Not much happened yesterday really. Stephen & Michael are still in Switzerland. Michael spent the day skiing and Stephen spent half the day skiing (he has hip trouble and has now decided to pack in skiing – old age setting in). the only photo I received from them yesterday was of them have a drink at the top of mountain. I am just assuming that they actually skied as I have yet to see a photo of them doing that!

On the other hand, I can comment with 100% certainty that I sat in a room the whole day in a planning session. From walking well over 10000 steps a day for almost a week, I walked less than 2000 steps yesterday which gives you an idea of how sedentary the day was for me. The worst thing is that the chairs are wooden and by the end of the afternoon my back was aching from all the sitting so I spent the last hour or so standing.

The Germans like to start late (9am) and finish late (6:30pm). I can sort of understand why because at 8:30am the sun had still not risen (not that we saw the sun the whole day because it was overcast and raining the whole time). At these meetings there is also the insane tradition that they hike up to a hut in the mountains where we have dinner in the evening. Remember this is Germany in the winter in the mountains. Usually there is snow and it is freezing cold outside. This time there isn’t any snow to be seen but it did rain the whole day (and it was still freezing cold outside 2 degrees C). When I first came to these meetings I felt obliged to walk as I thought there was no option. Now that I am more experienced I realised that the food had to get up to the hut somehow and so I now join the bus while the crazy people walk up. I have gained a small following and last night because of it raining there were 4 of us who drove up and the other 9 people walked.

Dinner in the hut is always exactly the same. You start with Smoked Salmon and Rosti and that is then followed by Spaetzle and venison stew. This year it was no different. We have one person in the group who doesn’t eat meat (but he does at least eat fish) and so he gets Smoked Salmon to start with and Smoked Salmon for his main course. It is standing joke and they make no effort to provide for him. Vegetarians in Germany are not really provided for in restaurants.

The one thing I do like about the Hotel that we stay at, is the breakfast. They always have the same thing and it is a traditional continental breakfast of rolls/bread and cheese/meat. I see this year that they actually did have some cooked sausages and bacon and there was a frying pan out so it looks like you could have egg if you asked (not that there was anyone around to cook it). However, they have a selection of about 15 cheeses and 10 different types of cold meat (and the cheeses are fantastic). The bread/rolls selection is also extensive and are generally very freshly baked.

Tonight I start my journey (and it is a journey) back to SA. It involves a 2-hour drive to the airport, then a flight to Munich with very little time to connect to my flight to Dubai and then connecting to the flight to Cape Town. Not a lot of time in-between so hopefully nothing goes wrong and I am able to make all the flights. If all goes well I will overlap with Helen for about 2 hours in Cape Town – just enough time to take custody of Chloe!

P, S & M … and H & C (from CT)

At least one section of the family has made it home. Helen and Chloe had a reasonably long lay over in the early morning in Dubai. They made a bed out of some chairs in the lounge and got a few hours sleep before having to board the flight back to Cape Town (that’s Helen sleeping in there – photo creds to Chloe). That flight was delayed in departing but they got home close to the planned arrival time anyway.

Stephen and Michael started skiing in Switzerland yesterday. Michael has skied for some time but he says he got the hang of it quite quickly again. He said at first he forgot how to turn (which is fairly crucial) but it came back to him. From the pictures it doesn’t seem to be the best of weather but they did manage to first ski at the ski school (at a place called Bodmi) and then went up to Kleine Scheidegg.

Meanwhile, I got to go into our office in Cologne for the day and work (the picture is the view from the office). I always walk to the office from the hotel (I always stay at the same hotel when in Cologne – near the Cathedral).  The walk is about 1.5 km to the office and is a nice way to start the day even when it is pretty cold outside. I was staggered yesterday to witness someone cross the road when the traffic light was RED. I don’t know what Germany is coming to.  I have never witnessed that before in the 15 years I have been coming to Germany.

At 5:30pm we left for the mountain region and a place called Schmallenberg which is where I will spend the next 2 days on a planning meeting. We do this every year. It is in the middle of nowhere and about a 2 hour drive. The first bit of the drive is on the Autobahn with no speed limit. I always travel with my boss and he has a BMW. Yesterday we got up to 200 km/h on one section. No one passes him – he would take that as an insult. He takes great joy when he passes a Porsche.

