Hello and Dubai

The redeye flight from Atlanta to Dubai was a breeze — 14 hours FLEW by!  (I promise I’ll try to keep my puns to a minimum, but that was too good to pass up.)  We slept for a while, watched movies and had a bite to eat.  I’ll note that my movie selections (The Intern and Trainwreck) were vastly different from Meadows’ choices (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Love & Mercy and Sleeping with Other People).  Highlight of the flight: trying to hold onto my wine and turn on Trainwreck during some major turbulence.  Meadows thought he could help, but simply started the movie in German …twice!

We landed and had quite the wait in the Passport Control line.  After making it through and collecting our four giant suitcases (seriously, we feel like the Clampetts), we made our way to the resort.  I’ll probably say this many more times, but Dubai has SO MANY BUILDINGS.  In addition to all the buildings, we drove past an endless line of American restaurants: Wendy’s (Meadows was so excited), Subway, Cheesecake Factory, Benihana — the list goes on and on!  We felt right at home with such unhealthy selections surrounding us.  We passed out when we got to the hotel, but we spent the next day exploring.

We walked the entire Dubai Marina (easily hitting our 10k step goal!), which is just one small area of Dubai.  We kept seeing ads for a free Lamborghini or BMW when you purchase real estate.  Why isn’t this a thing in the U.S.?!  All jokes aside, the landscape is breathtaking: beautiful architecture right on the Persian Gulf.  My brother, Ben, sent me this photo of Dubai.  It’s one of the largest photos, and Dubai is the perfect subject — you can zoom and zoom and zoom!  It is easy to see that tourism has taken over as the largest industry in Dubai, with countless resorts and high-rise hotels.

We spent this week getting acclimated mostly.  Meadows went to work Monday – Thursday, I worked on adjusting to life without a job and we tried to shake the jet lag.  This is the point at which I know most of you are saying “Puh-leeeeease!  Your life is a joke!”  It is awesome for sure, but definitely an adjustment from “normal life.”  I have worked a full-time job since graduating from college almost 7 years ago — and I worked up until Friday afternoon, just hours before leaving.  So I’m just not used to all this free time!  I can assure you I spent it wisely…

Aside from my excessive people watching and lounging around the resort, Meadows and I used the evenings to explore the Dubai restaurant scene — YUM!  We also went for a night on the town with the local Coca-Cola team.  It is so much more fun to see a city with the locals!

It’s important to note that our schedule is a bit unusual this “round” (round = 2 month project).  Typically, we’ll be based in one country for 2 months, and we’ll go on weekend trips from this home base.  Due to the beginning of the year and conference in Atlanta at the end of February, round 1 is only 6 weeks long.  In addition to that, Meadows is visiting both the Dubai office and the Cairo office.  So our first week in Dubai is over, but we’ll be back for touristy stuff in a month!