Welcome To Dubai!

The view above is from my window... That's the Gulf at the top of the picture, and if I had Superman's eyes I could see Iran across the water.





Flight from London was uneventful. I read, studied my Arabic language instruction, while Ryan kept track of our progress, looking out his window and gazing down on Fallujah and Baghdad as we passed over them. Ryan says there were fires in Baghdad--bummer. I was on the other side of the plane, so I think I saw Baghdad suburbs (Schaumburgdad?). I looked out my window a few times after it got dark, and amongst the miles of blackness that must be desert there were bright bright flames---quite a lot of them, from the oil fields I imagine. The airport in Dubai is humming at 1am. After a few interactions with large uniformed security guys wanting to inspect our bags (please don't confiscate; please don't confiscate!) we got to the meeting point for our hotel car. For all the hotel cars, actually. Then we went out and Hameed got us bundled up and so now here we are! We slid up to the hotel just as some stereotypical, middle-aged western businessmen were loudly, laughingly negotiating with a couple of asian ladies of the evening. They decided one was enough. Nice, eh? Makes you proud! Now it's just about 2am, and i'm a tad tired--go figure! It's not like I left my house 24 hours ago....oh wait, I did.