We always stay at the same hotel. It is a quite a backwards place but for the first time ever (in the 15 years of coming here), we now have WiFi in the rooms.  A major step forward. And to top it off they have installed room safes. Another first. The rooms still remain quite small – as you can see I have a single bed in my room with a very soft mattress and pillow – I may just sleep on the floor tonight. The rooms are also terribly overheated and so at 2pm I woke up bathed in sweat and had to get up and open the window to get some fresh cold mountain air in the room. I left it open the rest of the night and slept better after that.

Now off for the meeting …

P, S & M (because H is back at work today and C is at home probably sleeping in until 1pm)

Today was the last time we will all be together until 30 January and so breakfast was the last meal together (even though I said yesterday that it was dinner). We had breakfast at a Pasteleria around the corner from the hotel. It took us awhile to figure out that you had to take a ticket to get served but we did that and then managed to get our order in. Breakfast was slightly more expensive this morning at €13 but still a fraction of what it would have cost if we had eaten in the hotel. It was then back to the hotel to pack up and off to the airport. Our taxi driver clearly wanted to chat to us on the way to the airport and asked (in Portuguese) whether we spoke Portuguese. We said no.  Then he tried Italian, we said no. Then he tried Spanish and Michael said a little. The balance of the drive was taken up with him conversing with Michael in Spanish. All I could make out was that they talked about football teams. Michael said he didn’t really know what he was talking about.

Helen & Chloe are flying back to Cape Town (via Dubai). They were the first to leave and have in fact just landed in Dubai as I type this. They left on time but arrived late into Dubai. It is now almost 2am Dubai time and their next flight leaves at about 8am for Cape Town.

I was next to leave for Frankfurt (unfortunately I have to go and work). My flight was packed full.  We were pushing back off the stand and people were standing in the aisles still trying to find a spot for their suitcase in the overhead compartment. I flew TAP and it doesn’t seem that they worry too much about passenger safety. Also the worst leg room I have had on a flight – my knees were right up against the seat in front of me. Stephen & Michael were last to leave and they flew to Switzerland (Zürich). We both then had train trips to get to our final destinations. I took a train to Cologne and the boys took a train to Bern then connected onto a train to Spiez and then my Dad fetched them from the train station in Spiez (which is about 30-40 minutes car drive from Grindelwald which is where they are going).

We all seemed to have ended up in the right places at least though Helen and Chloe are only half way to where they need to be. With all the traveling today I clean forgot to take some photos. So you will have to do with a shot just taken by Michael from the living room of the chalet in Grindelwald where they are now.

P, H, S, M & C

I never really understand why hotels charge so much for breakfast. Our hotel charges €18 per person for breakfast. We walked down the road on route to our appointment this morning and all had breakfast for €10.35. I am not sure how it is possible to even eat €18 of breakfast. The only challenge really was once we found a place to have breakfast was to figure out how to order. Many people just seemed to stand at the counter and have their pastry and coffee. Best coffee I have had this trip so far and it only cost €0.55!

The reason we came to Lisbon was to renew our residency permits for Portugal. We had to do biometrics and also sign some papers at the lawyer’s office who is handling all this for us.  On route I also visited our Portuguese bank which went bankrupt since I opened the account but subsequently re-opened as Novo Banco (meaning new Bank). The previous incarnation was Banco Espirito Santo (which means Bank of Holy Spirit). Seemed it wasn’t too Holy. Or maybe it was ‘holey’. Even though it went bankrupt it didn’t affect my accounts at all. Our banker had not changed, the branches seems unaffected, my money was not affected, the website still worked the same. My only reason for visiting was that I had never managed to get my ATM card working. The banking service is very good though in Portugal. Even though I have only dealt with my banker once face-to-face when I opened the account, she still remembers who I am and in about 2-3 minutes she had issued me with a new PIN and the card was working.

We then headed to the lawyer’s office to sign the forms we needed signed and then one of their staff took us down to the Home Affairs department to do our biometrics. It pretty much looks like Home Affairs in SA – they even have exactly the same queuing automated system (and yes I really mean exactly the same one). Last time it took us about 2 hours and the queue’s looked roughly the same so we were expecting the same wait. As it turned out when we got our number we were actually next but it took about 30 minutes for us to get called. We were later told the reason was that the system crashed. All we really had to do was have an updated photo taken (they have very fancy digital photo taking machines) and then we were done. Unfortunately they say the renewals now take 3-4 months to process. The reason being that they discovered corruption happening in the issuing of these permits and so now they are very thoroughly looking over all the details before approving them.

