17.17 It's Boxing Day. I have once again left my home behind me to step out into the world. At the moment I find myself at the railway station in Örnsköldsvik. The four of us sitting here are waiting for the train south to Sundsvall. I firmly believe that this is the northernmost note in the history of my travel journals.

17.31 I have now for the first time in a long while left Örnsköldsvik with a train. Now I will travel with Norrtåg along the Bothnia Line to Sundsvall.

19.20 The next station is Sundsvall Central Station. From there, I will walk up to Christer's apartment on Trafikgatan. We will, however, return to this station within some hours from now.

21.24 It was slippery and lots of snow along the road up to Christer. I've been here for over an hour now. In front of me is a beer and a sandwich. After this small meal there will be some planning and then sleep. It will be an early departure tomorrow morning.

Thursday 27th of December

04.33 Good morning or is it good evening. A new travel day is about to dawn. Now, we will arrange with a little to eat for our train trip.

05.25 Christer had already made five sandwiches each yesterday evening. Now we are off. We will take a refreshing walk down to the railway station here in Sundsvall.

06.19 Slightly late, we have started to travel south with SJ train 563. The model is X3000. It was a slightly chilly morning walk because we could not go in winter coats. We're going to regions with significantly warmer climate than here.

07.17 The packed lunch (breakfast) is eaten and we have had some juice and coffee here on the train. Now we travel in 148 km/h towards Söderhamn which is the train’s next stop.

We are leaving the snow in Sundsvall behind us.

Traveling south in high speed.

09.04 The train has at most been up at 201 km/h. We go past snow-covered trees and houses along the coast.

09.58 We have arrived at Arlanda airport around twenty-five minutes delayed. We are slightly tired but everything is well. It´s two hours to check-in. To get access to the airport, we got to, as usual, show our train tickets. This is to show that we paid the extra fee that is included in the ticket price. This is to compensate that we did not get the Arlanda Express train from Stockholm. Why would we do that? Arlanda is located between the home districts and Stockholm.

11.21 We had lunch at the restaurant Alfredo's here at the airport. Here we have seen, in addition to us and other travellers, parts of the Swedish cross-country team here. Calle Halfvarsson and Daniel Richardsson are sitting at the table behind us. Next there will be some currency exchange before we check in our luggage.

12.52 The baggage and we are checked in and we have arranged with dirham for our stay in the UAE. Now on the other side of the security control, we have treated ourselves a coffee at Wayne's Express. Soon we will proceed to gate 20.

We are at Arlanda, the first airport on this trip.

We are finally in the plane. We´re going with Pegasus Airlines to Istanbul.

13.23 We are once again sitting on a plane. This time we are flying with Pegasus Airlines, a Turkish low-fare airline. A little girl among the passengers wanted to sit across the aisle from us. Her mother said it was not possible. Is it just for the guys, asked the little girl? It is mostly toilets that are divided was the answer. Within thirty minutes we will take off towards Istanbul.

13.50 Goodbye Sweden, goodbye snow. Before we took off the safety regulations was demonstrated on small monitors. It was the classic information; belt, emergency exits, life jackets and oxygen. The difference was those who acted in the information, the film, were children. They were passengers, staff and even the pilot.

CHANGING TIME ZONE

16.29 The clocks are set ahead one hour. One and half hour remains of the journey to Istanbul. We are currently at 11,277 meters altitude.

16.52 Our flight was via the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria. We are approaching Istanbul where we will change planes.

TURKEY

17.35 At the beginning of the year we were at another airport in Istanbul. So here at the end of the year, we are also at one. This time it's Sabiha Gökçen Airport. Sabiha Gökçen was a Turkish aviation pioneer and the first female combat pilot in the world. She was the adopted daughter of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It was his airport that we visited in January. It is located west of the city, on the European side. This airport is however, on the Asian side of Istanbul and is the home port for Pegasus Airlines.

17.43 The transfer queue was actually several lanes merged into one. A Swedish woman in her 60´s told her female friend that she didn’t like the fact that some persons cut the line. While we were standing in the queue the women's and our boarding passes got stamped. The lady friend smiled and said that it was time for the pub, wine and water. The security checks were passed without problems and Christer and I await the next flight.

19.19 We have found out where the next gate is. Now we are on Altinkiliçlar Kahve Dunyasi, a cafe with various delicacies. It is time for coffee and pastries.

Sabiha Gökcen International Airport.

