Pitstop in Dubai

Back on the road/ in the air and it feels as good as ever! Dubai is as over the top as anyone could hope it to be.. I wish we had had more time for exploring.. As always. Let's say the adventure began right in the airport, where huge white columns make the passport counter look like were checking into the belagio.. Don't forget the little christmas tree subtly stuck in the corner decorated with 20-30 flat screen tvs.

Although the jetlag of a 16 hour flight was trying to wear us down, we stumbled out into the great desert to see some awesome architecture on our little tour with the taxi man as we made our way to joes place. I was super excited to see Joe as he is basically the only Australia friend I haven't seen in the past 3 years.. Good job Ashley! We stopped for photo ops in front of the largest building in the world and in the jumeirah where we had awesome views of the burj al Arab (rooms start around $2,000 a night). Everything visible glows And glitters in the night.. It's hard to not be impressed. We wanted to go out to the altlantis on the palms.. The manmade islands right next to the world islands, but we were super duper late meeting up with Joe and his friends. So after rolling past the palace where the president and each of his wives have a house on the grounds, and learning that cab drivers can get a 1000 Dirham fine for not having their shoes shined or their name badge showing, we made it to joes and met his whole crew.There were people from alll over, his roommate a local and his friend a stanford grad who will be heading to Uganda after us. Small world. He lives right next to the mall of the emirates where the indoor snowboarding is. There is also a mall to scuba dive in but I think that's the other one next to the tallest building... It's hard to keep track of all the tallest biggests and firsts around here. O did I mention that all the was in the living room was a giant like 6 person tent popped up and furnished inside!? Ha. Also learned that there are no taxes.. Not even on income, but everything costs a shitload, so it evens out. And your race determines what type of job you can hold.. Filipinos work the front desk of hotels, middle easterners drive the cabs, etc. Just in the newspaper this morning, chinese were approved to be housekeepers. Some things are reallly backwards here.. Kinda like the Muslim in full get-up taking shots at the bar. We all made it over to the closed up souk/mall where the few bars on the river were. And then we learned that the drinking age is actually 21 instead of the expected 18. We made it work for the most-part.. Shared a big bowl drink of who knows what , had a few laughs and before you knew it it was after 1 am and we had to get up at 5:30 for our next flight. Since I was the big kid incharge, I had to get the boys home so our journey was so shortly ended.. And off to bed. On the plus side waking up was no problem, it was staying asleep from 2:30 to 5:30 that was rough. I think I've only slept 9 hours over the past 3+ days.. Maybe it's been 4 days?

We got to the airport where security was a joke and a half...and then I helped Kyle find Joe across the airport to get his shorts back since he had to put on a pair of jeans for the night before. We trekked across like 3 malls within the airport, found Joe again (it was his last day living in Dubai) and turns out his forgot the shorts. So we trekked back and almost missed our plane.. Except not because none of them leave on time.. now were just chillin on our next 7 hour flight to uganda with a touch down in Ethiopia! Can I count it on my country list? The airplane man thought it'd be cute to photo us all in the stewardess hats... I tried to get the photo on here, but I'm
Having difficulties.. Sorry!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone