Apr 2024 – Jun 2024

Last day in Salzburg. Three days of mountains, and we still hadn’t properly done the castle. The Hohensalzburg Fortress — the massive thing that sits on top of the hill and stares down at the entire old town like it’s judging everyone’s life choices.

Time to storm it.

The View from the Top

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We got up early, which meant we basically had the place to ourselves. The morning light was perfect and the fortress delivered immediately.

The first room we found had a cannon aimed out the window. I approved of this immediately.

Inside the Fortress

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The courtyard was empty. Just us, some pigeons, and 900 years of history.

Murder Holes

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The ramparts had a view south toward the Untersberg — the same mountain that tried to kill us two days ago.

But the real discovery was inside. We found a murder hole. An actual, look-straight-down-at-where-the-attackers-would-be murder hole, with an iron grate over it.

Naturally, we had to look down it.

I have been obsessed with murder holes ever since I learned they existed. The concept is perfect. You build a little overhang, you leave gaps in the floor, and when someone tries to break down your door, you pour terrible things on them from above. It’s architecture with attitude. It’s defense with drama. Every castle should have them. And this one let us look straight down through it.

The Deep Fortress

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The corridors got narrower. The walls got thicker. The doors got heavier.

Then we found the horn room.

I don’t know how else to describe it. A corridor full of brass horns and trumpets mounted to the walls, connected by a tangle of piping that ran up the walls and across the ceiling. This is apparently related to the Salzburger Stier — a massive mechanical organ from 1502 that still “roars” daily. Salzburg, you are deeply weird and I respect that.

The Golden Hall

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Then the fortress stopped being a fortress and started being a palace.

The Golden Hall had a blue coffered ceiling studded with hundreds of gold bosses meant to look like a starry sky. Gothic wood paneling, heraldic crests, long white-linen tables. The Prince-Archbishops who lived here were supposedly men of God. They had very expensive taste in ceilings.

Next door, the Golden Room was even more ornate — a massive Gothic tiled stove sitting on ceramic lions, gold-leaf coffered ceiling, painted walls. All inside a fortress built for war. The contrast was absurd.

And then, behind an ornate paneled door: a medieval toilet. Because even Prince-Archbishops needed to go, and apparently they needed to go in style.

The Pretzel Quest

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On the way out, we passed a food stall selling massive pretzels, bratwurst, and Bosna. The Red Bull fridge reminded us we were in the birthplace of the energy drink empire. We noted the pretzels. We filed this information away.

See, there was a specific pretzel place in town that Nicholas had been wanting to try. The problem: it was only open during certain hours, and every time we’d walked by, it was either closed or “getting ready.”

On our last pass through, it was open. And it had a line. A very, very long line.

Nicholas wanted that pretzel. Pokin looked at him, looked at the line, and said she’d handle it. She walked back and stood in the line while Nicholas waited with the luggage.

The verdict: the pretzel was massive. And it was… okay. Just okay. A for effort. Full marks for dedication. But the pretzel itself was aggressively average.

Sometimes the quest is better than the prize.

Onwards

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Four days in Salzburg. We came for the Sound of Music hills and couldn’t get to them. We hiked the Untersberg and got chased off by lightning. We scrambled up a mountain labeled “experienced only” just because the sign was there. We stormed a 900-year-old fortress and found murder holes, a golden ceiling, a mechanical horn organ, and a medieval toilet.

Salzburg was supposed to be a quick stop. It turned into one of the best stretches of the whole trip.

Next stop: Munich. I’ve been told there will be beer. I’ve been promised there will be pretzels. Better ones, hopefully.

Day 3 in the Salzburg region. We’d already hiked Kapuzinerberg, wandered the fortress walls, and gotten chased off the Untersberg by lightning. Naturally, the plan for today was: more hiking. A different mountain this time, out east of the city near the lakes.

The Approach

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The morning started with a walk through one of those immaculate Austrian villages where even the cows look like they’ve been briefed on presentation standards.

