Dubai and Abu Dhabi in November 2014
The bad news is that I’m at DFW airport before 9 AM on a Sunday morning getting ready to fly all day to the Middle East. The good news is that it’s a non-stop direct flight from DFW airport straight through to Dubai International Airport. So, no three- or six-hour layover somewhere in Europe before I get on another plane to the Middle East. Also, no lost luggage, I am carrying it on with me.
More good news is that it’s on the Emirates Airlines new Airbus A380 which I think is now the largest passenger airplane in the world. These are new planes, with 2 levels. They had to modify some gates in Terminal D at DFW just to let some these new planes park here and get people on and off. Emirates just started flying the A380 into and out of Dallas last month in October, so I hope that the pilots have their route memorized.
Click on any photo to see a larger view
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is on the Persian Gulf and borders with Saudi Arabia and Oman and is just across the gulf from Iran.
There are seven emirates (like states?) in the UAE. Today I flew into Dubai, which is the largest city in the UAE and also the fastest growing and best known for luxury hotels, and as a fast-growing international business center.
As soon as the flight had levelled out, flight attendants set up a real bar for the Business Class section. Real barstools, drinks on shelves, a beer tap, plants, snacks on the bar. You could stand up for hours, and I did.
Tomorrow we will be driving to Abu Dhabi to work. Abu Dhabi is the largest emirate, the capital of the UAE and produces the most oil.
As you can tell by the beautiful photos, I did not take these. The sights in Dubai are so big that you need to be high up or far away and have a nice camera to take a good photo.
As you can tell by the beautiful photos, I did not take these. The sights in Dubai are so big that you need to be high up or far away and have a nice camera to take a good photo.
My hotel was beside the Palm Jumeirah Island. This is one of two artificial islands built to look like giant palm trees extending out into the Persian Gulf. It is filled with luxury hotels, resorts and houses, all on the beach and just a few feet above sea level.
Also from my hotel, I could see the Burj Al Arab, the sail shaped hotel and the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. ( I asked and burj means “tower”).
These photos are from Abu Dhabi, showing the giant mosque and from the Abu Dhabi Officers Club
At a lot of restaurants and bars you can smoke some shisha (hookah, bubbly bubbly) pipe. Yeah, I don’t know the correct name. I have a picture of me smoking one in Cairo on our web site, made me feel a little fuzzy so I will pass on this now.
For lunch today they took me to a Lebanese restaurant so everybody could smoke the shisha pipe (we call it the hookah pipe).
Ancient tradition in the Middle East is to smoke the shisha, drink Arabic coffee and talk. I decided not to smoke since the last time I smoked one I got really dizzy. But it smelled good.
The secretary here told me that most people have one at home and most nice restaurants have them. You order different flavors of tobacco; the shisha boy adds hot coals and starts it off by puffing on it for you. The tobacco does not burn, so you get nice flavor but no nicotine to get addicted to.
