Little roadtrip to the east - Prague

There is surely better weather to start with in a new year, but Prague was making it special in a certain way. The capital of the Czech Republic had some things to offer, Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, city centre for strolling around during daytime, having dinner somewhere in one of the numerous restaurants and a variety of clubs to go hard.

Surrounding mountains offer great lookouts down to the river Moldau (Vltava) and the city centre. Grab a coffee, sit down and relax.

Back in the UAE

Arriving back in UAE we had 1 day to explore Abu Dhabi as much as possible. That would mean a lot of walking through downtown Abi Dhabi (= "Father of Deer", pretty funny name). An impressive city, but way too big to walk around, and it's just not designed for doing so. One spectacular highlight was the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, the largest mosque in the UAE and numbers during Eid can be more than forty thousand people.

Always great to look at - Abu Dhabi skyline at night, seen from Abu Dhabi Theatre.

Crossing the border - entering Oman

After spending the first day in Oman, we picked up our car at the airport. Finishing the way off wasn't that easy. Numerous passport and border checkpoint were slowing us down, and it has been around midnight already. We stayed at Tobi's place, in the middle of somewhere, hard to find in the dark at 2 am. Next day: Off to Muscat.

The second day in Oman was starting with a little off road track up to Jebel Shams, Oman's highest mountain, surrounded by a massive canyon. I could rest there for hours, watching the eagles gliding the sky in cycles.

The desert Whahibi Sands in sunset. Sand as far as one can see, coloured in red. We hired a 4x4 incl. a driver to show us around a bit. Well, apperently, selt belts were not needed, everything's safe - or with other words: An offroad vehicle is simply not well equipped. Thus, I tried to grab everything that secured my stay in the Jeep while the Omani was rushing through the desert with more than 100 km/h. Luckily, we got stuck in the dunes after a while :) A must do!!!

First stop: Dubai

The flight was leaving Nuremberg at a moderate time, 10 am. Having a little stopover in Zurich, the 10 hour journey was continued without any inconveniences. Chilling and snoozing, drinking white and red wine and watching some movies, no problems to survive those few hours before entering Dubai. A taxi was waking me to the hotel at Deira City Centre. Haven't thought it could be that silent in such a mega city at 2 am. It was even difficult to get some food...

View across Dubai Creek to the old Dubai city centre. Important spot for trading everything: spices, tires, all kinds of electrical devices, jewellery, ... To cross the river, hop on those wooden boats called Abra, it just costs 20 Cent, and either you are on your own or travelling with 20 others. Perfect chance for the feet to get some rest.

Burj Khalifa, the highest tower on earth, 828m above sea level!!! The tourist platform at a hight of 452m is simply amazing. The elevator is kinda speeding to the sky with 10m/s, and the head feels like it's gonna be explode. Well, a bit!!!

View from the platform. Sand everywhere, and between that, roads, cars, skyskrapers and a few people ...

Oman, here I come

Ok, I am off now, for a couple of weeks, travelling to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and through Oman. Fleeing from the grey and drab winter weather here, coming back right before X-mas to get all my presents :D Cya then!

Away Games

Away games are not fun all the time, but that one was. Perfect weather combined with an terrific basketball game in the late afternoon can't be any better. Rothenburg o. d. Tauber seems to be the right spot for that.

We started the game a bit too sleepy, horrible defense was punished with some dunks and alley oops. 46:27 was the lead for Rothenburg after the first half. But we started fighting and won the game 66:67 after a 0:7 run in the last minute of the forth quarter. Yeah man!

Back @ Home 4 once

Little story to fill up the blog with some posts. The weekend at home was supposed to be calm, with some relaxing minutes doing nothing. Well, so good so far. Things changed on Sunday, when I got a ticket for the Kalkbrenner concert. Fritz was starting, getting the crowd to move, followed by Paul for another 4 hours. That was worth it. As a result, the bike ride going back to Erlangen the next morning was not about to happen on time. Never mind, Claus and I just wanted to see how far we can get. Destination reached at Bamberg, 8:30 pm, appox. 160 km. Not too bad, after all.