It was lunch time so we started our walk back to our hotel and on route stopped in at Burger King for lunch. I discovered that the girlfriends apparently don’t eat Burger King. Just wondering what they are going to do for meals next year when they travel with us … we might need to get the sons to start training them.

We had a few hours in the hotel and then headed out up the hill (my Fitbit said I had climbed 59 staircases at the end of the day when I had really only climbed about 5) to visit what was billed as the best Mall in Lisbon. What always surprises me in Europe is how people parallel park on a steep incline with very little space between the cars (see photo – not the first one that was trying to illustrate the run down buildings). How do they get their cars out of those spots without scrapping on the other cars?! After working about 30 minutes and again noting the derelict buildings right next to the brand new ones, we came across the mall which was right next to an abandoned golf driving range now covered in graffiti. After experiencing Dubai Mall, this Mall was pretty poor. Even comparing it to any of our Malls at home would have been unfair. The Portuguese really need to learn about what a decent Mall is. There must be a business opportunity in Portugal in that regard. The only people to actually buy anything was Stephen and Michael who both bought some really cheap clothes.  Michael got a ski jacket for R420 (€30) – marked down from €100 – pretty good deal and he didn’t even have to bargain for it.

We then walked back to our hotel to rest our very weary feet. At that point my Fitbit said we had walked over 15000 steps already, 59 stair cases and almost 12km.  We agreed to eat dinner in the hotel but when we went down later we discovered that the restaurant didn’t seem to be operating and so we had to find another place to go to. We had originally been recommended to stay at the Tivoli Hotel in Lisbon and it was quite nearby to where we did stay (we didn’t follow the advice because the hotel was 3 x more expensive than the one we ended up staying in). However, we did go there for dinner tonight. We realised that it is actually our last night together until 30 January and so it seemed fitting to eat a nice meal together in a better quality restaurant. And it was a good quality restaurant though the prices were still quite reasonable by European standards.

The kids all tried something new. Stephen ate guinea fowl for the first time (Michael and I also had it but we have eaten it before). The guinea fowl also came with chestnuts as the vegetable (not really sure it is a vegetable in my mind) and none of the kids had tried them before. It is safe to say they won’t be rushing back to have them again either. I eat them but there quite honestly are better things to eat. As it was our last night we all also had desert. Most of you know I don’t really eat desert but I make exceptions for a few things and one of them was on the menu – Crepe Suzette. When I see it, I generally always have them and they were right up there with the best I have had.

Back to the hotel and 17804 steps, 13.3kms, 62 step floors and 2953 calories burned today from all the walking around Lisbon.

S (because my Fitbit fell out of my pocket today and Stephen spotted it and it would have been lost for good otherwise), P, H, M & C

Up at 3:30am this morning for our 4am pick up. Some of us managed more sleep than others. I was rudely awaken to the munching of peanuts at midnight and when I said ‘noisy’ my dear wife replied ‘really’ … Some of us were getting a good night sleep up until that point.  Our flight was at 7am and so we managed to have some breakfast in the lounge before we had to board. It was a 9-hour flight with a 4-hour time change. Helen & Chloe went to sleep almost immediately and that was how they passed the first 5 hours of the flight. I managed to sleep for an hour and 30 minutes and then watched 2 movies and 2 TV episodes.

We landed at 12pm and after a short wait at passport control we were back in our home country of residence – Portugal! The passport guy did ask us whether we spoke Portuguese yet and we had to admit no. Helen immediately said she was going to download an app and start learning it. It was a beautiful winter’s day in Lisbon – around 20 degrees C.  We are staying at the Eurostars Das Letras in Lisbon (http://www.eurostarsdasletras.com/EN/hotel.html) which is pretty central and near to the centre of town (I think that is close to tautology but not quite … I am sure Josie will tell me?)

After everyone (except me) had an early afternoon nap, we ventured out at just after 4pm and walked down into the centre of town. On the side of the main road (Avenida da Liberdade – my guess at a translation would be Avenue of Liberty) there were various stalls selling antique jewellery, pocket watches, old tiles, old books etc. It took us awhile to get down the road because of the various stops and Helen managed to buy herself a ring as well (or actually I bought her a ring).

