28 March - Homeward bound

Currently in the SAS lounge at Brussels airport - recommended by the SN Brussels lady as it has a free WiFI and the SN lounge does not. I left Marakesh at 0700 GMT and am sitting here waiting for the SN flight to Vienna ar about 4 pm European Summer time.
Yesterday I was all day up in the foothills of the Atlas mountains in a $Toyota Land Cruiser 4X4 with a French (corsican)couple and a local driver. Great time although I was all out of French by the time we got back to town. The countryside was  quite amazing, especially as last winter was the wettest for a while and so everything is pretty green. Superb vista of dry mountain scenery and snow covered mountains at the back; we got up to about 1860 m according to my GPOS and the road was very good although they called it a track or "piste" it was formed and well surfaced. The Bereber villages were wonderful to see and the usual tourist traps of carpet and herb shops were not too bad. Great fossil colections to be seen too but I resisted buying anything too large and stayed with some argan soap and an argan/olive/almond/honey spread which tasted wonderful up at the co-op site where the local women made it. It will be interetsing to see how it goes on toast in Vienna!

Morocco Bound!

Like Bob and Bing I am Morocco bound. On Saturday 21st I headed off to Marrakesh in Morocco to go to the Sixth International conference on Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM6). I was due to give two invited presentations and sit in on a special workshop on phosphates. Also, by chance, my sister Soo and her husband Mike were going  to be there on holiday for the first couple of days I was around. 
I flew via Brussels with SN and then  Royal Air Maroc to Marakesh. A first time with Air Maroc but not a bad experience.  All my travel was in economy as I was paying, but my colleague was in business  as he was on duty so we had a fun time on the  way down  - with access into lounges for both of us in Brussels.

Marrakesh was fantastic with old buildings and the souks (which I never did get to see) the original kasbah (which  I did see) and a new cuisine. Soo and Mike were staying in the older part of town in centre of the Kasbah.

Soo and Mike at their hotel poolside

Rue Kasbah, Marrakesh

Kasbah mosque and souvenir shops

A heap of Fezzes...................

Work went well but as I was on a cheap ticket I had to wait until Sunday to go home, unlike my colleagues who went home on Saturday. But on Friday we all went to the great phosphate mines  and we even got to ride in a drag line while it was working - a real fun day.

Electrical dragline removing over burden at the phosphate mine

Waste piles awaiting remediation at the mine site. There is a big remediation plan being readied for  implementation.

Abu Dhabi - a conference in the GP Circuit

This past week I have been at a conference in ABu Dhabi discussing the future issues of human resources for  the nuclear power industry. The location was the media centre at theYas Island GP circuit outside Abu Dhabi. The circuit as incredible and the media centre no less so. Quite  a change from the usual hotel venue for these sorts of meetings.
The flight out was the Austrian one direct to Dubai . Although I was unable to use an upgrade voucher that Lufthansa had sent me I was able to  use points te get a Business Class seat  which was OK although the plane sare still old Boeing 767 300 series. The Dubai airport was vast but pretty efficient and then I had a 90 minute taxi ride to Abu Dhabi. Sadly the drive was all at night so there was little to see apart from a light sea fog and the fantastic roads - and heaps of traffic. But I did see that world's tallest building from the plane and the Dubai tower from the road.