Dubai!

Some years ago...somehow...I decided I wanted to go to Dubai. When my former mission companion and good friend Rachel Greenley and her husband Sean took a job in Dubai, I knew it was my chance! I kept my eye out for a good deal, and when one came along, Jaime and I snatched it up! 

The flight to Dubai was loooong. We had a direct flight out of Chicago, though, thank goodness. The sunrise somewhere over Greenland was beautiful!

Sean and Rachel have an INSANE apartment on the...37th floor I think...of a building downtown Dubai. Jaime and I both had our own rooms and this was the view from my room. The night we arrived, Rachel made us a delicious middle eastern dinner and we ate on their balcony, which has a ridiculous view. Pictures of that later.

On the first day there, we visited the gold souks.

This is just one of what will be many illustrations of Dubai's motto: Less is More. Or...More is More. I could never figure out which. :)

We explored the markets for a bit then rode the water taxi over to more markets!

We grabbed some fried everything for lunch.

The salesmen at the market are very friendly, And persistent. Like they'll put their scarves and hats on you without your consent to get you to buy them.

Downtown Dubai is fantastically glitzy and fancy and beautiful. We went to dinner at an Argentine restaurant and watched the Dubai fountains - like the Bellagio fountains in Vegas.

The restaurant we had dinner in was in a hotel called The Palace. Aptly named, for sure.

The next day we visited the Burj Khalifa - the tallest building in the world.

The view from the top is impressive!

The fountains from above.

Next on the agenda - a desert safari! 

After enjoying the vistas, we got in the SUV and almost lost our lives. The desert safari included something called "dune bashing," which apparently means driving really fast up and over and around giant sand dunes, nearly rolling down several of them.

This is what my hand looked like afterwards. If you can't tell, it's very red from gripping the handle in the car for twenty minutes. It was fun for the first five minutes, but the next fifteen were just heart attack-inducing. 

Camel farm in the middle of the desert!

The last stop of the desert safari was a camp where we enjoyed a quick camel ride, then dinner and a show.

This guy's act was him spinning. Really fast. With a light-up skirt. For like fifteen minutes.

Fancy cars in a fancy place!

Even school buses are fancy!

We went out to another city called Abu Dhabi and visited Emirates Palace - a beautiful five-star hotel. Just like in Vegas, the hotels are open for walk-through visitors, though I'll have to admit that the hotels in Vegas are a bit more exciting to look through.

Getting engaged then going out of the country for ten days immediately is pretty terrible. Didn't help that they have things that reminded me of Brandon the whole time - his favorite! Thank goodness for videochat and wifi.

Final stop in Abu Dhabi - the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. This was probably my favorite place of the whole trip. I've never been so mesmerized by a man-made thing. It's got to be the inspiration for the Sultan's palace in Aladdin!

Since it is a house of worship for the Muslims, they ask all visitors to dress appropriately, which for women involves being covered head to toe, including the hair. If you don't have coverings of your own, you can rent a full-body covering. I'll admit, it felt pretty weird to be wearing it, but I definitely understand and respect religious beliefs about sacred spaces.

There was a large hall we were allowed to enter after removing our shoes. It was stunning, just like the exterior.

The Islamic holy day is Friday, so in Dubai the weekend is Friday and Saturday, with Friday being the day of worship. All church services, including LDS services, are held on Fridays, then Saturday is like a normal Saturday, and the work week begins again on Sunday. Both Rachel and Sean were explaining how hard it's been to feel any sense of the Sabbath Day when the Sabbath just isn't the Sabbath there. It was especially hard because the weekend we were there was Easter. So we had church on Friday, observed the Sabbath the way we do, then on Easter Sunday we were sightseeing and operating as though it were any other day. No Easter egg hunt and certainly no talk of a risen Christ. But that didn't change what I know - that because Christ lives, with every sunset, there will be a sunrise. With every death, there will be a resurrection. With every trial, there will be triumph. Because he rose on the third day, no pain, suffering, or sorrow need ever be permanent.

We went to church with Sean and Rachel - their ward is mostly expats from various countries who are working in Dubai - then enjoyed an evening relaxing at the beach, playing cards, and enjoying the sunset. It was surprisingly cool that night - one of the only times I remember being chilly outside while we were there!

This is the view from Sean and Rachel's balcony - that's the Burj Khalifa in the middle. Unreal!

Saturday was the Dubai World Cup - a championship horse race held at the Meydan Racecourse. Since Sean is a diplomat, he's got some connections and he hooked us up with sweet passes to the race, red carpet and all. We dressed up in our best spectator gear (Rachel took the cake on the costume, obviously) and went to the races!

We had a great time horse-watching, but the main attraction was definitely people-watching. The hats and dresses were fabulous and so fun! I felt like I was living a My Fair Lady dream!

Fascinator competition

There were nine races in total, and they were short with lots of time in between. When you first come in, they give you a booklet which has information about all the horses and the jockeys in it, and a form you can fill out to choose who you think will win. Betting is illegal in Dubai, so instead you fill out this form, put it in a box before the races begin, and those who correctly predict winners win prize money. And you can enter for free! It was a great tool for getting you invested in the races.

Before the biggest race, they had a lights and fireworks show, with a giant UAE flag, which apparently was the largest flag in the world or something. Sean and Rachel were just laughing because apparently that's such a Dubai thing to do - no matter what they have or what they're doing, it's always the largest in the world. They're into breaking records, I guess.

We had talked originally about taking a quick trip over to Oman, but both Jaime and I were feeling a little apprehensive about traveling across the border on our own so we opted to stay in Dubai the whole time and we hit a couple of their beaches and saw some other sights the next couple of days.

As a thank you for their hospitality, we took Sean and Rachel out for dinner, and they chose to get camel burgers and camel shakes. When they were first talking about this, for some reason I thought they were saying the shakes were made out of camel's meat. Gross. Don't worry, though. It's camel's milk, which is apparently a superfood. I liked the shake a lot. The burger was ok. It tasted kinda like a veggie burger or a turkey burger - just not quite right.

They had a classic car show going on downtown while were there, so we checked out some of the cars and I took pictures to send to Brandon.

We spent some time at the Dubai Mall, which is, surprise surprise, insanely ornate and gorgeous and huge. Inside the mall, there's a giant aquarium, a waterfall, and a full-scale dinosaur skeleton - which was found in Wyoming, funny enough!

Always putting on a show, the Burj Khalifa is constantly changing colors and patterns. Every so often, the lights coordinate with the fountain show going on at its base. 

The last day we took a bus tour around the city, trying to see a few more sites that we'd missed. Dubai is such an interesting city, because unlike many places I've been before, there's not much by way of historical sites to visit. There's history of settlers in the area, obviously, but not much of the structures or sites are preserved - not sure if that's intentional or not. I know that its growth as a city has only happened in the last few decades. Anyway, we did find one little old-fashioned village. I have no idea if these structures are originals or replicas, but it was fun to see what the fishing village of Dubai may have looked like long ago.

Food in Dubai is expensive, and by the last night there we were ready to just get something we already knew we'd like, so we went to The Cheesecake Factory in Dubai Mall. Water in Dubai is always bottled and never free. Water is my jam and I never get anything else at restaurants, but ironically this strawberry lemonade was cheaper than water, so I went for it. It was delicious. And laden with sugar.

Sean and Rachel were such fabulous, gracious, accommodating hosts and they were my favorite part about Dubai! I had such a great time hanging out with them. I can't wait to visit them at their next post, wherever that may be!