Dubai Rocks!

Dubai is definately my favorite city ever, I know that everything there is artificial but it is still an awesome place for tourists. Dubai is the vacation target for those living in the Middle East. Now, I am starting to wonder why we travel to far places like the Maldives or the Bahamas, when we just could go to Dubai. We stayed at a hotel called 'Dar Al Masyaf ' which is in the 'Jumairah Resort'. The best thing is that a famous water park called 'Wild Wadi' is in the resort. The resort has a long canal going through it so to get to the other places in the resort you can go by boat. In the resort there are shops and resturants. The whole resort is full of birds! When we checked in to the hotel, they did not welcome us well. First they said our room was not ready yet, so they gave us a free lunch at one of their restaurants. Then, after we finished eating, we found out that the room was STILL not ready yet and we needed to wait another hour but we all lost our patience. We were just so upset with the delay so we went to the Dubai Mall and came back to find our room ready. The next day the manager of the hotel sent us an apology note with cookies and three stuffed animals in the shape of camels. We forgave them and forgot about it. Other than that, the hotel was amazing.

The Chameleon

When we went to visit our garden to check on our ducks, we spotted an amazing chameleon. And here it is...

The Missing Duck

We have a garden in Jieh where we have chicken, koi fish (in a pond) and now we got two ducks! They love swiming in the pond. One afternoon, we went to the garden and had lunch with my mom's friends. We brought our two dogs with us (Shadow and Toby)and we went to have lunch, leaving Shadow swimming with the DUCKS. Shadow is a calm dog and we did not expect her to eat or hurt the ducks. When we came back to the pond, we only saw one of the ducks full of mud on it's white feathers. The other one was missing. Shadow was still in the pond panting like crazy. We were really upset because about 20 minutes ago we were excited to have ducks in our pond. Then we continued to eat not letting Shadow in the pond anymore. Suddenly the other duck appeared from nowhere. We still do not know where it came from or what happened to it!

Downtown

We are going to Dubai soon for vacation! It is REALLY DIFFERENT THAN LEBANON. This is all in Downtown (in Lebanon):

Downtown is known for it's shops.
















It is know for it's old architecture.











It is know for it's ruins.'

It's known for it's TRAFFIC!

IS THIS LEBANON?

In the Beqqa Valley there is a big monastary. It is twice as big as the university ( A.U.B ). Getting there was unbelievable! We probally passed 20 trucks, because the road to the Beqaa valley is also the road to Syria. But it was all worth it, as you can see in theese two pictures. The place was like a little farm. They had cows and calfs that were adorable. I opened my eyes breathing in the refreshing breath of nature. Then I suddenly realized that this was not a dream. It looked like Sweden, it was amazing.

Then we saw a horse, we asked one of the guys passing "do you give horseback riding lessons here"? He answered "yes", so we decided to try and ride the friendly horse. The horse was gentle and absolutely calm. I realized that for sure we will be coming back. We went into the stall and saw them milking the cows. Then we saw rabbits in a huge cage and birds in another huge cage too. Then we headed off to eat in a restaurant full of Lebaneese food and foreigners. After we ate, we went to a lake in the monastary. It was full of ducks and swans. Directly one of our dogs named Shadow jumped into the lake, scaring all the ducks away. The lake was very big but that is not it's maximuim size. When it rains the whole lake get's filled with fresh water. When we came back to Beirut, I was sad.... my dream was over.

The Path to Nature

We wanted to do something other than staying home and our dogs really needed some exercise. So we decided to take the dogs with us and go to a path leading to a camp called Eco Village. Eco Village has small huts that you sleep in, a farm and a river. The houses over there are made out of logs and sticks. I never knew that the path would stay the same as it was a year ago. I thought it was going to be full of bullets and dead trees. But it was full of life. Our dogs enjoyed walking there so much, because it was full of different smells and they love walking. On the right side of the path there was a small pond. Trying to keep our dog “Shadow” away from the pond was a challenge. She loves swimming more than anything.

The Only Park

Sometimes I feel like I want to go somewhere instead of staying home all day especially on Sundays! That's why parks exist. Beirut has no parks, well there are some parks but they are really small. Beirut finally found space to build a park. This park is not finished yet but it's open. It's mostly for riding your bike; they built part of the park on the sea. I thought it was going to be small like the other parks but it was huge. It's perfect for running and bicycling. I wish they let dogs in the park, it would have been perfect for our dogs to run around and have fun. They still have to finalize it by adding grass and more benches. Well it’s still nothing like the parks in America!

Cape Greco

When we travelled to Cyprus with our cousins we went to a famous place called Cape Greco. It’s like a cliff that’s open to the sea. It lies between the towns of Ayia Napa and Protaras, both of which are popular tourist resorts. Lots of kids jump off the cliff, but it is really high. I don't know how anyone could jump off of it. There are lots of tall rocks in the water below so if you are unlucky you could hit your head on them. It is known for the fish there, but there were no colorful fish. We saw a small boat that was sunk underwater. Underwater, it was full of scuba divers. According to local legend it is also the home of the 'Ayia Napa sea monster'. It is a very interesting place for tourists.

Fig Tree Bay

This summer we went to Cyprus with our cousins who live in Sweden, where it's freezing! It was humid in Cyprus but in Lebanon it's even more humid so we were used to it! In Cyprus, every day we went to the beach, it was super fun! We went to a famous beach called Fig Tree Bay. The beach was really beautiful... While snorkeling there, we saw lots of colorful fish, and tons of hermit crabs under the sea; it was amazing!!!! We went on an inflatable sofa being pulled by a boat; it was called The Crazy UFO. The boat was going super fast, it was a fun and bumpy ride! We even went water skiing for the second time ever! Fig Tree Bay is the best beach ever!

Hamra Festival Parade

A lot of people go to places like Downtown and the Corniche in Lebanon. There is a small street in Beirut called Hamra. People decided to make a festival for Hamra. That includes a big parade and much more stuff like concerts! We went to watch the parade. I thought it was like the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, but it was not. It was fun but putting a limping horse with a bleeding leg in the parade was just shame! But it was cool and fun with the punchbuggies and Harley motorbikes. There were also cars with figures on them. At the beginning we watched a show including clowns fooling around on the street. It was a good idea to have a festival; I'm sure it will make Hamra more popular. Even the Lebanese army came to play Lebanon’s Anthem! At the end there was an amazing fireworks show that amazed us!