I am so sorry that this has taken my forever to update. My service in the past couple of countries has been very questionable and hasn’t allowed me to work on my laptop.

Dubai is a place that took me by surprise. I would consider myself a well travel person however, the middle east was far from anything I had experienced before. My initial reaction of Dubai was that it was not much different than other big cities, modern, impressive sky-scrapers, taxis everywhere, huge malls, etc. The longer I was there, it continued to prove me wrong. While the city is undoubtably advanced and very cool in a modern way, what I found even more appealing was the Arabic middle eastern culture. My favorite thing we did in Dubai was our desert safari. We got to go dune dashing, ride camels, eat ethnic food, and sand surf. It was such a unique experience that I will hold close to my heart forever. 

Food: I was surprised by how much of this culture through food is covered up by the big city of Dubai. I once asked our Uber driver where we could find an authentic Arabic restaurant, he responded with “we don’t have those”. I was taken aback by this. In Dubai everything is engraved by other cultures, a shocking amount of Turkish foods and desserts, Thai snacks, even American and European stores were more dominantly found than anything else. That being said there was still Arabic accents on foods. Dates! Dates! Dates! They are everywhere. In cookies, garnishes on meats, in teas, served as offerings, you name it and it probably has some form of dates on or in it. Because of this I found myself actually enjoying the taste of dates. They are much sweeter in the middle east than I have ever had in the US. I also found myself drinking lots of Arabic coffee, it was never clearly explained what Arabic coffee actually is, but it tastes like a caffeine shot mixed with an herbal tea. Very interesting and only ever served in small glasses. I tried middle eastern kababs for the first time in Abu Dhabi which was seasoned amazingly. I noticed all of the seasoning here are so much richer than in the US. I expected them to be stronger and foods to be spicier but the flavors were more complex than anything else. 

There were some parts of the cultural difference that I expected, such as not being allowed to show your shoulders or knees in places or having your hair covered in religious places. That being said I was surprised by many other aspects of the culture, I educated myself a lot before this trip but still did not know many things. One of these things before personal space is practically non-existent. Walking through crowded areas it is more than accepted, possibly even encouraged, to bump and shove people to get around. This can get quite aggressive quite quickly. I also was not expecting women to be as taken care of us they are. They have specific cabs that are women driven and only for women, women get fed in some settings in a separate line and before the men, and women continuously would be pulled up to the front of lines or crowded areas.

Overall, I really liked Dubai. It is a place that took me by surprise but in a good way. I would suggest that every person needs to visit the middle east at least once. 

Favorite memories of Dubai:

• Ringing in he new year watching fireworks off the Burj Khalifa
• Desert safari sand boarding
• Going to the Atlantis Resort (very nostalgic for me)
• Making new friends
• Wandering through the old souks, everyone called me Shakira which I found very ironic
• Seeing the ship for the first time
• Trying new spices and foods
• Riding a camel for the first time