London

Before flying home for Christmas Break, I decided to stop in London for a four days. Since my layover was already going to be in London, it didn't add too much cost to the flight. One of the girls from my school decided to do the same thing, so we were able to explore London together. After hearing about how expensive London is, I nervously began looking up places to stay. I looked at hotels and hostels but was having trouble finding anything for a decent price near the downtown area. At this point, I used a site called https://www.airbnb.com/ that allows you to rent a room from someone or their entire place (depending on their options and availability). I found a great room with a young woman from Scotland that was about a 10 minute subway ride away from the main sightseeing part of London. It was way cheaper than a hotel and pretty comparable price to a hostel, but I would get my own room so it was definitely worth it.

There was so much to do and see in just four days! One of the things I was most looking forward to was going to Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland. Basically they turned a section of the park into a giant winter fair with tons of food, drinks, and Christmas markets. There were also fun rides, which I love. We spent almost the whole day walking around, eating and drinking, and riding rides. Some of the highlights were:

Bratwursts and beer - yum!

Christmas and winter... everywhere! 

Christmas markets with lots of homemade crafts

Amusement rides

We also scheduled a bike tour of London with a company that I used in Barcelona and Paris. Fat Tire Bike Tours is an amazing tour company with great guides and excellent routes around the city. We chose the Royal London Bike tour, which took us to Kensington Gardens and Palace, Buckingham Palace (right in time for the changing of the guards!), Trafalgar Square, Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben. We also got to stop at a pub for lunch and get some food and drinks during the middle of the tour. Fat Tire Bike Tours are always one of the highlights of my trip - getting to bike around and learn about a city... what could be better?!

The last day of the trip was saved for the Harry Potter Studio Tour. After some confusion about where to meet the bus, we finally made it to the Warner Bros Studio, which was about an hour outside of London. The tour was AMAZING! It was self-guided so we just got to walk through all the sets and see the costumes, props, and special effects that were used in the Harry Potter movies. It was so cool to see all this stuff for every single movie! I'm a huge Harry Potter fan (books and movies), so this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. We also got to taste butterbeer... yum!!

I loved London and hope to go back again someday. There are many things that we couldn't squeeze into our schedule, like the London Eye, that I look forward to doing next time. 

Love,

RLD

Pink Polo and Desert Safari!

The month of November was a very busy time in Abu Dhabi! I love that there is always something to do here. I know this post is extremely late but I wanted to post about two great events I attended!

In early November, there was a Pink Polo event that our school told us about. It was an event designed to raise money for breast cancer. It was held outside of Abu Dhabi but the school provided us transportation if we were interested in attending. Everyone was asked to wear pink and there would be an award for the best dressed. At the event, I rode my first camel! It was so much fun and I didn't fall.

There was also food, shopping, and polo. Not just polo that is played on horses... CAMEL polo. It was quite entertaining to watch the camels run up and down the field. Before the polo events started, there were parachuters which were really cool to see! They also let go a ton of pink balloons in honor of those with breast cancer. Overall, it was quite a nice event. And even more exciting was the fact that I made it into OK! Magazine from getting my picture taken with two other girls at the event! Check it out!

The next weekend was the desert safari. 5 of us signed up for the safari when it had a deal on Groupon and it was probably one of the best things I've done since being in Abu Dhabi! We got picked up in Abu Dhabi and taken by bus to the desert. There were dunes as far as the eye could see. When we got dropped off, we hopped into 4 Runners to dune bash our way to the camp. Dune bashing is basically driving really fast up and down the dunes and feeling like you are about to die any second. It was awesome! Our driver loved us and made it super fun.

When we got to camp, we climbed up to the top of one of the big dunes to watch the sunset. It was absolutely amazing to watch the sun drop down below the dunes in the desert. After the sunset, we decided to ride the camels. They were so cute... I love camels. I didn't fall again, thank goodness. Camel rides were followed by riding ATV's all over the desert. This was so much fun! We followed a guide and went on some dunes and all around for about 15 minutes. Once we were done with that, we decided to go into the camp to find a seat and get ready for dinner. Dinner was made up of traditional Arabic food served in a buffet. There was chicken, beef, and fish and lots of rice, hummus, and Arabic bread. It was delicious! When dinner was finished, a belly dancer came on stage. She was amazing! Towards the end, she invited anyone who wanted to learn up onto the platform. Nobody went up so she got our group to go up. I was terrible but had so much fun trying! After that, they turned the lights off and we had a few minutes to just gaze up at the sky and enjoy the beautiful night. It was a great ending to one of the best days I've had in Abu Dhabi. 

I can't wait for my dad to come in April so I can take him on a safari! 

Love,

RLD