So this past Saturday I met a man named Allan from North Carolina while eating breakfast in the cafeteria. Alan is in Dubai for one week teaching an internet course here at the academy. He's a friendly, fun-loving guy who can strike up a conversation with anyone. The church I've been going to was having a picnic that day at the Zabeel Park, so I invited him out to see some of the city, meet some people, and enjoy some good food. He was all for it, and we ended up having a great time. The park is humongous, full of cricket fields, futbol fields, picnic areas, and children racing on pedal cars. We grilled kababs and ribs, played some volleyball, and hung out in the grass talking to a group of students that had come from California on a mission trip.
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| Kababs on the Grill |
The next night Allan and I made a trip to the Mirdif City Center mall to check out the indoor skydiving place. That's right, indoor skydiving in a mall. It's a vertical wind tunnel that basically looks like an enormous glass mug with a fan at the base that makes people fly like Charlie and Grandpa when they drank Willy Wonka's fizzy lifting drink. Allan is big time into skydiving, so he gave it a go while I documented the "flight" with his camera. The thing was awesome, and smile on his face when he came out of there was priceless.
The day of the picnic there was a huge sand storm coming from Oman, and so it wasn't the best day to see buildings. So last night Allan and I went on a Big Bus Tour of Dubai to see the sights. We rode in the open 2nd level of a big tour bus, departing from the Deira mall on a two-hour cruise through every part of the city. A few facts that I learned on the trip: there is a large gold plated flagpole with the UAE flag, the Burj Al Arab hotel has a heli-pad, a tennis court, and a restaurant where you can order the world most expensive drink (21,310 AED), there is a building called the Pregnant Lady that bows out on one side, Donald Trump is building his Trump Towers on the Jumeirah Palm island, there is only one restaurant in Dubai that serves camel steaks, and you can also order camel milkshakes.
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| Dubai Bus Tour |
Well tomorrow we go on a Desert Safari, gotta get rested up...
