brisbane on Tuesday. The trip was amazing and such a nice gift!

I know there are whale watching opportunities in Washington, but I’ve never taken the time to go out on a tour. So, I didn’t know what to expect on the trip.

We left the dock at about 10am, got out to the reserve area of Moreton Bay around 11am, and immediately started seeing whales.

I can’t really explain it, but as we were watching one whale in particular that was hanging around our boat, we realized that the whale was also watching and curious about us. She would maneuver around the boat and pop up to take a look. After a few minutes she started rolling over and showing us her belly, which the captain said was a really vulnerable position for her. This made me tear up a bit… like, this huge whale who has no idea who we are is giving us the okay. It was really emotional.

We also saw some sea turtles! And I heard there were sharks, but couldn’t see them from where I was standing at the time.

I was really impressed with the company that we used. The captain is a woman (Captain Kerry), and can steer the boat from three different locations on the deck. All the while she is talking about the whales and snapping photos of her own, just like a tourist!