November 26th: Flying and Cars and Food and Fun

The storms from the night before hung around into the morning, so when we woke up and looked outside...

...this is what we saw. It didn't exactly bode well for our plans for the day! The weather was forecast to improve as the day went on, so we had breakfast and coffee and hopped in the car anyway.

It was pretty cool to see some of the skyscrapers hidden in the clouds. While it didn't look the best at first, the weather did eventually improve enough so that...

...Megan and Marcus could make their first skydive! They were pretty excited.  :)

I spent several years working at a dropzone and already have a few tandem jumps under my belt, so I decided to put my money toward something a little different.

It's not often you get the chance to cruise around Dubai in a gyrocopter, after all!

It unfortunately didn't have dual controls, so I didn't get to do any flying, but I made sure to soak up as much as I could from the pilot about what flying a gyrocopter is really like. (Short answer: very fun.)

Frank, the pilot, is an expat, too; he's originally from Hungary. We chatted for a couple minutes while he fire up the engine and waited for the skydiving plane to load up and depart. Then, it was our turn.

It was pretty neat to not need a big runway to get in the air! This is looking back toward the dropzone and Dubai Marina. It's definitely one of the more scenic airports I've flown out of!

We turned out toward the water after we departed, and the views kept getting better and better.

We started out by flying around the Palm. It was incredible to see from the air.

This is Atlantis; it's a giant resort that sits on the very far end of the Palm.

After the Palm, we cruised past the Burj Al Arab.

We flew past a few of the beaches...

...and eventually wound up near Downtown before turning around to make our way back to the dropzone. You can just see the Burj Khalifa hiding behind the clouds.

There were huge open cutouts in the canopy, so the views were incredible.

Somewhere down in the maze of light brown buildings is where we'd had tea (and stuffed ourselves) the day before.

The view looking toward Dubai Marina. You can just make out the runway for the dropzone near the middle of the frame.

All too soon, we were on final...

...then back on the ground. It was such a cool experience, and a really fun way to see the city. Also, I may need to add a gyrocopter to my shopping list.

My ride came with video and pictures, too!

It's hard to beat a background like that!   :)

After I landed, I met up with the others. Megan and Marcus really liked their skydive; Megan liked it so much that she mentioned maybe going back for a second one sometime. We got all of our things, made a quick stop at their house to regroup, then headed over to...

...Lime Tree Cafe for lunch. I got a frittata and it was delicious.

After lunch, we did a little window shopping. I'm always impressed by how massive the supercars like these are.

I mean, I could probably fit one of these in my budget somehow. Right?   :)

We also went to Tomini to check out their selection; I somehow don't have any pictures from there. They specialize in classic cars, and their collection is incredible. One of the employees noticed that we seemed to really appreciate what they had, and asked us if we wanted to see their vault. Of course we did! He took us through a garage door and into another roomed stuffed with awesome cars, some stacked two high on racks. It was fantastic.

We eventually finished drooling on the cars, said thank you and goodbye, then went to a more 'normal' car dealership so Marcus could try to sell his car. Megan and Marcus weren't going to be in Dubai much longer; Marcus had accepted a new ATC job in New Zealand, so they needed to start prepping for their move. We all hung out at the dealership for a little while before leaving Marcus to handle the car stuff himself and grabbing an Uber back to the house.

A shower, some wine, and another Uber later...

...we were downtown at Basta, eating some delicious Italian food.

The view from our table was pretty sweet, too.

Mark had done a bit of research ahead of time, so after dinner, we went upstairs, passed through a door marked 'Private', and wound up at Poppy, a really neat speakeasy. We had almost the entire place to ourselves, and we hung out for a while, enjoying our tasty drinks.

After Poppy, we went over to Nippon Bottle Company for another drink, then crossed the lobby..

...and wound up at another bar with outdoor seating. Not a bad view!

We wrapped up the night with wine, some shisha, and a sweet view of the Burj Khalifa. It was 1am by the time we made it back to the house, and we all went straight to bed. It had been a very fun day!