After 23 hours, 15 minutes, and 29.6 seconds of travel (Trav calculated our trip on his iphone stopwatch) that included a stop in Chicago and a stop in DC, we arrived in Dubai. The craziest part of the trip (besides the 50+ Indian students going home from space camp that were on our plane) was that we ran into our good friend Keith in the Chicago airport! Keith lives in Chicago so Trav texted him while we were on our layover and he happened to be in the airport in the same terminal at that moment!! It was so crazy! So we got to catch up with Keith at Chili's at Chicago O'Hare.
Now we're in Dubai. Our hotel is amazing. It's called the Address; check it out online. The hotel sits directly across the "lake" (ginormous fountain) from the Burj Dubai tower, where Travis works. The lobby is huge, filled with glitx and glamour. The infinity pool wraps around the grounds of the hotel with direct views of the burj tower and dubai mall (i'll get to that place later). Our room is beyond spacious with a huge bed, amazing rain shower, and both bidet and hand held washlet in the toilet! The funniest part about our room was the first time I took a shower. We had just arrived and it was about 11pm. We desperately wanted to take showers after the long plane ride. When I turned the shower on, it was way too hot. So I turned off the hot and kept the cold on only. It was burning! You know how usually you have to wait a while to let water warm up? Well in the desert, we had to wait for the water to cool down a few minutes before it was bearable to get in. It makes sense really. We are in the desert.
Trav is busy working as usual. But my days so far, consist of going to the gym with Trav in the morning (the gym is soo clean and has a fabulous view of the burj tower), grabbing a cafe americano (decaf) on with Trav on his way to work, going back to the hotel to read by the pool, over to the mall to meet up with Trav and his co-worker for lunch, a few hours of walking around the mall, followed by a cat nap back at the hotel, then waiting for Trav to come home so we can go off for dinner. Not a bad schedule if you ask me.
I've mentioned the mall a couple times now. The dubai mall is in between our hotel and the burj tower. But, once inside the mall, that distance feels like miles. The mall is beyond huge. Sooo many stores, an aquarium with sharks, the hugest candy store ever, and coming soon, Baja Fresh! I pounded the mall pavement for four hours today and didn't even cover half of it. I still want to go to the Sega arcade, which is like a virtual world in itself. I'm finding some of the same stores that I liked while in Denmark, which is great. but I also walked into Gap to see if the selection was different (it wasn't). This is the easiest time I've had shopping for Christmas presents yet!
OK, I'm sure you're waitingfor pictures, so i'll post them fast, since Trav just got home. Check back later for more updates!
at the bar at our hotel:
Trav on his way to work:
The burj tower:
biggest candy store ever!:
Trav at our hotel:
Gotta go! I'll post more picts later.
