Dubai

So I got my spring break snowboarding day after all.  Not exactly the way I had planned, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  The hot and dry desert that is supposed to be Dubai welcomed us with a cold and rainy day.  Not the most ideal weather for a one day stop in any city, but we of course didn’t let us stop us from having fun.  We drove through the city on our way out to the desert sand dunes.  A parade line of 12 Land Cruisers, we arrived in the wet sand of the desert for a day of 4-wheel driving through the dunes.  Having kids around always makes things more fun so our driver made it a point to make our drive more “extreme” than the other cars.  We fishtailed our way through the sand doing donuts, and driving up and over steep mounds of sand.  The description may sound lame, but the drive was not.  Between the sprays of sand that were hitting our windows, we looked out to see camels wandering the desert.  After about an hour of the bumpy roller coaster ride, we stopped for lunch at a desert camp sight that was set up for us.  They had food, camel rides, hookah, belly dancers, henna tattoos, and what made my “spring break” complete, snowboarding down the sand dunes.  Tennis shoes strapped right into a snowboard; you go straight down and can make no turns on your way because the sand is too thick.  The ten-second ride down was only worth the walk up once for me.  Ok so maybe it’s not as cool as skiing indoors, but it’s the next best experience I could take home from Dubai. We spent the rest of our afternoon participating in the more eclectic activities of tattoos and hookah. 

 

On our drive back towards downtown Dubai, we passed a herd of about ten camels who were taking a stroll down the highway.  Dubai is such an interesting city. The only way I can think to describe it would be that is has a traditional Middle Eastern culture, with an American attitude.  The best example of this would be the guy I saw walk into the gas station wearing his full length white robe, his traditional head dress on, with his iPod headphones in his ears.  The whole city looks of that small glimpse of a man I saw.  The buildings are all the tallest, newest, and biggest.  They have construction going up everywhere that is eager to be the best of the best.  And as you’re driving past all of these fancy buildings you look through the tinted windows of the Range Rover passing you on the highway and see the driver is wearing his white robe gown and turban on the head get-up.  These two ideas seem so conflicting to me but here in Dubai, it is completely normal.