Lisbon is a city of anomalies to me. You will find a beautiful old building and then right next to it will be a derelict building with the windows boarded over. They have lovely old trams and then there is graffiti all over it. I am sure that it is showing the effects of the financial crisis and hasn’t yet recovered. It seems that with a little bit of money and renovation it could be an absolutely beautiful city.

In the centre of Lisbon there is a pedestrian only section and there were numerous people performing. People acting statues, a guy walking on broken glass, some musical performers etc. Lots of people walking up and down enjoying the weather and the performers.  We walked all the way to sea and then watched the sunset. There were a lot people there all watching the sun going down. Lots of couples making out as well. No issue with public displays of affection in Lisbon. I am sure Stephen and Michael were thinking of their girlfriends (though I definitely hope they don’t engage in PDA of a similar type). Quite a culture shock compared to Dubai. We took various family selfies with the sun setting in the background.

The temperature immediately fell once the sun had set and so we started making our way back to the hotel with a planned dinner stop on route. There are numerous sidewalk restaurants and it is pretty hard to pick. We eventually chose one – an Italian one. We really do need to eat in a Portuguese restaurant tomorrow night. The one thing that was immediately noticeable is how much cheaper Portugal is compared to Dubai. The meal cost us about 50% of what we paid in Dubai (and that included a nice big Sagres beer). In Europe the beer is often cheaper than the cooldrinks in restaurants so I feel obliged to rather drink beer to save on costs.

By the time we had finished eating Michael’s teeth were chattering and he couldn’t eat anymore because he was so cold. Everyone except Stephen and I turned out to be inadequately dressed and so we made our way back to the hotel at a fast pace. The only problem is that the last 300 meters or so is directly uphill. My Fitbit claimed at the end that we had climbed 13 flights of stairs (to give you some idea of the incline). We were all panting by the time we got to the hotel. I am sure it will help us all sleep well tonight (so long as no one starts munching peanuts at midnight again).

P, H, S, M, C (only those last two did any mocking of me today)

Another late start to the day with breakfast at 10:30am and then straight after breakfast we decided to head for the Gold Souk. Given the weekend traffic, that took us almost an hour to get there (about 35kms). We had been told the Gold Souk was a must visit place even if you didn’t buy anything and they were right. I have never seen so many jewellery stores in one place.  There are over 300 stores right next to each. The competition is clearly intense as each shop owner tries to lure you inside with special offers. You can’t walk a few steps without someone badgering you to enter their store. At one stage there were so many people I was fearing for Chloe’s safety (especially if you watched the movie Taken you will know what I am talking about) and so I held her hand tightly with my other hand on my wallet (they warn that pick pockets operate in the area).

It is clear that people here love gold. Gold cars, gold Playstations and no shortage of gold jewellery. It is staggering how much jewellery and money must have been in that one place.  At one stage we walked past one jeweler that had a gold bar weighing 160kgs in the store (that is worth over $6m).  Not kidding! Dubai apparently trades about $6bn per year in gold and $7bn in diamonds. The combined value of jewellery in the Souk must be massive. They say security is tight but there were hardly any security guards but a massive number of CCTVs though. If that was in South Africa there would be numerous robberies and attempted robberies every day.  Everyone would be scheming how to steal the 160kg bar!

Michael did his first bartering in the morning as well. He wanted to buy a souvenir Burq Khalifa and we found a suitable one. He asked how much and was told AED20 and he immediately counter bid with ‘I only have AED10 in my pocket right now’.  They settled on AED15. Michael reckon he did well because that was a 25% reduction and we had read that it was possible to bargain them down by about 30% usually. When he started Helen just turned to me and said ‘I can’t believe that is my son bargaining’. I was very proud – clearly brought him up well.

The biggest challenge of the day was finding a taxi to get us from Souk back to the Dubai Mall (a repeat visit was required by the ladies). Everyone seemed to be wanting a taxi and we had the added complication of needing one big enough for 5 of us. We eventually secured one and got to the Mall around 2pm. It seemed that most of Dubai had the same idea though. Men and ladies split up – men to watch a movie and ladies to shop. The movie theater’s are like everything else in Dubai – very plush. Comfortable seats, lots of leg room. Of course they also have Premier Suites if you don’t want to fraternize with the ordinary people you can have your own private suite where they will serve your seafood platter while you watch. It also surprised us that it seems anyone in Dubai watches movies from the most religious (in their full burka’s with only a slit for the eyes) to the most secular. We would have thought that Western movies for the strictly religious people would have been outlawed but it seems not.

