Dubai

It's hard to imagine that when I stepped on board the Lufthansa flight bound for Frankfurt last October that I could ever think I would, in 6 months time, see a Middle Eastern country. Americans in the Middle East, I imagined, were about as popular as the Catholic Church in a Gay Rights parade. It would have been even harder to imagine that that country would be the United Arab Emirates, and that I would be seeing a city that seemed like it was built overnight. A city that, from what I had heard, sounded more like some sort of mirage in the middle of the desert rather than an actual city.

Dubai.

But that's just where I found myself in early March, stepping off an Air France flight at Dubai International Airport and instantly feeling the 85 degree heat and the ever constant Sun. So why exactly was I coming to Dubai?

As in most of my awesome experiences since I left the United States, I again, have the Blanchet family to thank. Noel's brother Gaston, is graduating from UCF this year, and had been interested in checking out the possibility of finding employment with a company in Dubai. Noel's mother was also celebrating her birthday, so they all decided to take a trip to see the city. And luckily for me, they asked Noel and I to come along for the ride. 10 Days spent in the desert.

I didn't really know what to expect from the city. Like everyone else, I had heard about how big it had gotten and how fast. How they were coming up with crazy things like the Burj Dubai, which is a mile high, or the Burj Al-Arab which is a hotel a ways into the water with a helipad and a tennis court on the top.

Let me say that Dubai is one of the strangest cities I have ever been to. In the 10 days we were there, I rarely felt like I was ever actually in the Middle East, but rather in some city in South Florida. The entire city has the look and lifelessness of a city like Miami. I don't mean lifelessness as necessarily a bad thing, but in the sense that it is so modern that there is nothing that really speaks for Arab culture in the city. Everything is so incredibly Westernized, that you almost have to go out of your way to find anything resembling Arab culture. The Sheiks and Architects who have planned on transforming Dubai into a world city have essentially borrowed just about everything from other cities that make them unique and put it in Dubai. There is an exact replica of the Chrysler Building. They are creating a second Louvre (ok, this is in Abu Dhabi, not Dubai, but still..) They also want to create a neighborhood in Dubai that looks to the smallest detail exactly like how a neighborhood in Lyon, France would look. One can also not go a block without running into an American restaurant like T.G.I. Friday's, Chili's, or even On the Border. Hell, I thought I saw a Southern Fried Chicken restaurant one time when we were on the highway. The city, as I found out was populated with 80% expats, with the rest being Emirates and Indian and Pakistani workers hired for construction. It was probably the closest I've felt to being in the States since I left in October.

Don't get me wrong. It doesn't mean I didn't enjoy what Dubai had to offer. I was able to get a lot of fun activities in. The beaches were fantastic. We went sailing for a bit in the Persian Gulf. We took A-TVs out on the sand dunes in the middle of the desert. We also go to see some of the more out-there things like the Dubai Mall which had the indoor ski mountain.

In addition, Noel's parents had friends who were stationed in Dubai as British diplomats, so they also took us outside the city to see Arab culture and see some of the markets and other things that one normally wouldn't get to see.

All in all, it was a great, albeit weird vacation. I don't know when I'd ever go back to the city, but it's great to say that I had gotten to see Dubai with my own eyes.

Cheers.