After 35 hours of travel we finally arrived back in Waterloo, Ontario. While the trip was quite long, it went smoothly enough with no major hiccups. The length allowed us ample time to reflect on our stay 15 day stay in the UAE, which included trips on trains, planes, and automobiles. With no further ado.
Things we liked:
Things we liked:
- Seeing Dad and Sheila
- Very safe city
- Weather (at least during this time of year) was perfect
- Extremely cool architecture...a hodgepodge of everything
- Biggest and best of everything: tallest building, biggest fountain, biggest mall, etc.
- Omar, our dune bashing buddy
- View of the Dubai Marina from Dad and Sheila's apartment
- Global Village, with the ability to eat and shop our way through the Middle East in one location
- State of the art metro system that is completely automated
- Bartering for goods
- Sand, which seems to coat everything
- Obvious class system, with Emirati on the top, affluent westerners second, and those from India, Philippines etc. last
- Food and drinks are very expensive
- Traffic signage is almost completely missing
- No sidewalks, making it difficult to take even short walks between locations
- Nothing is really made in Dubai...even traditional souvenirs are imported from Oman, Turkey, Yemen, and others
- While the desert is full of camels, each one is owned and tagged
- Camels are raced by little robotic jockeys, which replaced children about 7 years ago
- Emirates, the company that runs the airline and is government owned, has a share in almost everything, including a local pasta company and the Arabian Adventure tour that we took
- The rulers like to emblazon any blank surface with their pictures
As per usual, here are some additional photos we took that did not make it into our posts:
*A first look at Dubai Marina
*Dubai Marina area at night
*Daryl's new hat, featuring the Mighty Camels hockey team logo
*Dubai Marina
*Persian Gulf with downtown Dubai in background
*Palm trees in downtown Dubai
*The Dancing Fountain at night
*Dad telling the helicopter pilot how to do his job (kidding, of course)
*The Atlantis Resort on the Palm Jumeirah
*Burj Al Arab from Madinat, a shopping and eating district
*Daryl heading to the start line at the Dubai Half Marathon
*First shot of Daryl coming into finish line (blue shirt in background)
*Daryl's medal
*Parting view of Dubai Marina on last day
*Our bags, packed and ready to head home
*Tim Hortons, welcoming us home at the Toronto airport
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