We met up at 5:30pm and decided on an early supper and selected a Shake Shack (fast food American burger place) which had a view over the fountains. Every evening they have a fountain show to music from 6pm and every 30 minutes thereafter until 11pm. The internet suggested the best place was from a restaurant and so that is what we did. We managed to catch two shows and they were set to different music – the second one at 6:30pm being more impressive.  Each shows lasts around 30 minutes. The Burj Khalifa also lights up as part of the show. It was pretty impressive and thousands of people exit the mall to see it every 30 minutes. As this was our last night in Dubai and we have to get up early (3:30am) for our flight tomorrow, we headed back to pack and have an early night.

Until tomorrow from a different city and continent …

P, S (because he mocked the least today), H (because she bit her tongue a few times today even though she was smirking), C & M (because they never bit their tongues – in fact M shouldn’t even make it onto the list)

Our sleeping hours are still very much on SA time it seems. Everyone seemed to go to sleep late and so at 10am I woke up the kids so we could get to breakfast before it closed. I had suggested we try the other breakfast venue this morning on the Lower Ground – boy did I pay for that mistake for the rest of day. Firstly it took us about 5 minutes to get a lift down and then when we got down there was a queue for a table. So we got back into a lift again to go back up to the 35th floor except that particular lift only went as far as the 33rd floor. The balance of the day for me was spent fielding off verbal jabs about breakfast.

We decided to try out the gulf sea today and so went down to the beach in front of the hotel. The section is only for the hotel guests and has umbrella’s and sun loungers and a full bar service. My desire for a beer could finally be fulfilled. Only problem was after ordering it I was bankrupted because it cost AED45 (R140, $13).  Probably the most expensive beer I have ever drunk. Helen, Stephen and Michael swam, Chloe and I paddled. We then spent the rest of the morning and the first few hours of the afternoon reading or sleeping on the sun loungers. A nice relaxing few hours.

We went down the Walk and had a late lunch at about 3pm. We then continued on the Walk down the beach. As it is Friday which is the first day of the weekend here, the Walk and beach area was packed with people and very festive. It has a rubberized running track and various pieces of exercise equipment as well. It was also an opportunity to spot all the expensive cars in Dubai. There is not an old car to be seen and the majority of cars are what we would call luxury cars. Clearly no shortage of cash. Just in our time out over lunch we saw a Rolls Royce (actually 2 – one in gold of course), Ferrari’s, Porsche, Corvette and numerous others. They seem to love any type of black Mercedes (they clearly only come in one colour here in Dubai) and the other very popular car is are Toyota Landcruisers (definitely the 4×4 of choice).  Made us feel right at home.

After the high paced day everyone want to relax for a little in the hotel room and we caught up with non-stop coverage of the terrorist attacks in Paris by watching Sky News and CNN and comparing their reporting styles. We also watched our first ever Camel race on TV (with Arabic commentary). The camels are mounted with a radio controlled jockey. The owners drive next o the camels and control the jockey from their 4x4s. So you have a picture of the camels racing with about 25 4x4s riding next to the track. I hope the photo of the TV screen does it justice!

We had planned to go to the Gold Souk this evening and then to see the fountains at the Burj Khalifa but our energy had waned and so we decided to rather walk to the Dubai Marina and have dinner there and walk around the Mall. It is about 1km from our hotel and quite a pleasant walk over the Dubai Creek with some spectacular night views of the skyline. Dinner at an Italian restaurant means we have now covered cuisine from 4 different countries in 2 days.

I was roundly criticized this morning for not signing off the blog last night so I am not going to make that mistake again.

P (no one else is listed because they all spent the day mocking me!)

Yesterday at 1:30pm we left Cape Town for Dubai on Emirates Airlines.  It is a 9:30 hour flight which took slightly longer because it seemingly took us forever to actually land at Dubai airport.  We eventually landed at 1:30am. It was quite a good flight.  Emirates have Wifi on their planes for $1 for 500MB. Needless to say everyone was very soon on the WiFi.  No doubt two of the members were Whatsapping their girlfriends, Helen and Chloe caught up on Social media and I (responsibly) did some work. We also all managed to fit in a few movies.