Peter together with a glass of Efes beer.

20.40 After a good coffee break and a moment of relaxing on a bench, we went to Burger King for a late dinner. Now we're getting ready for today's second and final flight. It wasn’t a cheap meal but what is cheap in an airport?

21.06 Now we are waiting near the gate 203B. It is from here that we are going to board the aircraft to Dubai. This trip will be made with the help of Pegasus Airlines again.

21.57 We roll on the runway. We have once again seen the safety film with the kids. The flight to Dubai, will according to one in the staff, take 40 minutes. The information in the speaker was quickly corrected to 4 hours. I think I will take a nap now.

A coffee break at Kahve Dünyasi.

It´s soon time to fly again.

Friday 28th of December

CHANGING TIME ZONE

02.35 We keep flying through the night. West of us is Kuwait. Below us is the Persian Gulf. In the distance, 78 minutes and 833 kilometers away is Dubai.

04.23 The plane from Pegasus Airlines landed at Dubai International Airport and we walked from the gate. We were, a little unexpected, met by a Christmas music through the speakers. Beside this were some Christmas trees. Dubai is an international place so Christmas has its place here too, although Islam is the religion here. Now we queue for the passport control. It is many counters and long queues to them. I do not think we have been at any airport with so many passport control queuing people before.

05.08 It is moving forward, very slowly forward in the queue. The queues beside and around is not quite so slow.

05.43 A subdued call to prayers can be heard. We are still in the queue. Now I begin to long for a bed, to sleep. In front of us are four people of Hispanic origin, according to the passports from Spain and Argentina and two men from Pakistan.

06.13 The men from Pakistan have desperately tried to communicate with the gray-haired man from Argentina but he doesn’t speak English. They want him to move ahead of them in the queue because he is old and can not stand for so long. He understands nothing and is smiling and keep standing on his place.

06.39 After two hours of queuing we´ve finally came up to the counter. There we were photographed and got our passports stamped. Our backpacks were waiting for us at baggage conveyor 9. Last year we had to wait for them. A little variety is nice.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

07.11 Now we are having breakfast at Starbucks Coffee here at the airport. We have however not had any coffee! We realized we needed some soft drinks. Next we will get something more to drink before we take a taxi to the hotel. The plan to go with the metro has been cancelled. It's Friday (holiday) and then no metro trains this early.

08.09 We have realized that the check-in at the hotel is at 13:00. To pass the time, I brushed my teeth and withdrew more dirhams. Now Christer is doing the same with his teeth and money. In a local newspaper there is a story about the footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic. However, I can not tell what is said about him when the whole thing is written in Arabic.

08.57 Quickly and easily the taxi took us to Hallmark Hotel (http://www.hallmarkhotel.com). The check-in was just as fast and smooth. We were given information about what the hotel offers regarding food and a Russian woman at an information desk told us about excursions and what is offered when it comes to transportation. At the top of the hotel is a spa. A bus takes guests to the beach every morning. We are now in place in room 314. In the ceiling there is a qibla mark which shows the direction to Mecca. We are aiming our directions towards our beds. We need to make up for lost sleep.

Christer is happy to finally arrive at Hallmark Hotel.

View from our hotel room.

Peter is resting in the hotel lobby.

12.27 To sleep is fine. I would like to sleep more but it will have to wait until later. There are plans for other things now.

13.40 Today we had a buffet lunch at the hotel. It was good with some food under some orderly forms. Now we are about to discover the surroundings. Hallmark Hotel is a good hotel (4-stars) that we normally would never have been able to afford. We got very good prices when we booked through the Hostelworld page though.

14.15 We're outside at something for us and for the season unusually warm and sunny situation. The surrounding area will be detected. Is the map that we have brought with us accurate?

Al Rigga Street, Dubai.

Al Ghurair Centre

14.37 I can, if the map matches reality, now confidently write that we are on Union Square. In the square's center are a pillar and a fountain. The nearby metro station, Union is the world's largest underground station built entirely below ground. The sun is warm and around us we have beautiful flowers, everything is clean and nice.

15.15 I realized that I forgot the razor at home and have been in a little shop and bought a simple version for 3 dirhams, around US$1. Now we reached Al Ghurair Centre Shopping Mall. It is, according to our guide book, supposed to be old and traditional but all we see here is fresh and very modern. Has the place recently been revamped? We have looked into a clothing store but not made any purchases.

