Liz and Bryn: Dubai Departures

Liz and I had plans to attend a very special wedding in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago (more on that later), but as it turned out, I wasn’t granted leave from work, so Liz had to go alone. It wasn’t an ideal result, but there wasn’t anything we could do to change the situation, so on Sunday two weeks ago Liz and I loaded her bags into the car and headed to Dubai. Her flight departed late at night (or more accurately, early in the morning) so we went first to the mall. Festival City, to be precise. We had a great time wandering through IKEA, Ace Hardware, and many other shops. We had lunch at Fudruckers. It was awesome. Since we had the camera with us, we took a few pictures in and around the mall.

The Intercontinental hotel's swimming pool jutting out over the walkway

After a successful shopping trip we headed to the hotel near the airport. I had a room booked for the night, since Liz was leaving so late and I couldn’t be bothered driving back to Al Ain so late without any sleep. Sadly though, the room wasn’t ready for us yet, so we decided to take the Dubai Metro to the world’s largest mall: Dubai Mall. This was a great idea… in theory.

In reality, however, this was one of the most unpleasant train rides I have ever had. I won’t go into details, but rest assured it was a TERRIBLE experience! Finally, we arrived at Dubai Mall, or so we thought until we realized that the Dubai Mall Metro Stop was a good 10 minute bus ride away from the actual mall!! Once we eventually got to the mall, we found it PACKED!! Absolutely chocka-blocka full of people!! We quickly dived into California Pizza Kitchen for dinner, since we could see they had a table free. We then went outside to watch the Dubai Fountain display. This is one of the largest fountains in the world (and I think it’s the largest musical fountain in the world). The water jets and sprays like a dance in time to the music. There were GAZILLIONS of people there to watch the display, so we walked for quite some time to find our spot. The actual display/performance was fantastic! It’s so amazing what fountains can do these days! And at the foot of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. Really epic!

The Burj Khalifa (AKA the tallest building in the world)

Then we headed back into the mall for some serious walking and crowd dodging. Then it was a horrific experience of a metro ride back to the hotel. Liz left for America, and I was alone for two weeks.

Stay tuned for more on Liz’s US trip.