Stevenson family research project - England and Dubai

 

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Christmas is normally a time for families to get together but this year, the Stevo's have scattered around the globe! Erin took off for her semester at Arizona University in Tucson, while Ian and Jenny spent two weeks in the UK battling the snow and checking out locations for a school tour later in the year. We got really excited when the thermometer on the car dashboard got to 3 degrees!!!
They saw the stage productions of 'Billy Elliot' and the new Michael Jackson musical 'Thriller'' (all in the name of research!) before heading down to Salisbury, Sherborne, Bath and Oxford. From Oxford we visited Will Shakespeare's house at Stratford Upon Avon (he wasn't home, though) and Warwick Castle, before walking the Colleges of Oxford to see where the brilliant and famous studied. Fans of the Harry Potter movies and Inspector Morse would recognise many of the buildings and streets. Called in to visit Liz and Phil at Windsor Castle (they were't home either) before spending two days thawing out in Dubai on the way home.

If you ever want to see what piles of money can buy, go to Dubai. Apparently one of the local sheiks likes animals so he made a lake and imported about a thousand flamingos! The temperatures in summer range around 50 c, so the air-conditioned shopping centers compete for customers by installing increasingly outrageous attractions; one has a skating rink, another has a giant fish tank which reaches 5 floors and another one has indoor skiing to keep the kids amused! While the shopping centers are crammed with up-market stores like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Armani etc, the shop-keepers weren't exactly run off their feet with customers. A coffee and a muffin cost $14 so one wonders how sustainable the whole project really is?

Perhaps the highlight for us was 'dinner on the dunes': after an hour or so of 4X4 hooning over sand dunes we arrived at a Bedouin camp where Ian enjoyed a sheesha and I had a henna tattoo of a camel put on my ankle. There was a belly-dancer, camel rides and all sorts of yummy food and baklava. Oh well, back to gym and the bike to wear off those full english breakfasts!