We passed by a lake on the way to the trailhead. I insisted on a photo. The water was calm, the mountains were doing their thing, and I looked fantastic. Standard.

The trail started gently. A wide gravel path through dense green forest, the kind of walk where you think “this is nice” and forget that you’re gaining elevation.

Then the trees opened up and we got our first real view: rolling meadows, a golf course (because Austria), scattered farmhouses, and a sliver of lake in the distance.

The Ruins

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About an hour up, we reached a castle ruin tucked into the forest. Moss-covered walls, old stone steps disappearing into the trees, and a memorial plaque set into the rock. The plaque was dedicated to one Nicolaus Gaertner, among others.

Nicholas photographed it immediately. Obviously.

From the lookout near the ruins, the valley opened up below. Farmland, villages, forests, and what looked like a lake glinting in the distance.

I took my position on the tower lookout and surveyed my lands. Everything the light touches, and so on.

The Split

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Then we reached the sign.

Two routes to the summit. One normal. One labeled SCHWER — difficult, for experienced hikers only. Nicholas looked at the sign, looked at Pokin, and they agreed to split up. He’d take the extreme route. She’d take the normal one. They’d meet at the top.

I was in his bag. I did not get a vote.

The Scramble

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The extreme route was not messing around. The easy forest path was gone. Instead: limestone walls, narrow ledges, exposed rock, and views straight down through the trees to a turquoise lake far below.

Nicholas did his usual mountain goat thing, scrambling up through the rock and reaching the summit area at about 1,378 meters. At the top, we found a weird little installation: handmade figures with hats and sunglasses sitting on the summit furniture. Very Austrian. Very charming. Very unexplained.

Then he ran back down the other side to find Pokin, who was working her way up the normal route. They met somewhere in the middle.

The Reunion at the Top

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Pokin’s route had its own finale. The last section involved fixed steel cables and metal footholds bolted into the limestone. She climbed it smiling, which says more about her than it does about the difficulty rating.

Together at the top, the views were huge. Summit cross, jagged limestone, and layer after layer of mountains fading into the distance.

The Descent

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We hiked back down through the forest, trading summit rock for tree cover and switchbacks.

The Conference Call

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Back in the village where we started, Nicholas’s phone rang. Work. He found a bench by the lake, put his headset on, and took a conference call with mountains behind him and a boathouse across the water. The people on the other end had absolutely no idea.

I sat next to him for the duration and offered no help whatsoever.

Three days in. Three mountains. Nicholas keeps finding things labeled “difficult” and treating them as suggestions. Pokin keeps climbing them anyway. And I keep ending up in the bag for the steep parts, which is honestly where I prefer to be.

One more day in Salzburg. Something about a castle, I’m told.

After yesterday’s failed Sound of Music pilgrimage, Nicholas decided that if the famous hills wouldn’t have him, he’d find his own mountain. Specifically, the Untersberg, which rises about 1,800 meters straight up from the Salzburg valley floor and has a cable car. Because Nicholas loves nature, but he loves efficiency more.

The Untersbergbahn runs from Grödig, a small town just south of Salzburg, all the way up to the Geiereck summit station at 1,776 meters. That’s a 1,320-meter altitude gain in about eight minutes. Nicholas approved of this math immediately.

Up the Mountain

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We stepped off the cable car and into what looked like an entirely different country. The valley was a patchwork of green fields and tiny towns far below. The airport runway looked like a piece of tape someone left on the floor. And the sky was doing something dramatic.

The ridge trail was wide and pale, with gravel paths winding along the plateau and views dropping away on both sides. It felt very exposed. Very alpine. Very “this would be a great place to get struck by lightning.”

We found a scenic lookout with an information board and the whole valley spread out behind us. You could see rain falling somewhere in the distance, which was either very scenic or very concerning depending on how much you trust weather.

There was a summit cross. We had to pose with it. The sky behind it looked like the opening credits of a Viking movie.

The Weather Changes Its Mind

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And then, very quickly, it stopped approving.

The fog came in like someone pulled a curtain across the ridge. One minute we had views for fifty kilometers. The next, we could see about twenty feet. There was still snow on the ground in patches, which in June feels like the mountain is showing off.

The trail got rockier. Rooty. There were sections threading through dwarf pines with Austrian red-and-white trail markers, and then suddenly you’d be next to another lingering snowfield that nobody had warned you about. June. Snow. Sure.

Then the fog cleared for about thirty seconds and the valley appeared again, framed by a torn cloud ceiling. It looked completely fake. Like someone had Photoshopped the Alps into a gap in the clouds just to mess with us.

Time to Leave

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The weather was not improving. The fog was thickening, and Nicholas started hearing what might have been distant thunder. When you’re on an exposed alpine ridge at 1,850 meters and the sky starts making threats, you take the hint.

I was not sad about this. The lightning was admittedly cool (I’m part thunderbird, it’s in my DNA), but exposed ridges and rain are two of my least favorite things, and the mountain was delivering both with enthusiasm. We retreated to the cable car and rode back down to Grödig, where the weather was, naturally, perfect again.

Mountains.

Evening: The Other Side of Town

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Back in Salzburg, the sky was clear and the evening light was doing that golden thing it does. Since we’d explored the west side of the old town yesterday, Nicholas decided to wander the other direction and see what was over there.

What was over there, it turned out, was more fortress.

We ended up on a walking path that wound along the old fortification walls on the hillside above the city. Walls, towers, ramparts, meadows. Every few minutes the trees would part and there’d be another view of Salzburg that looked like it had been placed there by a tourism board.

The path kept going. More walls. More unexpected panoramas. At one point we walked through what looked like a medieval pasture with a tiny house and a turret, which felt less like a European city walk and more like accidentally loading into a different game.

We crossed over to the other side of town and found more viewpoints. Salzburg from the east side is a different city. Instead of the tight old town streets, you get rooftop panoramas and the full fortress-on-a-hill silhouette.

The Grand Finale (Before Dinner)

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We kept walking until we found the viewpoint. The one where the entire old town spreads out below you and Hohensalzburg sits on top of it glowing in the last light of the day. It was the kind of view that makes you stop talking for a minute.

We passed one more church on the way down. Golden light, copper steeple, quiet churchyard with wooden benches. One of those places that only exists in European cities and desktop wallpapers.

Dinner

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Austrian food. Braised beef in dark gravy, crispy fried onions, spätzle, green beans. The kind of plate that says “you climbed things today and now you deserve carbs.”

Day one, we came for the Sound of Music hills and got catacombs and rooftop sunsets instead. Day two, we took a cable car up a mountain and got chased off by fog and lightning, then spent the evening wandering fortress walls we didn’t know existed.

Salzburg keeps doing this thing where you don’t get what you planned for, and what you get instead is better.

We have two more days here. I’m starting to think we should just stop planning and let the city decide.

Let me explain how we ended up in Salzburg.

Nicholas wanted to run across a field yelling “THE HILLS ARE ALIIIIVE.” That was the whole reason. He’d seen The Sound of Music enough times, and Salzburg was on the way from Český Krumlov, so he said, and I quote, “we have to go.”

We got there. He Googled the hills. They were all on private land. You had to take a tour bus with a guide and a scheduled stop and a gift shop, and Nicholas would rather eat his own passport than do that.

So that was the end of the Sound of Music dream. Before it even started.

The thing is, once we stopped being disappointed about the hills, we realized Salzburg is kind of amazing.

Morning: The Hill Behind the Hotel

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We were staying at the Stein Hotel, which sits right on the Salzach River in the Old Town. That first morning, we noticed a path going up the hill behind the hotel. It looked like a casual walk.

It was not a casual walk.

The path turned into a proper hike up the Kapuzinerberg, which is basically a forested mountain rising straight out of the city on the east bank. Steep switchbacks, stone steps, the whole deal. The higher we got, the more ridiculous the views became.

