Posts From United Arab Emirates

We arrived in Dubai last night around 22:00 and boy was it an eye opening experience. The first hint of the size and audacity of this place was the 20 minute bus ride from the steps of our plane to the terminal, followed by the size of the airport terminal which could only be described as cavernous and palacial. During the drive to our hotel there was frankly too much to take in, high rise buildings everywhere and a diversity of shapes, and capping them all was the Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest structure at 830 meters.

Another day of moving locations. This time a 2 hour car ride from the desert resort to Traders Hotel in Abu Dhabi. The hotel is located on a protected water way called Khor Al Maqtaa and provides a small white sandy beach onto this water way.

Todays guide was a Swedish lady named Julia who is living in the UAE with her Swedish husband and 2 children. We would eventually find out quite a lot about why the family moved here and with some some interesting observations about life in Sweden vs life in UAE. But the main part of the day was taken up seeing some of the spectacular sights in this city driven by Julia's enthusiasm and Nina's curiosity.

Our flight home was scheduled for 21:30 so we had almost an entire day to either waste or get in some last minute sightseeing, even taking into account that it would be a 2 hour drive to the Dubai airport from our hotel. As you might have expected Nina decided on the sightseeing and I decided to laze around in the hotel.