15.38 The call to prayer was heard and we hurried off to coffee. We're at Starbucks Coffee for afternoon coffee.

16.07 We have in many places seen stoves which keep guests warm during autumn and winter. Here it is the opposite. There are fans and equipment to blow cold air on the guests who sit outdoors. Right now it´s winter though and the wiring are unplugged.

16.44 The coffee was drunk up and we saw a bit more of the home blocks, including a possible dining restaurant. We bought something to drink at Rama Supermarket outside the hotel before we went home.

17.02 On a sun bed there is a young man sitting with crossed legs playing a flute. It seems to be some kind of western concert flute made of wood. He and we are at the pool on the hotel roof. Now we read in our books by Jo Nesbø and Ian Rankin, Ghosts and The Flood. It's a lovely view from the roof.

Beautiful flowers outside of Union Station.

Union Square, Dubai.

Peter is adapting to the sunny climate.

Afternoon coffee at Starbucks.

17.45 The flute guy switched to guitar. He finished pretty soon, packed up and left. Pretty soon, we followed his example. It started to get dark up there. Now we're back in the room and are watching TV. We also need to plan the evening. There is currently a call for prayer on the TV.

19.13 We are a bit lazy watching CNN. They reported on the economic problems in the United States. The country has again reached the fiscal cliff, reached the debt ceiling. This must be remedied by the Americans. They also reported from the Central African Republic. There are problems with the rebels. It is not often that this country is on the news. In the commercials they offered the viewers to invest in Poland, Macedonia and Namibia. We have been in these three countries, though it was a while since we were in Macedonia.

19.59 We changed to the Discovery Channel. We have looked at a British magician who calls himself Dynamo. He is a very great magician and acted out among ordinary people with incredible tricks. Now we will go out for tonight's dinner.

20.56 We have familiarized ourselves more with the home blocks. Now we are at Baisan, an Iranian restaurant. After we ordered our main course, we were asked to go and get soup and salad.

22.38 It was great and tasty with dinner. On the way home we stopped at an internet cafe and a small food store. Now the day is about to get wrapped up and the weekend will be planned. It felt strange to watch today's performance in the alpine skiing slalom on the computers and then wander out into nice evening heat.

23.20 Now it is enough with the awake time. It's time to say good night and gather energy for tomorrow.

Hallmark Hotel

We have a pool on the roof.

The world´s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, is visible through the haze.

We have a funfair close to our hotel.

Saturday 29th of December

08.30 It was great with a good night’s sleep. It was not so bad to take a shower and use the new razor either. CNN is showing an interview with the author and producer Tyler Perry. We are getting ready for the breakfast.

09.51 It was a welcome faTuur, breakfast. The range was varied both in terms of the food and the diners. It was different nationalities, cultures and languages gathered in one place. The cost of this breakfast party was 25 dirhams, around US$7.

10.40 We left the hotel and walked to the metro station, Union. Here we have bought a day card for 16 dirhams, US$4,57. Now we will go west along the red line. Today's adventure will start in Dubai's western outskirts. Then we will take to the east step by step with some interesting stops along the way.

It´s time to travel with the red line on Dubai Metro.

The highway from Dubai to Abu Dhabi.

Imponerande nybyggda hus vid Dubai Marina.

Impressive architecture in Dubai Marina.

Christer and the Dubai Marina buildings.

11.32 Dubai Metro is the world's longest continuous underground with a total stretch of 75 km. We went 15 stations during over half an hour of travel time. We stepped out as the metro stopped at the station Dubai Marina. Now we will slowly go down to the marina waterfront. We are currently reviewing an inlet. The buildings rise high up. It is beautiful and stylish buildings. Most of them look brand new out. The sun bakes and traffic on the nearby highway rapids ahead.

12.01 There was a brief stop in the marina to look at the amazing houses and expensive yachts. We also saw the flags and signs from the World Cup in skydiving which was recently held right here. Now we walk in the shadows of the skyscrapers, nice and easy towards our first outing. On the way, it will be more stops. Before me is the Elite Residence. My write support is a huge concrete block. The area is called Jumeirah Beach.

12.22 We've walked further along the grass and sand, not the beautiful promenade that we had anticipated. We have, due to road construction and missing sidewalks, walked along the trails, slopes and provisional passages. Now we are sitting in a grassy slope and are thinking about how we get on. Somewhere behind us, just off the beach is the way out to the artificial island of Palm Jumeirah. The island is shaped like a palm but is not as impressive from our perspective. It should be seen from above.

