Final week in Dubai

Hi Everyone!

I apologize for my shameful delay in posts. This has been an eventful last week in Dubai! Three weeks seems like a long time until the end when you realize you have left quite a bit to do!

This has been another great week. A highlight for me was on Friday when Luke and Cara left me with some friends from church for the day while they went to a childbirth class. I had a wonderful day visiting with some wonderful families and getting some great insight on what life would be like here if I were to move to this part of the world. I'm very thankful for that -- as it is one of my primary objectives for my trip.

Here are some pictures with a few stories:

Last Thursday Luke and Cara took me down to the Creek -- the oldest part of Dubai. We first went to the great museum (entry was less than $1) about the history of Dubai, and this is me in a traditional hut. It was hot for me in the middle of January... I was trying to imagine it in hot summer temperatures! Really... I can't imagine.

After the museum, we went to the textile souk, where we did a little shopping in the traditional barter style. We felt like we got good deals about half of the time.

On Sunday, Cara dropped me off at the beach while she tutored. Beautiful, isn't it?

Luke met me there and we visited a "historical village" set up for the shopping festival which is going on right now, and we saw some great traditional things like this Arabian horse, falcons, and ate some traditional food. Cara met up for us and we went to On the Border for dinner :-).

Ryan, who will be traveling with me for at least the next few legs got to Dubai on Tuesday and I met up with him several times to see parts of the city and plan our trip. We were right next to the Burj Kalifa, so here is a daytime shot.

This is the historical part of the city, the Creek, which you can cross on abras. I really liked this part of the city (it felt more authentically international to me).

This is the whale shark in the aquarium at Atlantis, the beautiful hotel at the top of the Palm. We went with several friends. It was really nice!

I'll write more later... I'm running out of time in Dubai, so I'll need to fill you in on the rest soon. I have made a commitment to never wait so long to blog again while on this trip if at all humanly possible (which it should be), so you can hold me to that. Thanks for those of you who have emailed and commented. I really love hearing from you!

Laura