Saturday, July 20, 2013

A Short Stay in Dubai

Touching the Arabian Gulf waters...so warm and soft, fine dust like white sand, an embrace of coastal desert air, a bit humid, 100 degrees in the late evening lets me know I have never been here before. There were even a few shells to gather to take home.........treasures from Dubai.

What an interesting place. It is a hub for travelers going to places that are for us half way around the world. But they are like you and me, they are from Texas or a family whose father is from Nairobi but his family or origin now lives in Tanzania and the mother who is Czech but they now live with their two darling international children in Germany. She is as blonde and white as this sand and he as dark and black as the sweet dates we had a dinner. The world is not so separate or the outer reaches so far from all of us to touch each other as friends and neighbors.

This part of the flight to Dubai was wonderful as I lived in Downton Abbey for hours and hours. They had season three for me to indulge in. What an addiction to pass the time. It was quite pleasant and the food and hospitality on Emirates was quite nice. And I guess in a way that was an appropriate intro to Dubai. There is the British aristocracy with its grand estates and palaces in Downton and then here there are the villas and palaces of the Arab Emirates.

And last night after we arrived we signed up for a two hour tour of Dubai, this man made island of riches. So interesting and glitzy. I am glad we could see some of it and could touch the waters edge but it is not my interest to see the largest mall in the world. So strange that this place that was only made of sand and heat has been molded into an international meeting place of the very very rich with made up places to spend and spend like the indoor snow park where when it is 120 outside you can go and ski for a few hours to tame your boredom.

And then there growing out of the desert sand is the tallest building in the world. Spectacular and such a marvelous human technological amazing creative fete.....but this is all about money and power.


And a different culture........When we got off the plane and stepped into the airport and where we were to go through customs the most beautiful singing erupted through the halls. It is Ramadan and the songs were announcing the end of fasting for the day. I filmed some of it and I hope to share it but another interesting thing in this place of riches is the lack of internet, at least for us. I am writing now racing against time to get this blog post done as we have to pay for internet and we only bought 2 hours worth. I will need to be else where to download my videos and spend time arranging them for my blog.    

Now in this day and age and in this place wouldn't you think internet would be available everywhere freely? Guess I am a true Californian from silicon valley.........

We can not sleep.....and we wait now to get onto the next leg of the flight to our destination and many other adventures........by the way, an after thought....... but thought you would want to know,,,,,,As we were driven to SFO by two lovely friends Anna called on my cell to wish us well and most of all to tell us she shaved nearly 4 seconds off of her butterfly time! She is pumped and ready for some swimming action. So exciting......Durban, soon we are on our way...........hope there is more Downton Abbey for me on the last part of this travel jouney.

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