At the top, the path wound through old fortress ruins hidden in the forest. Crumbling stone walls, overgrown archways, little windows looking out over the valley. The kind of place that makes you feel like you’ve accidentally found something you weren’t supposed to.

Midday: Town Wandering

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Back down in the city, we wandered through the streets on the way to Mirabell Gardens.

We found two things Nicholas wanted to photograph for his sisters. First: a café called “From Julia: Origin of Life” with the most plant-based, crystal-energy, hippy menu you’ve ever seen. Very much Julia’s vibe.

Mirabell Gardens

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Mirabell Gardens is the famous garden that shows up in The Sound of Music during the “Do-Re-Mi” sequence. So even though Nicholas couldn’t run across the actual hills, he got his Sound of Music moment here. Sort of.

Afternoon: Old Town, St. Peter’s, and the Catacombs

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We crossed back to the Old Town side and worked our way through the narrow streets toward St. Peter’s Abbey and its cemetery.

St. Peter’s Cemetery is tucked against the base of the Festungsberg cliff, and it’s one of the oldest and most beautiful cemeteries in Europe. Wrought-iron crosses, carved stone tombs, flowers everywhere. The graves date back to the 1200s.

The graves here go back to the 1200s and they’re still immaculate. Salzburg takes care of its dead.

We also found a tombstone that said “Anna Scherpf.” Close enough that Nicholas photographed it immediately and sent it to his sister Anna.

But the real find was the catacombs. Carved directly into the cliff face above the cemetery, these are rock-cut chambers that may date back to early Christian times. You climb up through narrow stone stairways cut into the mountain, through tiny tunnels, past old tomb chambers, and then you pop out at these small windows with views over the entire abbey and Old Town below.

After emerging from the catacombs, we hit the Salzburg Cathedral and wandered through the main squares.

And then, in a courtyard café, I found my soulmate.

Evening: Rooftop Dinner

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We ended the day on the rooftop terrace of the Stein Hotel, watching the sun set over the fortress and the river. Burgers. Drinks. The whole skyline turning gold and then pink.

Nicholas came to Salzburg for one thing and didn’t get it. Instead he got a forest hike through ruins, Mozart’s memorial, a Sound of Music garden (close enough), catacombs carved into a cliff, a topiary bear, and a rooftop sunset that went on for an hour.

Sometimes the backup plan is the whole plan.

On the way from Prague to Salzburg, everyone told us we had to stop at Český Krumlov. “It’s a fairy tale town.” “You’ll love it.” “There’s a castle.”

Sure. Fine. We hired a driver to take us through on the way.

Then we got there.

Český Krumlov is a medieval town built inside a bend of the Vltava River, with a massive castle complex perched on the cliffs above it. The whole thing looks like someone asked an artist to draw a fairy tale and they just drew this place from memory.

The town is tiny. You can walk the whole thing in maybe an hour. But every corner has another view that makes you stop and stare at the river wrapping around these centuries-old buildings like it’s protecting them.

The Castle

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Český Krumlov Castle is the second largest castle complex in the Czech Republic, right after Prague Castle. It dates back to the 1240s and has been through the hands of the Rosenbergs, the Habsburgs, and the Schwarzenbergs. The whole compound has 40 buildings, five courtyards, and a baroque theater that still has its original stage machinery from the 1600s.

Also, it has a bear moat. But I’ll get to that.

The castle gardens are immaculate. Formal hedges, stone staircases, statues. The kind of place where you feel underdressed no matter what you’re wearing.

The Tower

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There was a tower. We climbed it. The stairs were narrow, steep, and made of wood that has been absorbing tourist footsteps for hundreds of years. Every step creaked like it was filing a complaint.

At the top: bells. Big ones. And views over the entire town that made the creaky death stairs worth it.

Czech Lunch

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We stopped for a proper Czech lunch. Dumplings, ham, roast meat, sauerkraut, potatoes. Heavy in every direction. Exactly right.

THE BEAR MOAT

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OK. The real reason this post exists.

