Dubai

A four hour over night flight was all it took to cross out of Europe and into the United Arab Emirates. What we thought would be a quiet, peaceful alternative to sleeping in a hotel, was in fact a loud, party of a flight. Everyone was in the aisles, chattering on at a volume above what most American consider discrete. I guess 4 hours of micro sleep was gonna have to do.

We arrived in Sharjah (a smaller airport outside of Dubai) at 5 a.m. on Friday morning. It was great planning on my part to schedule our trip on Friday, because after my first trip to the middle east, I learned that the weekend begins on Thursday evening and ends on Saturday evening. Our friend Eric Rymarz, who moved out to Dubai 10 months ago as a project manager, was going to put us up for the weekend. He picked us up around 6 am and we headed into Dubai, a place I had been dreaming about visiting for years. Even after getting info from fellow travelers about how large and glamorous Dubai was, I was still very impressed. Eric took us back to his place so we could nap before we headed out to "brunch." We had no idea what we were in for; and let me tell you, it was unbelievable.

Dubai Brunch Defined: In Dubai, 5 star hotels have done an incredible marketing of their brunch. Every young to middle aged expat professional living in Dubai has been to a brunch at some point. Some go every Friday. Basically, a hotel, or even one or several restaurants in that hotel, feature an all you can eat & all you can drink brunch for at least 4 hours. The food is a 5 star set menu and the drinks include featured cocktails, select quality beer, and spirits.

We woke up around 10 a.m. from our nap and started getting ready for brunch. Eric informed us that we had reservations at Le Meridien for their Mojito brunch. Evidently some of the better brunches require a reservation and a name on the guest list, we had both. When we arrive to the hotel it was a journey just trying to find the right brunch. Expats dotted the hotel lobby in their finest cocktail attire. We knew we were getting close to our watering hole when we saw the sign, "get drunched at the mojito brunch." We sat down ordered 1 of 9 different flavors of mojitos and started our feast with unlimited sushi. Then came chicken spring rolls, lamb pops, chicken yakatori, salmon, and many many other delicious items. Although this brunch cost around 300 Durams (about 75 bucks) each, I feel that I consumed well over 3X that amount. After the brunch wrapped up, everyone moved to the nearby hotel club and danced to 80's music until the sun went down. From there, it was fair game, we decided to head to the beach for the chill environment of a beachside bar. If you ever come to Dubai, a Friday brunch is a must.

I wasn't kidding

At the Warehouse for brunch

Beth and Eric made up some danced called the Chinese Alligator dance inspired by an Asian

man wearing a Lacoste shirt that danced particularly strange.

The following day we had plans for a desert safari that took place in the dunes somewhere between Dubai and Oman. The tour began at 3pm and lasted until 10pm. The first part of the tour was dune bashing. This was very similar to the dune buggying that I did in Peru except the bashing used a toyota land cruiser, and a crazy sheik driver. For some stupid reason I decided to eat a ton of chocolate before the bashing. This was a TERRIBLE idea!! The first 15 minutes of sliding, hopping, and popping over the dunes was awesome. The following 20 minutes I could not tell if I was about to toss my cookies on beth or out the window. Finally we stopped and after several prolonged moments of nausea, I felt ok. Next, we pulled into a camp ground with about 40 other Toyota Land Cruisers for dinner. They served up bedouin food consisting of Pita, Chicken, Lamb, rice and other local dishes. There were other activities to participate in as well. We chose camel riding, and belly dancing. We were terrible at the ladder. A Desert Safari from Dubai is certainly worth the trip. Just don't eat too many sweets beforehand. We returned back to Eric's place, went for an evening swim in the persian gulf and called it a night.

Enjoying a beautiful sunset from the dunes. Even though I am smiling, I still was a little rattled from the ride.

Eric and Beth going for a ride

The cutest Arab girl i've ever seen

A good look?

Camels are nicer in the UAE than in Jordan

Our last day was spent sightseeing. Ski Dubai, Gold Souk, and the large Emirates Mall were some of the places we checked out before heading to the airport for our flight to Mumbai.