Marshall: 12/27/12
Okay, we have just made it through one full day of being in Dubai, UAE. While I can still remember who I am and what I did today (I'm kind of tired), I'll fill you in on how we've been doing so far. The getting here part was actually pretty good, given that we had to travel half way around the world. Our fun started at O'Hare where we, for the first time, did not have any delays getting our flying fun started!!!! (I know! GASP!) We landed at Heathrow London 8 hours later on schedule. It was my first time to Heathrow and I had no idea the place was so cavernously huge. We took a bus to the train to our plane and other than another passenger dropping her duty free package, we boarded and took off with little incident. The 5 hour wait before the actual flying part was by far the most painful part, but it was worth it to see the slightly large English woman walking by in her one piece captain jack outfit that was just a bit too tight for her figure... Ewwwww.
We took off from OHare at 6 pm. We flew for 8 hours, sat for 5 more hours and then flew for 7 more hours to finally get to Dubai. I don't sleep in airports or on airplanes, so I had been awake for, um, well, way the hell too long. To say that my mind was in a fog would be to give it the benefit of the doubt. While we waited in the customs line in Dubai it was quite amusing to watch the 20 something year old Dubai men and woman working the customs lines at 2 am local time. They treated the immense lines like any proper government employee --- being annoyed at people without proper paperwork, chatting and wandering around with the other employees, and generally not really giving a hoot about the lines of people ready to pass out from exhaustion at any moment... The only fun part was trying to remember my flight number and where we were trying to go after we finally made it to the "getting a picture/video and stamping passport" stage.
We eventually were stamped and waved on to the taxi stage where the travel gods smiled on us and got us to our hotel with minimal issues and into bed before braindeadedness fully kicked in.
Needless to say, we didn't exactly wake up in time for breakfast this morning. Hah! I was and still am sleep deprived and jet lagged, so once we had some complimentary tea, we made some dinner reservations and walked across the street to the Dubai museum for a taste of some local culture. I honestly can't remember more than a few vague things about our stumble through the museum. It wasn't bad, I was just still trying to figure out if all my body parts were still attached because I kept feeling like I was missing something (and no, I did have pants on, so all of you thinking that was it can just go stick it! Hehehe) After a lite lunch at the hotel pub (we got to watch some champions league cricket), we headed out to the gold souq (gold-sellers market) across the river or, as the locals call it, the creek. Walking to the water taxis was a bit of an adventure as the city is not laid out on a nice grid like most US cities, but after a couple of turns, we finally found the river and boarded what might be called a boat, but probably more like a raft with a lawn-mower on the back. Dubai may be the city of opulence, but a taxi is pretty much the same whether you're in the US, Ecuador, Turkey, or the Middle East (land or water taxi!).
Whatever, it was a relatively short walk to the gold shops once we departed our taxi and while I was accosted a few times about purchasing various handicrafts or T-shirts, the big winner today was for watches, bags, or of all things, sunglasses. Apparently there is a quite heavy trade in the knock-off market for these goods in Dubai. I am happy to say that I am a fairly seasoned world traveler and did not follow any of these hawkers to their shop... Our traipse through the gold-sellers market was a walk through some of the tackiest, biggest, and most god-awfully expensive pieces of jewelry in the world. It is wedding season in India, so the jewelers had all the appropriate displays to draw in the brides family. And don't forget that gold is selling at $1700 an ounce. So some of those displays had to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars! We mostly looked, but did visit two shops where we were quoted reasonable prices for some pieces, but since I was along, we walked away empty-handed. I did see a pair of diamond earrings that I thought would look great on Lacinda, but $1000 was just too much. We were given "best price" of $850, but I told the gentleman running the shop that $500 was my limit and walked away. I may have gone for it if he lowered it to $750, but he didn't come after us so it was his loss... Maybe tomorrow?
Anyway, we came back to our hotel and had some amazing Indian food (butter chicken as good as I got in Udaipur India! and that is saying something!!!!). In addition, we got to enjoy a good Sitar player and then the band showed up with the belly-dancers! I'd like to say that we stayed around and partied like rock stars, but the fact that we had full bellies and a couple of cocktails each meant we were more destined for bed than anything else. So here I am, falling asleep on this keyboard, and getting this blog started. As I have already stated, the adventure has been mostly survival at this stage, but it is only Day 1, with many more days to come...
