Arrival

Well we made it - arrived last night to Abu Dhabi around 1am. I flew to Belgium on Sunday to begin the adventure as groom for my Belgian friend, Leonard Liesens, and his beautiful gray horse Arazi. A couple days in Belgium, trying to arrange travel, pack and prepare Arazi for his first big trip. The communication with the OC for this ride has been a little sparse... but as usual things came together just in time. We loaded Arazi and his gear on the lorry early Wednesday morning. There was a Spanish veterinarian/trainer travelling with the horses, and a French driver; makes for interesting early morning conversation with three different languages batting around. Arazi was wonderful, loaded eagerly, and off he went to join up with the rest of the horses being shipped from Europe. During this time we also finally found out when our own flights were to depart - in fact we now had 2 hours to get packed and depart for the airport. Leo quickly through 'something of everything' in his bags, and away we went.

We left from Brussels, and changed planes in Amsterdam - to fly to Abu Dhabi via Bahrain. We saw friendly familiar faces on the plane, Heather Reynolds (who will be riding Master Motion - Skip Lightfoot and Jeremy will join later) and Gary Luck, who will be taking care of Mommesin, and joined later by his 16yr old daughter (rider) Alyx and wife Nicole. Plus several riders/grooms from Italy, Spain and France were on the plance. Everyone travel weary, but excited.

We were met at the airport by a friendly face with an 'Al Wathba Stables' sign, loaded onto a van and transported to the Al Diar Gulf Hotel and Resort. We're around 30 miles (I think) from the stables, so will have to rely on shuttles until we have our own car.

Short sleep last night, early breakfast this morning (fruit, croissant, coffe and newspaper) and now here in the business center with $2/hr internet access! I'll try to get my own machine set up soon so I can get photos as the days progress.

later -

Steph