On Wednesday, while Melanie was wrapping up her work, I headed to the slopes.  That’s right, there is snow skiing in Dubai.  It’s indoor, but still it was a ski slope completely with snow, chair lifts, penguins, and screaming kids.  I was told it was one of the biggest indoor slopes, if not the biggest, in the world but despite it being a bunch of fun it was a bit overwhelming.  All I could think was that if this was the biggest, then those others out there must really be small and pointless.  I’m not a very good skier, having been only twice in my life, including the trip we took almost a year ago for spring break, but after about an hour of getting off at the first stop of the lift I found myself zipping down from the top.  It took longer to ride the lift to the top than it did to get to the bottom and get back on the lift.  Unlike golf I had a few people to talk to on the ride up as well as be encouraged and goaded into going to the top.  A couple of times I rode with a nice Asian woman that was zipping down the hill confidently on her snow board and she gave me positive encouragement and advice on improving my skiing.  The other encouragement, goading, I received was from a 12 year old Russian boy that kept telling me in his broken English “You go to the top!”.  I would receive waves as he zipped past me and sighs if he was on the lift with me when I would get off at the half way point.  He had quite the proud look when he finally saw me riding to the top.  All in all I went up and down almost nonstop for about four hours and I am still paying for it in soreness.  Today is our last day and as we search for things to do to eat away our time I am hoping Melanie will want to ski so I can show off my ability to ski from the top like a big boy.  Full disclosure: even from the top the slopes are a green.

At least it is when you play alone.  On Tuesday, while Melanie was working, I took off to the Montgomery golf club for a round of golf.  On the way I found this impala roaming the streets of Dubai.

When I arrived I was very happy to find myself playing alone as after a couple of months off I was a bit self-conscious of my game.  It turned out to be a very good thing that I was alone as I was also playing with rental clubs and despite popular opinion a good craftsman can blame his tools.  I quickly discovered how much I love my own clubs and after finding myself talking to myself and then answering, out loud, I realized that I also miss playing with my buddies.

I am happy to say that I broke 90, so all in all it was a good round.  More importantly I got to take in some spectacular views while playing a game I love and having a great conversation with the funniest guy I know…me.

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