Italy: Siena

Siena is prominent city in Tuscany and is rich in history. Like Florence, it has a spectacular Duomo. We walked through the city to the Piazzo Del Campo. The kids loved running around and Henry stalked the many pigeons waiting for food. We got a little wet from a noontime shower. But since we haven’t seen rain for 5 months (or experienced anything besides hot and sand) it was a welcome change.

Italy: Wine Tasting and Cooking Classes

Wine is an important part of Woolley dinners, so we had to take a tour to taste some Brunello and Chianti Classico. We hired a driver named Guido who took us to three different estates: Barbi, Fanti and Poggio Antico. Guido was a wonderful guide. The wines were quite good – the highlight for Steve was the 2001 Brunello Reserva.

Maria, Jenn, Eric and Mindy took a cooking class. Villma, the teacher, spoke little English, but the group learned about making pastas and sauces and carry with them “the Villma’s” secrets. We all look forward to the tasting the results.

Italy: Pisa

We flew out of Pisa to head back to Dubai. And what would a visit to Pisa be without seeing the leaning tower. The kids were too young to climb the tower but enjoyed being able to see it.

Auntie Jenn Visit: Ski Dubai

Auntie Jenn stopped over on her way to a conference in Cairo. We were very excited to have her come; the girls counted the days until her arrival and have been all over her since she arrived.

Our first adventure was to Ski Dubai. Maria, Anna and Kate had been before, but Steve had not. So we thought it would be fun to go. Kate and Maria decided she'd stick with the Snow Park. Anna, Auntie Jenn and Steve went skiing. All had fun. It was a rather strange sensation to feel cold considering it was nearly 100 outside.

Steve's Dubai Birthday

We celebrated Steve’s birthday the week of April 14. Maria and the girls prepared a wonderful steak dinner and made and decorated a birthday cake. We've been watching Star Wars on t.v. lately so I thought that would be a good theme for the cake. Anna and Kate decorated the cake with the Death Star, spaceships and stars.

Most of the beef in Dubai comes from Australia, and like high-end grocery stores back home, Dubai has many opportunities to spend a lot of money on high-grade beef. We took a pass on the 400 Dirhams / kilo aged, Australian beef. That’s ~ $50/lb! The dinner was terrific and we opened a bottle of red wine. Our alcohol license is in process (it should be ready in a month). In the meantime, we enjoy the few bottles we are permitted to bring in from duty-free at the airport.

Later in the evening we heard a knock on the door. Maria told me it was our “car washing person”. But it turned out to be our friends Nael and Deanna for a surprise visit. And, they brought fresh kanafeh from a shop in Al Sharjah. It was delicious and brought back fond memories of Jordan.

Nael’s birthday is April 21, so we decided to celebrate Steve and Nael’s birthdays together on Friday, April 18. Maria made reservations for cocktails at the famous Burj Al Arab and Deanna made dinner reservations Pierchic, a seafood restaurant at Al Qasr, one of the beautiful hotel complexes at Madinat Jumeirah. It is built on pilings about 100 meters off the beach.

For those that don’t know, the Burj Al Arab is one of Dubai’s icons – certainly the one that is currently recognized the most. It was built on a man-made island 280 meters offshore, and at 321 meters it is the tallest building used exclusively as a hotel – although the new Rose Tower in Dubai reached 333 meters and will eclipse the Burj Al Arab when it opens this year. It is a 7 Star hotel and serves dignitaries (like President Bush) and the world’s wealthy. Starting at about $3,500/night, it is not for everyone. The high rates are understandable considering it cost an estimated $650 million to construct.

We dined Dubai style – drinks at 7 p.m. and dinner at 10 p.m. The kids slept at Nael and Deanna’s home until we picked them up to go home at about 2:15 a.m.

It was a memorable birthday.

Steve

Jordan Adventure

One of the great things about Dubai is that most people have just arrived, or have lived in the city for a relatively short period of time. As we discovered when planning Kate’s birthday, most families are accepting of new friends and willing to help newcomers get settled in.

Deanna and Nael Said have been two of the many wonderful people we’ve met in Dubai. One night while we were out with them enjoying a dinner of Moroccan food we talked about taking a vacation to Jordan during our kid’s spring break. Part of the vacation would be to see the country and its sites; the other would be spent with Nael’s parents and siblings, many of whom live in Amman. Deanna turned out to be a terrific travel planner and was gracious enough to make all the arrangements for us. All we had to do is purchase our plane tickets and show up.

When we arrived at the airport we couldn’t help having flashbacks to our RV trip to Yellowstone last summer. Like that trip, this one had 4 adults and 5 kids – albeit the average age of the kids was a bit higher. So on March 19 we piled on to an Emirates Airlines plane and enjoyed our 3 hour flight to Amman to start our 10 day trip.

Jordan – Family and Hospitality

While we were in Amman, we stayed at the home of Nael’s parents, Bahjat and Newar Said. Nael and Deanna are gracious friends and hosts, and now we know where that comes from. The Said’s welcomed our family as if we were life-long friends. We felt like special guests. And when we offered to take them out to dinner as a way of showing our gratitude, they declined and instead said we could take them out when they visited us in MN.

The families of Nael’s older brother Basil and younger brother Feras also hosted and joined us for dinner and activities during the day. They have children the same age as our crew, so lots of fun was had for all the little ones. All told there were 11 kids running around the house.

The food was fantastic. Each dinner and breakfast provided wonderful opportunities to try different foods and combinations. Steve enjoyed Halloumi cheese and honey in the morning, particularly if it was fried in olive oil. Maria enjoyed the humus and labneh cheese with fig jam on an Arabic bread. The dinners of grilled meats, stuffed grape leaves, zucchinis, and huge prawns were wonderful. And we fell in love with kanafeh, a dessert originating from Nablus and made from cheese and a fine pasta and sweet rose water syrup. Kanafeh is best when fresh and warm and we constantly felt the urge to drive to the local kanafeh restaurant to get a slice. We have a recipe for it, but we doubt we’ll be able to duplicate the experience.

We also learned more about the strife between the Palestinians and Israelis in the occupied West Bank. We appreciated learning more about the topic from the Palestinians' perspective. It is truly heartbreaking to hear and see the things happening there.

All-in-all our trip to Jordan was amazing. We would have enjoyed our visit if we traveled there on our own as the people were friendly and welcoming. But traveling and staying with the Said family made the trip so much more real, and we are grateful for this.