12.58 The hiking project was cancelled. We looked at the map in the guide book and realized that we hadn’t got very far. Moreover, it was difficult to get around. Now we are at the metro station Nakheel. We are heading on to where we want to go.

Christer has finally realised that this part of Dubai isn´t good for walking.

Peter is thinking about the next move.

13.36 We have reached the Mall of the Emirates (http://www.malloftheemirates.com). Here we entered the impressive mall to look around. We ended up at Second Cup, a Canadian coffee chain. We are here for a first cup of coffee today. The entire mall is 600,000 square meters and the shops are covering an area of 220,000 square meters. Vatican City which we visited in January 2010 is 0,44 square kilometers, or if you will around 440 000 square meters. I must mention that the mall is divided into several floors, but still, it's huge here!

14.22 There was great with and plenty of coffee. Now, we look out over a glazed winter landscape. There are children and adults who skis and sleds. There is a special section for winter activities here in the mall, Ski Dubai (http://www.skidubai.com). The temperature behind the glass is 2 degrees below zero right now. In addition to a ski slope there is some form of toboggan run and you can also do some zorbing, spinning around in large rubber balls down the hill.

14.33 A snowball was thrown against Christer as he was making a video clip through the glass. A grinning boy appeared on the other side of the glass inside the snow landscape.

14.55 Mall of the Emirates is left for now. It's time to give for us to get to another of today's excursion.

15.18 Beside me is a water faucet. Opposite me sits a small Russian kid. A short distance away is the beautiful, famous hotel, the Burj Al-Arab. The kid and I are sitting on some tubes. The hotel only has suites and I don’t think I ever will stay there. The price of a suite is around US$1970/night and up. It is located by the sea and we will not go all the way there. We see it clearly from there we are now. We walked about a kilometer from the Mall of the Emirates towards the sea.

Mall of the Emirates

Ski Dubai is offering alpine skiing indoors.

Lots of UAE flags along the road to Burj Al Arab.

Burj Al Arab is not a luxury hotel, it´s beyond that.

16.20 We returned to the metro station at the Mall of the Emirates and went a bit further east. We stepped off at the Burj Khalifa. Now we look towards the building with the same name. It is not a tall or taller building. It is 828 meters tall. It is thus the world's currently tallest building. Nearby we have the gigantic mall Dubai Mall.

17.04 We have now entered the Dubai Mall. We're looking out over a full-size hockey rink. To look at the skating people have started to become a tradition for us. That's what we did in Johannesburg, Thessaloniki, Helsinki and Genoa. The actual shopping center then, the total area of it is 502 000 m². There are in addition over 1200 stores, 22 movie screens, 120 restaurants and cafes and a hotel with 250 rooms. The ground floor also has an underwater zoo and somewhere in here it will also be a large waterfall.

17.11 Even skilled travellers find it difficult to cope without food. We have went to the Noodle Factory not far from the rink. We have ordered delicious dishes with homemade noodles.

17.44 It was good food. The food was very similar to the food we tasted in Malaysia. This is all that is needed for globetrotters who are exploring.

18.24 We had a look and a few pictures were taken of an indoor waterfall and also of a huge aquarium. The front glass of the aquarium is 32,88 times 8,2 meters, the largest of its kind. In total, there are 10 million liters of water and more than 33 000 marine creatures on the other side of the glass. Now we are back outside the mall. The darkness has settled over Dubai. It's almost time to go home to the hotel.

19.04 We have made it back to the metro. Now we have turned down two metro trains. Both were beyond full. We just have to wait for the next.

Who is tallest? Burj Khalifa or Christer?

Entering the huge Dubai Mall.

The world´s largest shopping mall, Dubai Mall.

People are skating on Dubai Ice Rink.

Christer is having today´s dinner at Noodle Factory.

Dubai Aquarium and Under Water Zoo.

19.56 The next train was not much better but we squeezed ourselves in. It was crowded. We got off at Union Station and have now returned to our room. Christer has started to charge his mobile phone. Once again, the Kuala Lumpur purchased adapter came in handy. The purchase was made in 2006.

21.01 We can not remain here. It's time to go out to see if we can find something new.

22.26 We have walked in some new blocks behind the Al Ghurair Centre. Nothing new was found and the trek ended at the same shop and internet café as yesterday.

23.12 A "to do" list has been written. Now we know what we must/should do tomorrow. Now it will be a well deserved sleep.