Český Krumlov Castle has a moat. In that moat, there are bears. Real, actual, living bears.

They’ve been keeping bears in this moat since the 1500s. The Rosenberg family, who owned the castle, claimed descent from the Italian Orsini family (whose name comes from “orso,” the Italian word for bear), so they kept bears as a living symbol of their lineage. The tradition has continued on and off for over 400 years. The current bears are brown bears, and they live in a landscaped enclosure in the castle’s first courtyard.

I need to be very clear about something: this is the greatest castle feature in human history. Every castle should have a bear moat. I don’t understand why this isn’t standard.

I stood at the edge and looked down at those bears and felt a deep kinship. They live in a castle. They’re bears. They don’t have to pay rent. This is the dream.

Český Krumlov was supposed to be a quick stop between Prague and Salzburg. Instead it turned out to be a medieval fairy tale town with food that could knock you unconscious, a bell tower with views for days, and the single greatest castle moat arrangement I have ever encountered.

If I ever get a castle, and I will, it’s getting a bear moat. Non-negotiable.

Onwards to Salzburg!

We were not expecting much from Prague.

The plan was simple: Pokin had a YPO Forum trip here, Nicholas flew in to meet her, and then we’d continue east through Europe for a few weeks until we met up with the rest of the family in Sweden. Prague was a layover. A stop on the way to the real trip.

The only thing anyone had told us about the city was “it didn’t get bombed in the war.” Which, honestly, did not sound like a selling point at the time.

We were wrong.

Prague is one of those cities that just slaps you in the face the moment you look up. The whole Old Town is basically intact from centuries ago because it really did survive both World Wars mostly untouched. Every building looks like it was placed there by someone who cared too much about architecture and not enough about parking.

The Vltava River runs through the center with swans that are absolutely enormous and have zero respect for personal space. They just float around like they own the place. Which, to be fair, they probably do. Prague has been feeding these swans since the 1500s. That’s longer than most countries have existed.

We checked into the hotel and I immediately claimed my spot.

Day 1: The Old Town

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We started where everyone starts: walking around the Old Town and pretending we had a plan.

The Powder Tower is one of the old medieval gates into the city. It was originally built to store gunpowder, which seems like a questionable decision for a building in the middle of your capital, but hey, it’s the 1400s.

We wandered through to the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square, which is one of those landmarks that every tourist on Earth has seen a photo of but still somehow feels impressive in person. It’s been running since 1410. That’s over 600 years of telling time and making tourists crane their necks.

The Jewish Quarter

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We walked through the Josefov district, which is Prague’s old Jewish Quarter. The neighborhood has been here since the 10th century, and what’s left of it is heavy in a way that doesn’t let go. The synagogues, the cemetery, the history of the community that lived and died here.

The Old Jewish Cemetery is one of those places that stops you. It was in use from 1439 to 1786, and because the community wasn’t allowed to expand the burial grounds, they just kept layering the graves on top of each other. There are roughly 12,000 tombstones crammed into a space that shouldn’t hold a fraction of that, with an estimated 100,000 burials underneath.

You can peek through a gate to see it.

We ended Day 1 the proper Czech way: at a restaurant with vaulted stone ceilings that looked like it had been there since the Habsburg Empire. Dumplings, beer, the whole thing.

Day 2: Castle to Tower

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Day 2 was the big walking day. The plan: start at Prague Castle, walk down through Mala Strana, and hike up to the Petrin Lookout Tower. Then gelato. Priorities.

Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle complex in the world. That’s not a tourism exaggeration, that’s a Guinness record. The whole compound covers about 70,000 square meters. It’s been the seat of Czech rulers since the 9th century, and inside it sits St. Vitus Cathedral, which took nearly 600 years to finish.

The views from the castle area at sunset were doing that thing where the sky goes completely ridiculous and you can’t even be annoyed about it.

We walked down the Old Castle Stairs, which is exactly what it sounds like: ancient stone steps winding down from the castle hill into Mala Strana. I was safely in the backpack for this part.

Wallenstein Garden

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We stumbled into the Wallenstein Garden, which is one of those hidden gems that doesn’t even charge admission and somehow has a stalactite grotto wall, bronze statues of Greek gods, and free-roaming peacocks.

The grotto wall is something else entirely. It’s an artificial stalactite wall that Duke Wallenstein had built in the 1620s to look like a cave surface. If you stare at it long enough, you start seeing faces in the rock formations. Whether that’s intentional or just what happens when you spend too long in Prague, I can’t say.

The Hike to Petrin

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From the castle area we kept walking up toward Petrin Hill. The trail winds through shaded cobblestone paths and gardens, and then suddenly you’re at the Petrin Lookout Tower, which is basically a 1:5 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower. They built it in 1891 because apparently Prague looked at Paris and said “we can do that, but smaller and on a hill.”

The views from the top were worth it. All of Prague spread out below, the river curving through the city, every red roof tile visible.

Bear Chips and Gelato

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On the way back we found bear chips. I don’t know how to explain this other than the bag had bears on it and I felt seen.

And then gelato, because obviously.

Rooftop Dinner

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We wrapped up Prague with dinner at a rooftop restaurant that had views over the entire city. The kind of place where the food looks like art and the sunset does all the marketing.

Bridge at Night

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One last walk across the river before calling it.

Prague was supposed to be a stopover. A box to check before the real trip started. Instead it turned out to be one of the best cities we’ve visited. The architecture is absurd, the food is solid, the beer is cheap, and the whole place feels like a history book that someone forgot to close.

We’ll be back. Probably.

Onwards!

There was a weather advisory, so at first we just camped out in the hotel room.

I wasn’t about to get wet or blown away.

But then late afternoon, the weather started looking better so Pokin decided we should walk to the Dubai Mall.

The night before, PoOn asked Pokin about the Waldorf stuffed animals.

“What Waldorf stuffed animals?” Pokin asked.

“Just ask front desk,” PoOn said.

So anyway she went up to front desk and told them her sister wanted to know about the Waldorf stuffed animals.

The hotel staff had basically no idea what she was talking about.

“I don’t know,” Pokin said “at the other hotels like Conrad in HK they had these stuffed animal bears.”

“We sometimes have welcome gifts, is that what you want?”

“I have no idea,” Pokin repeated again. “Whatever you find sounds great.”

“We’ll see what they can do,” front desk answers.

Anyway we go to the Dubai mall, walk around, see some sharks, walk around some more, see the Dubai Fountain show, and then head back. I deliberately left Peep behind.

“Peep” he says.

I should have known that Peep always gets himself into trouble. I come back and there’s a party going on in the room.

“What is wrong with you Peep?” I glare.

*Peep, *says Peep.

And there on the chair is a party full of stuffed animals, none of which are Waldorf stuffies.

Our doorbell rings. It’s Prashant, our housekeeping attendant with a note. “I hope you like the animals,” he said.

Turns out they sent someone out from the hotel to fetch these, because we were asking for them.

I ended up sleeping on the couch while Peep continued to hang out with those pink monsters. Ulgh.

Well PoOn is getting a bounty!

Got up bright and early for some breakfast at the Waldorf. Pretty good spread.

Then it was time for our blitz tour. We weren’t sure what to see so Nicholas booked a 1 day driving tour.

Here’s everything we hit -

Dubai Marina Souk Madinat Palm Jumeirah Atlantis Burj Al Arab Jumeirah Beach Jumeriah Road Carpet store upsell stop (*not advertised) Jumeriah Mosque Dubai Mall Dubai Aquarium Dubai Skating Rink Burj Khalia Old Dubai Spice Souk Fragrance store upsell (*not advertised) Spice and tea store upsell (*not advertised) Gold Souq

Even though we booked a private tour, there were a lot of forced upsell stops where our guide just disappeared for a smoke. After the first carpet stop, which we insisted on leaving early, we asked the guide to not take us to any more forced sales stops. Yet he did it two more times at a perfume and spice place. Disappointing for the price point of $700 for two people + bear, but we got a taste of Dubai.