The airport experience was relatively painless in that we got through passport control very quickly, luggage come off quickly and we were on our way to the hotel pretty quickly as well.  We got to the hotel at about 2:30am (which was 12:30am SA time) and by the time we had checked in and settled it and managed to get into bed it was 3am.  We are staying at the Hilton the Walk Jumeriah which is on the gulf coast.  It is one of many hotels along the strip of coastline which is pretty much dominated by hotels and restaurants. We have a 3-bedroom apartment (which includes a lounge, dining and kitchen – not that we plan to do any cooking while here). Our room is on the 29th floor and every time we go up in the lifts my ears pop.  We have a view over the gulf and the Palm Jumeriah.

The weather here is pretty mild for mid-winter.  When we arrived yesterday it was 20C and today it was 27C. It is pretty dry (being the Middle East) and so it is quite pleasant outside.

We woke up at about 10am this morning and made it for breakfast at 10:30am (fortunately breakfast finishes at 11am each morning). After breakfast we decided to head for the Dubai Mall.  We then wondered about dress code and after some internet browsing came to the conclusion that Chloe should cover up more of her arms and legs before we ventured out and the long pants for the men were safer than shorts. As it turned out, no one seems to be overly worried about dress code in Dubai. Public displays of affection are frowned upon and in fact there are actually signs along the beach walk that say no public affection. No kissing Helen then except in the privacy of our hotel room.

The Dubai Mall is the largest Mall in the World and includes 1200 shops.  It also has the ticket and access point to the Burj Khalifa which is the tallest building in the World as well as an Aquarium and Indoor zoo.  More people visit the Dubai Mall each year than visit New York City (a useless fact for you to repeat at the next dinner party you attend and you can impress everyone present with your knowledge).  The Mall really is massive (by the time we left I had walked over 10000 steps already (about 8km).  We agreed to split up so that Helen and Chloe could do the clothes thing and the boys and I could focus on the electronics. Between us we probably only cover a quarter of the Mall in the time we were there.  We agreed to meet at 2pm so that we could have some lunch and then visit the Aquarium. Before we split up though we noticed the ‘Gold to Go’ ATM machine next to the ATMs. Only in Dubai could you have a machine that delivers gold to you through an ATM!  We also saw a gold plated Playstation 4 (for the meager sum of R250k or $25k), a gold plated Range Rover and a gold plated Bose speaker set.  The people here are clearly in love of gold!

Lunch was at a Dim Sum restaurant (and was quite good) and then we went to the Aquarium and Indoor zoo.  The aquarium is really one big glass tank with thousands of fish inside it (33 000 to be precise). There are numerous sharks, stingrays (and other rays) and numerous other types of fish. You can walk through a tunnel under the tank and the rays swim right along with you allowing some fantastic photo and selfie opportunities. After the aquarium we visited the indoor zoo which hosts species from the desert (like scorpions, owls and other stranger desert creatures) as well as penguins, otters and even a massive crocodile from Australia (it currently weighs the combined weight of 14 men).  In combination it was easily worth the AED80 that it cost per person (AED is local currency called dirhams and is about $1=AED3.7 or 1AED=R3.15).

Taxi back to the hotel (the Mall is 25kms from the hotel) and we were back at the hotel just before 5pm. In the room was a birthday cake for Michael (who turned 17 today). We made him light the candle and we sung happy birthday to him. I think he was touched by the gesture.  Helen, Stephen and I went to have afternoon tea on the 35th floor and when we got back the other two was already fast asleep and Stephen soon joined them.

Given our clocks are out of sync, we decided on a late dinner. As I have already mentioned we are in an area called the Walk and it is literally a few kms of hotels and restaurants in both directions from our hotel. We headed out one way looking for a restaurant and the first one we liked the look of was Butcher’s Grill – yes the South African one!  We decided that eating at a SA restaurant seemed wrong and so we walked on and eventually went to Leopald of London (which from my Google search is not found in London but only in the UAE).  It was quite though relatively pricey (about R2000 for dinner for the 5 of us), the only problem being that no alcohol is served and I am going through withdrawal symptoms for a beer.