Okay, we have just made it through one full day of being in Dubai, UAE. While I can still remember who I am and what I did today (I'm kind of tired), I'll fill you in on how we've been doing so far. The getting here part was actually pretty good, given that we had to travel half way around the world. Our fun started at O'Hare where we, for the first time, did not have any delays getting our flying fun started!!!! (I know! GASP!) We landed at Heathrow London 8 hours later on schedule. It was my first time to Heathrow and I had no idea the place was so cavernously huge. We took a bus to the train to our plane and other than another passenger dropping her duty free package, we boarded and took off with little incident. The 5 hour wait before the actual flying part was by far the most painful part, but it was worth it to see the slightly large English woman walking by in her one piece captain jack outfit that was just a bit too tight for her figure... Ewwwww.
We took off from OHare at 6 pm. We flew for 8 hours, sat for 5 more hours and then flew for 7 more hours to finally get to Dubai. I don't sleep in airports or on airplanes, so I had been awake for, um, well, way the hell too long. To say that my mind was in a fog would be to give it the benefit of the doubt. While we waited in the customs line in Dubai it was quite amusing to watch the 20 something year old Dubai men and woman working the customs lines at 2 am local time. They treated the immense lines like any proper government employee --- being annoyed at people without proper paperwork, chatting and wandering around with the other employees, and generally not really giving a hoot about the lines of people ready to pass out from exhaustion at any moment... The only fun part was trying to remember my flight number and where we were trying to go after we finally made it to the "getting a picture/video and stamping passport" stage.
We eventually were stamped and waved on to the taxi stage where the travel gods smiled on us and got us to our hotel with minimal issues and into bed before braindeadedness fully kicked in.
Needless to say, we didn't exactly wake up in time for breakfast this morning. Hah! I was and still am sleep deprived and jet lagged, so once we had some complimentary tea, we made some dinner reservations and walked across the street to the Dubai museum for a taste of some local culture. I honestly can't remember more than a few vague things about our stumble through the museum. It wasn't bad, I was just still trying to figure out if all my body parts were still attached because I kept feeling like I was missing something (and no, I did have pants on, so all of you thinking that was it can just go stick it! Hehehe) After a lite lunch at the hotel pub (we got to watch some champions league cricket), we headed out to the gold souq (gold-sellers market) across the river or, as the locals call it, the creek. Walking to the water taxis was a bit of an adventure as the city is not laid out on a nice grid like most US cities, but after a couple of turns, we finally found the river and boarded what might be called a boat, but probably more like a raft with a lawn-mower on the back. Dubai may be the city of opulence, but a taxi is pretty much the same whether you're in the US, Ecuador, Turkey, or the Middle East (land or water taxi!).
Whatever, it was a relatively short walk to the gold shops once we departed our taxi and while I was accosted a few times about purchasing various handicrafts or T-shirts, the big winner today was for watches, bags, or of all things, sunglasses. Apparently there is a quite heavy trade in the knock-off market for these goods in Dubai. I am happy to say that I am a fairly seasoned world traveler and did not follow any of these hawkers to their shop... Our traipse through the gold-sellers market was a walk through some of the tackiest, biggest, and most god-awfully expensive pieces of jewelry in the world. It is wedding season in India, so the jewelers had all the appropriate displays to draw in the brides family. And don't forget that gold is selling at $1700 an ounce. So some of those displays had to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars! We mostly looked, but did visit two shops where we were quoted reasonable prices for some pieces, but since I was along, we walked away empty-handed. I did see a pair of diamond earrings that I thought would look great on Lacinda, but $1000 was just too much. We were given "best price" of $850, but I told the gentleman running the shop that $500 was my limit and walked away. I may have gone for it if he lowered it to $750, but he didn't come after us so it was his loss... Maybe tomorrow?
Anyway, we came back to our hotel and had some amazing Indian food (butter chicken as good as I got in Udaipur India! and that is saying something!!!!). In addition, we got to enjoy a good Sitar player and then the band showed up with the belly-dancers! I'd like to say that we stayed around and partied like rock stars, but the fact that we had full bellies and a couple of cocktails each meant we were more destined for bed than anything else. So here I am, falling asleep on this keyboard, and getting this blog started. As I have already stated, the adventure has been mostly survival at this stage, but it is only Day 1, with many more days to come...
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