Visibility wasn’t super great because of the high winds, but it’s supposed to rain the next day so good to get out today. After a day driving around, we ended up at the Dubai Mall/ Burj Khalifa, where I got to see sharks up and close. Closer than we did swimming in the Maldives! I would have been scared if they got this close. No sharks in this photo, but we saw a giant grouper which was cool.

We ended at the Burj Khalifa, which is the highest building in the world. We only got tickets up to the 148th floor, which is already higher than normal. You can get up to the lounge at 152 but that requires a $250 minimum spend. Since we were with a guide that felt too rushed. Another time!

It’s our last day in the Maldives and of course today the weather was perfect. Calm waters, clear skies.

Luckily, our flight out wasn’t until the end of the day, and we were allowed to stay in our room until 3:00pm and our flight out was at 4pm.

Pokin was feeling FOMO so she decided to snorkel again. It really is convenient being able to hop off the deck and get straight into reefs full of fish.

Again she headed straight for the reef cliff edge. This time she was alone so she didn’t stay long. She tried to look for the sharks again but there were none. She saw some tuna though.

As she’s getting ready to take a last shower before the flight out, I comb through the villa to make sure nothing is left behind.

And I find our problematic bunny in the coffee. Of course he’s there making a mess.

Peep, says Peep.

My mood is lifted a bit when I go into the room and see that we have a towel animal farewell. This is a whale I can ride!

Then it was 3pm and Meera was here with a golf cart to pick us up to wait in the lounge. Not a bad view. I can see our seaplane in the distance.

Given we are on island time, the flight doesn’t actually leave on time. And it turns out to be a full plane, but eventually we make it on.

The transfer was pretty uneventful, other than flying through some active storms. 40 minutes or so later, we were back at the Male terminal, where we transferred over to the main airport for our flight to Dubai.

Onwards!

Since it wasn’t an redeye, we didn’t get an amenity kit or PJs, but we did still get a meal. We tried not to nap since we were going to arrive at night, and about 4 hours later we were back in Dubai.

Our friends were headed home, so we said our farewells and made our way out.

The thing about booking business class flights with Emirates is that it sure comes with benefits! One of them being you get a chauffeur ride. All you had to do when you got off was to head to the chauffeur counter where they gave you a ticket, you went out the door, and a driver picked you up to head to your hotel.

This is something I can get used to.

“Don’t,” said Pokin. This isn’t how we’re always travelling. This was a splurge!

Well we should!

In Dubai, we are staying at the Waldorf Astoria DIFC. We weren’t originally going to stay here, but our friends who were travelling with us normally come here so we decided to book near them. They had to change their plans, so we were splurging on our own.

Luckily again, Pokin got a suite upgrade. I took my usual spot in bed.

Time for bed. Early day tomorrow!

The waters were way too choppy to swim yesterday so we aborted our attempts to make it out to the John Aster Estate where we were told to go snorkelling.

In general, we were told the best views were at the edge of the reef so today we made an attempt to snorkel to the edge by our villa, even if we couldn’t make it out as far as John Astor Estates.

See this photo here? See where it’s light and then it gets dark?

Well we swam over to the edge there on the left.

And let me tell you, if you had no fear of the deep ocean, you get one. Right after you get to the edge, you are looking down into the abyss.

Nicholas swam to the edge and noped out. So did our friend.

Pokin swam to the edge, looked down, popped back up above water, and nonchalantly said “I think I see some sharks out there.” Our friend immediately swam back towards the hut.

Nicholas went to look too. “Yep I think those are reef sharks.

Right about now, we realize the current is pulling us out, out away from the safety of the house reefs.

Time to head back.

Pokin reluctantly looked over the ledge down at the 3 swimming bodies, grudgingly admitting she’d be freaked right out if the sharks were anywhere closer than something like 30 feet down.

Time to call it a snorkelling day.