Adventures of NaDave: H'moon 22

Dubai, 7 hours on Saturday

We landed in Dubai at 7am after a nice flight from Cape Town. We slept hard the whole way there. We walked off the plane and the airport was very nice. We had a 4-hour van tour planned to visit the city and they would drive us and drop us off everywhere we needed to go.

We met our tour guide and he was very a nice Indian man. As we were leaving the airport, employees were handing us scarfs with the country flag on it. Come to find out, we were there on their Independence Day, December 2^nd. We found our van with a separate driver and off we went.

Nadine and I each starred out the window as we were in the world’s version of Las Vegas. One of the richest and fastest growing cities in the world. Our first stop was the Dubai mall and because we arrived there at 8am before all the crowds, getting around was super easy. The mall is biggest in the world and has stores from everywhere. It also had the largest indoor aquarium and largest tv screen.

We took a few photos and then headed outside. We were immediately greeted by the Burj Khalif, the tallest building in the world, at just under 900 meters high. When we asked our guide about it he told us there is already another building in Saudia Arabia that will be taller, but then he mentioned Dubai is thinking about building a structure at 1 km tall, wow! And then behind us was the hotel that caught fire on New Years Eve years ago, and the structure was still closed.

Next we headed onto the huge highway and among the jungle of sky-scrapers. We then for ~30 minutes and headed down to the famous Atlantis Beach and right next to the Persian Gulf. Wow, I had never thought I’d be near this body of water. The hotel was over-the-top and the highway leading to it was designed to look like trees to try and add some color. Then we headed to the famous sailboat hotel and stopped by a local beach. People were out starting their day to celebrate Independence Day!

We then headed back towards the city, but along the way saw the building for the indoor ski resort, and also saw them building the largest ferris wheel in the world right on the water (everything has to be largest and tallest!). We also saw a building shaped like a picture frame!

Our driver dropped us off in the older part of town, along a river with a lot of boat traffic. This had a little more of a local feel, and we boarded a water taxi to get to the market. Before the city grew into an international powerhouse in the 1980s…the city was a small port city with a little bit of trade. This was the old city we were in. We crossed the river and then entered the gold and spice market. But we made a quick diversion to get some camel milk gelato, yum!

We entered the markets with huge crowds, but felt very safe. It was a very affluent area. We looked and smelled all the colors of the spice markets, and even bought a little arabian coffee. We then ventured into the largest concentration of yellow gold in the world. Nadine was in heaven! We stopped in a few stores just to see what they had, and wow! And no photos allowed inside! We kept walking and saw huge World Records for Gold & Diamonds, and also saw a golden soccer boot and even a gold dress and gold bikini! I asked Nadne to try one on just so I could get a photo, but it was break you buy it!

Our trip was coming to an end so we made a couple final stops at a historic mosque and a ?. We then headed to the airport and got ready for our flight back to USA.

Back in USA, Saturday @8p

Wow, what a 3-week trip. We went through so much, together, and made it out the other side. We also talked about coming from Africa straight to Dubai. The juxtaposition of having too much in Dubai versus having too little in Africa, it was something we needed some time to digest.

But we boarded our flight and got ready for our 2^nd night in a row on a plane. We took off and flew up over Iran and it was beautiful with the sunset. Only 15 hours until we’d land in NYC at 8am and need to get home.

We landed safely, go our rental car, and headed home to Scranton. Luckily we had no weather but we had to deal with Saturday night traffic. We made it out of the hustle and bustle, and Nadine needed to switch. Dave began to drive and Nadine quickly fell asleep but was talking in her sleep thinking that she was driving. We very tired and loopy!

We got home before midnight and crashed into bed. That bed never felt so good. We battled jet lag and awoke on Sunday only to ask “did that really happen?”.

But the craziness would only continue, as tomorrow Nadine & I would each tell Gentex we were putting in our two weeks, and then we’d be moving to Chicago before Christmas. Let the adventures continue!

Dubai Skyline over Dubai Creek