Square toilets with hoses for washing off your backside ** Women with eyes made bigger by makeup ** Minor melancholy music chords...is there any jocularity in desert living? ** Boy, lots of men working here ** What is an Emirati? ** I flew over Baghdad while listening to "Bad Romance" on the plane, and that's probably the closest I'll come to the Iraqi war...I've got American privilege ** Alexander technique is helpful on long plane rides - lengthen and widen ** Spotless, crisp dishdashas and sweet-smelling, embroidered abayas ** Yes, souq merchants, I'm a blonde girl pushing myself in a wheelchair, and I absolutely DID just win that barter...boo-ya-ka-sha! ** Emiratis get stipends to live?! ** Dubai looks like Gotham city, or a wannabe Hong Kong ** So THIS is where all the fancy white SUVs are! ** Safe city, lowest crime, family court is sharia law ** Men walking hand in hand in brotherhood...hmm ** A plethora of unfinished buildings ** It's a challenge balancing progress and tradition ** My new congenial cabbie friend from Pakistan went to Syria for prayer ** More of a melting pot than New York - expat central ** Is this much extravagance actually possible? ** Good to know that Europeans are sometimes ignorant tourists, too ** Filipinos are hard workers ** It somehow makes sense, while I'm here, why some women would choose to wear a veil...yet, I don't know whether it was a choice for some of the women I see ** Joy in the simplicity of a bedouin existence ** $75 for a drink?! No thanks, Burj Al Arab, even if you ARE pretty like a sailboat! ** Do paralyzed abdominal muscles put you at greater risk for falling off a camel? ** Indoor ski hills...according to the random Brit, they have them in the UK, too ** Wow, I've gone 10 days without a cell phone! But wait, we have three computers in one hotel room...doh ** How do I love transferring into high SUV cabs? Let me count the bruises ** The chips at Chili's in Dubai are the same as the chips at Chili's in Denver...how do they do that?! ** Note to self: keep tabs on wheelchair sideguards when going out drinking in Dubai, or else spend the final few days of your trip attempting to tie luggage straps and scarves tightly enough around your thighs to hold them in from the wheels without cutting off circulation or getting a skin sore ** Really, they sailed that dinky little dao all the way from India? What a life that must be ** Sheiks plastered everywhere: buildings, billboards, car windows... ** Dubai Sports interrupts regularly scheduled programming for prayer time...regardless of your religious affiliation, you have to admire devotion ** PDA between men and women is a no-no ** Glass boat cruise ** Um, sir cabbie, are we REALLY driving to Bab Al Shams, a desert oasis, or are you taking us to Saudi Arabia? ** Sweet smelling hookah...everywhere (gag) ** They DELIVER McDonald's and Subway?! ** No photographs of the Sheik's miles-long estate ** Hazy desert sunsets are breathtaking ** "Of course it makes sense that they want you to say they're from a specific country, rather that 'the Middle East'...do you think Californians and Texans would appreciate being lumped together?" ** Thank you in Arabic: like a shoe, and a crumb of something tasty - shukram! ** My, the world is a wondrous, expansive orb, and there are a hell of a lot of people on it! ** Good handicapped parking spaces are nice, but it all equals out when you have to wait for the aisle chair and get off the plane dead last, and therefore get stuck at the back of the slow-moving US customs line after a 14-hour plane ride. But, it's good to be home! :-)
More pics at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/album.php?aid=2625575&id=3402738
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