Abu Dhabi F1 Weekend

We have just had a great weekend with my brother, Steve and his wife, Dora, who came over for the F1 weekend. Steve has been before, to the first Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but it was a first visit for Dora. So, inevitably, we did some of the tourist visits again. I actually like showing people around and don't really get tired of seeing some of the best sights, like the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque below....

On Friday we spent a day in Dubai. We hit a couple of malls, they went to "At the Top" at Burj Khalifa, we went to the old Spice Souq and Gold Souq and in the afternoon we spent some time at "The Walk" by Jumeirah Beach. We saw this nice "Cobra" car....

We stopped at Bob's Easy Diner for lunch......

....I was a bit worried about what Walter was doing with his wife on the beach though - you can get arrested for that out here!

I was also a bit worried when they brought these out......

...but (phew) they were for the sticky Buffalo Wings!


Dora and Caz went to a spa on Saturday while me and Steve went to the track. And then Sunday was F1 race day. For once the Abu dhabi GP was a really interesting and exciting race, with lots of incident.  Before it has been a fairly boring "parade", so it was a nice change.

....gotta love the Safety Car!

Jenson Button......

Lewis Hamilton...

Hamilton getting pole in Qualifying....

...and a quick video clip showing the first lap and last lap from our position in the North Grandstand. The leading four on the final lap were all World Championship winners: Raikkonen , Alonso, Vettel and Button.

1-1-11

Ohh err, spooky date!

It is the second anniversary of me writing this blog. So much has happened in this time it is really quite unbelievable. We are in our fourth home, Caroline has starting her own work venture and we have visited some amazing places. Here's to another eventful year!

Just so nobody bothers asking - no, we had a crap new year's eve!

We had already decided to have a quiet night in, but Caz wasn't feeling great and I had a fever with a chesty cough. We were tucked up in bed watching a film Caz wanted to watch by 10.30pm - a lovely cheery story with Julie Walters going through an assisted suicide. Great way to see the new year in!

We decided to pull ourselves out of bed to go and see the fireworks on Yas Island from our balcony at midnight. We couldn't see them. We could hear them though. So as midnight came we just, well, listened to the fireworks, then went back to bed to watch the final moments of Julie Walters' life.........

Today was a better day though, well what we saw of it. I think we finally surfaced just after 1pm. We went to the Abu Dhabi World Tennis Championship and watched Rafa Nadal beat Roger Federer 7-6 7-6 in the final. A very civilized way to pass the afternoon of new year's day.

I commented to Caz on the way back that we are fortunate that Abu Dhabi does manage to attract world class sports and other entertainment, the venues for which are mostly less than 15 mins from our house - Yas (F1, Concerts), Zayed Sport City (Tennis, Concerts), Abu Dhabi Golf Club (European Tour Championship in a couple of weeks time). If we wanted to go and see these sort of events at home, they would normally be quite a trek.

Best news of the day though.... Watford vs. Portsmouth live on Al Jazira Sports tonight! Yes, get in there! So I am off to watch my team live from Watford, in Abu Dhabi - doesn't get any better!

F1 Tickets

My F1 tickets have come through! Woo hoo !!

I’ve got Mark , my brother coming over and Steve and Doreen, Caroline’s uncle and aunt. Should be a good time had by all!

Thinking of booking to go up the Burj Khalifa on the Monday as part of a day trip to Dubai.

Getting excited already about F1.... ☺

Yas Marina event

I attended a business event at the Yas Marina Hotel yesterday. The hotel was very swish as you would expect. As part of the day I won a VIP tour of the race circuit, which I loved. It was supposed to include a lap of the track, but because of some flooding in the tunnels this had to be scrapped.

Below are some photos from the day….

Yas Marina Hotel Event

F1 GP Weekend

We had a fantastic time with my brothers for the GP weekend. The final race was actually a little dull, but the whole weekend was really good. The circuit was fantastic, the Yas Hotel looked great and overall the organisation was actually pretty good too – a miracle has happened!

Here’s a few piccies from the weekend….

F1 GP Abu Dhabi

Video clips of the Yas Marina Hotel "doing it's thing" !

Superb first day at the F1

Had a great day at the Grand Prix today. There were a few organisational glitches, but on the whole things went very smoothly. We didn’t wait for the concert, so getting away by car was fine. Hamilton is on pole for tomorrow so hoping for lots of Land of Hope and Glory!

Here’s a few piccies….

Me and Caz

Me and two of my brothers, Mark (L) and Steve (R)

View from our seats

Start of the Porsche Super Cup race

Lewis Hamilton

Jenson Button

Yas Marina Hotel

F1 Fan Zone tonight

.... and my tickets have arrived...yippee!!

Uk Panorama causes a stir....

My blogging has been somewhat sporadic since I got back from the UK, work just seems to be taking up most of my waking hours - not good!

Check out the story bottom right on the front page today. I haven't watched the report yet, although I hope to tonight. It has certainly got the locals checking out the facts. Panorama is a pretty reliable UK journalistic source and from what I know and have seen for myself, their findings really wouldn't surprise me one bit.

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The National - News
09 Apr 2009



















On another note... I do now have my F1 confirmation, so I can relax - we will be at the race!

F1 GP Tickets

The Formula 1 season ends this year on November 1st in Abu Dhabi. A brand new circuit is being build on Yas Island. Yas Island will also be home to a Ferrari theme park, a Warner Brothers theme park, 2 golf courses, lots of hotels, parks and residential areas. As an F1 fan, the prospect of being here for what could be a mouth watering conclusion to the season is very exciting (not particularly shared by Caz!). Caz had bought me tickets for the British GP last year, but we ended up coming out here before the event, so I sold the tickets on eBay!



I went online dead on 10am when the tickets went on sale. I got half way through the process to buy tickets and the site crashed. Typical! I tried again, same happened. So I phoned the ticket line. This was very painful. I must have repeated my name, address and email address details, by letter, about 10 times! AAgghh! For a major international event they could have had people manning the phone who could understand English better. At the end of the process he was going to bid me farewell when I thought I'd better ask for my booking reference number. He told me that would be issued on email to me. Right, I thought, I'd better just check that email address just one more time. By later that day I still had no email. I phoned and was told they would look into it. This was repeated a couple of hours later. When I phoned back again I asked to speak to a supervisor. He was in a meeting. They took my details again and said he would call back. Never did.



Now, by this time I was beginning to panic a little, as you may have read previously 2 of my brother had by now booked flights to come! I was hearing reports that grandstand tickets were selling out and I was praying that this wasn't all going to go t*ts up! I phoned my credit card company. Yes a transaction for the tickets value had been presented and accepted. Phew! At least that gave me a little more confidence! Anyway, to try and cut this long story short, I have since spoken to a supervisor 2 more times. Apparently a batch of orders failed to have an automatic confirmation sent out by email. These were being sent manually but would take some time. Their brand new system to sell c.100,000 tickets to the world, can only be searched by booking reference number - which I don't have! By Monday (it's now Sat) it will have been a week since I ordered my tickets and I will call them on the anniversary I think. I am working on the principle that they have taken my money for tickets, so they will have to provide me with tickets!.... or am I making the mistake of applying logic! Hmmm, we will see.............