dew-bye

Dubai - UAE.  Quite simply the most brilliantly gold place I have ever seen in my life.
I wish I had taken pictures.  I wish I hadn't been so tired.  I wish I had a longer layover. 

That is the bad thing about traveling by yourself to a new place.  There is so much unknown, and the thing I was most afraid of was missing my flight, followed pretty closely by the fear that my time clock would be so messed up that I would be at best tired and at worst ineffective for the week I am here with my team.

So Tuesday night Kev dropped me off at Dulles for my 13 hour overnight flight.  I landed in Dubai at 7:30pm on Wednesday and followed the masses to exit, waited forever for a customs agent to review my passport and allow me through.  I got through, and got to the baggage claim, and waited.  One thing I was warned about was to not let some man carry my luggage because they will ask you for money and then not leave you alone.  So when I reached out for my black bag (everyone these days travels with identical baggage) and a man next to me also grabbed for it, I said, 'no, it's ok, I got it.'  He looked at me like I was crazy (I don't think he understood English, or at least my murmur of English) and continued to grab the bag.  It was then that I tugged it away from him, saying "It's ok, I have it."  Of course I immediately realized it wasn't my bag, released it immediately, and headed to the front of the conveyor belt hoping that I didn't just cause an international incident.

I exited the airport and I got hit by a warm gust of air.  It was wonderful.  There were people all over the exit door.  I was struck by how many people were piled - almost on top of each other - yet every other area of the drivethru looked almost empty.  I got my taxi and we headed for the hotel.  Driving through Dubai was like a whole different experience.  They had the driving skills of New Yorkers (read: crazy and fast seeming like you might die in a crash but no one ever hits anyone), the cleanliness of Sedona (everything was so clean, there was no trash on the sidewalk, gardens were manicured, signs were clean), and the light, palm streets, and flatness of Las Vegas.  Everything was written in arabic and english, and there were car dealerships on every block. 

My cab driver was from India, and had two boys.  One 14 one 9, and was working here in Dubai so he could send money home.  We passed stores with the store title written in brillant green colors, in gold, in purple.  Everything was designed to be colorful and extravagant.  I got to my hotel, and inside was marble and granite, and gold.  I also got upgraded to a suite for free because the hotel was overbooked.  After I got my warm towel and complimentary sparking orange juice, I went up to my hotel room, which was HUGE.  The bathrooms had marble and glass, and I had an entire living room larger than my living room at home, and then my bedroom on the other side of my bay doors.  My windows looked out into the center of the hotel, and when I looked down there was a courtyard and marble patio, and a bungalow, cafe, and piano bar. 
I went downstairs to get some dinner, and ended up at the bungalow (Asian buffet).  I met Chris there who works for the govermnet and was heading to Kabul for some work, and knew some of my employees out there.  Pretty cool!

Then I went to explore.  One thing I didn't get used to in Dubai was everyone smoking in public.  Also, men and women rarely were hanging out together which I thought was odd.  Most groups I saw were either men or women.  I came to grow pretty fond of the burkas I saw women wearing and I will post a little more about that tomorrow.  But I did get to go outside where more men who worked at the hotel saw me and started talking to me, and telling me about their families back home.  It's funny because as a single woman, if I walked outside a hotel and a bunch of men started talking to me, I would be irritated and probably assume they are hitting on me.  Men in Dubai (and this obviously does not speak for all) seemed to give off a more genuine attitude.  They simply love others, and I think women especially they want to be protective of, but in a caring and gentle way. 

Those were my first impressions of Dubai, I have much more (exciting) stories to share about the second day, but it is already 11:30 pm here and I need to get some sleep.