Bar naar Bon Jovi

Gisteren avond naar Bon Jovi geweest met Suzanne en het was echt fantastisch!

Abu Dhabi rocks to Bon Jovi

Abu Dhabi: The lights went out and 17,000 people roared, screamed and jumped up and down, and Bon Jovi weren't even on stage yet. Cameras and phones were lifted high waiting for stage lights to reveal the hard rock legends in the Middle East for the first time in their 25-year career. This was a historical moment of sorts, and not just another concert.

"I've travelled a long way to get here tonight, Abu Dhabi," Jon Bon Jovi, the group's lead singer, tells the audience, and the crowd goes wild. Aside from the fact that he could have said anything and the crowd would have still cheered, what makes Jon Bon Jovi more than just a musician but an entertainer, is his ability to engage the crowd.

He signals for the band to stop playing and he puts out the microphone towards the audience. "It's my life. It's now or never. I just wanna live forever," the crowd sings. Even a 15-year-old boy who could hardly see over the shoulders of people in front of him memorised every single song verbatim.This was proof that Bon Jovi's music stood the test of time not just to entertain their generation but the generations to come.

One of the biggest hits of the night was "Runaway". Ironically, this song was written and recorded in 1983, and is arguably the song that brought the group to instant fame after being played on New York radio stations. That connection explains why it's one of the few older songs that they still sing live. After five songs, Jon went back stage to change and gave Richie Sambora, who joined the group in 1983, a chance to sing "I'll Be There For You," which was released as a single in 1988. Jon came back and sang, "Who Says You Can't Go Home," which was inspired by their love for New Jersey and released in 2006. This was hard rock at its finest, bred straight from New Jersey, USA, and it was here in Abu Dhabi. That in its self was a testament to the diversity of this capital.

The setting was spectacular on its own. The changing lights of the Emirates Palace as a backdrop to the stage; a full moon; thousands of people who all seemed to move in synch and a soft breeze that made you forget the 38 degree Celsius temperature. After two hours of live music, Bon Jovi signed off with, "Good night Abu Dhabi."

Zelfs regen kunnen ze maken in Dubai!

Thijs en ik lazen het artikel hieronder en vonden het wel erg bij Dubai passen. Alles kan en mag en als het er niet is dan maken we het toch gewoon!

Cloud seeding experiment has thundering success

Al Ain: Tuesday's thunderstorm in the western and southern parts of the emirates was a result of a cloud seeding (artificial rain) test conducted by the weather authorities.

The storm produced intermittent rain in parts of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. It was a surprising phenomenon in the late-spring month of May for the public and some weathermen. An official of the National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) on Wednesday confirmed the centre had carried out cloud seeding tests on clouds that came in from southern Saudi Arabia.

'Residents and weathermen were baffled by the occurrence of thunderstorms in May. "I was amazed to hear about a thunderstorm," said a weatherman requesting anonymity. He said it was an unusual development of CB clouds, the clouds that generate thunderstorms, as most converge over the UAE in the winter, he added. Abdullah Ahmad Al Mandoos, Executive Director of NCMS, said the cloud seeding test was successful and more experiments would be conducted in the next three months but depending on the weather conditions.

The centre has its own aircraft that is used for sprinkling cloud seeding salts in the moist clouds. The sprinklers are attached to the wings of the aircraft that drop the salt from a certain height on the clouds. A total of 200 flights were undertaken during the winter and summer of 2001. About half of the flights collected microphysical data in clouds and precipitation, with seeding trials having been performed on about half of those flights. Further studies continued during 2003 and 2004.

We dream of being able to modify the weather, especially as pearls of perspiration line brows and march down collars. It may not be such an outlandish idea if one goes by cloud seeding. It is a science that can be used to control winds, suppress hail, dissolve fog or create rain. Scientists have been dabbling in it since 1946, when Dr Vincent J. Shaefer conducted his first field experiments in New York. Today nearly 40 countries are working with it, foremost being China.

Rumour has it that not a cloud shall pass over Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. It also plans to use cloud seeding to clear the air pollution problem.

It rains because millions of extremely tiny water droplets come together around a nuclei, which could be anything from sand, smoke, salt or dust, to form one big drop of rain. There are two basic forms of rain - warm and cold. Warm rain is from clouds, in tropical regions, with temperatures never colder than 0C. Cold rain happens when the cloud temperatures are lower than 0C. This is the natural process, in case of cloud seeding different types of cloud condensation nuclei are artificially introduced to accelerate the warm rain or cold rain process. However, it can only be done if the cloud system is of the necessary size, with sufficient lifespan and has enough water saturation. Most scientists say it is all about assisting nature. Seeding is done using flares dropped from aircrafts or shot from the ground using artillery or rockets. You also have hygroscopic seeding that introduces salt crystals, which function as bigger nuclei to accelerate the warm rain process.

As nations look for answers to the problem of water shortage, controlled cloud seeding could be one of the key options.

Weekendje Ras al Khaimah

Afgelopen weekend heeft Thijs zijn meisjes verrast met een weekendje in de Hilton in Ras al Khaimah oftewel RAK. RAK is 1 van de 7 emiraten en ligt zo een 1,5 uur rijden ten noorden van Dubai. Nadat we donderdag middag de meisjes hadden opgehaald van school en creche zijn we naar RAK gereden.

In de stad en het emiraat is niet zo heel veel te beleven, alhoewel ook hier ontzettend veel gebouwd wordt. Wij, en vooral de meisjes, vonden dit niet zo een probleem. Het hotel was heel mooi en we vonden dus snel onze weg naar het zwembad. Floortje zwom voor het eerst met kurkjes en dat ging super goed. Famke zwemt meer onder water dan boven! Vrijdag en zaterdag meer van hetzelfde! Zaterdag middag zijn we via de Barracuda Hotel weer terug naar Dubai gereden. De Barracuda Hotel wordt in de volksmond ook wel 'the hole in the wall' genoemd. Je kunt hier namelijk zonder 'liquor license' alcohol kopen zonder de 30% belasting die je in Dubai wel moet betalen. Ondanks dat dit ruim een uur rijden is van Dubai, staat de hele parkeerplaats vol met auto's (4x4's!) met Dubai kentekens!