A Day in Dubai and a Eulogy for Europe

Geographically this post only covers my time in Dubai, just shy of 30 hours. But this represents a milestone for my trip, as I’ve finally left Europe. Maybe titling this as a eulogy is a little extreme given the word’s strong connotation with funerals, but I was going for alliteration. Simply put, now that it’s done, I’ve got some thoughts.

But first, my time in the UAE. Not initially a must-see place for me, I flew here from Krakow, and out to Kathmandu. I figured if I was otherwise going to layover in one of the world’s most modern cities, with endless sun, beaches, and multiple impressive skyscrapers, I might as well get off the plane and check it out. Briefly.

What do you get when you plop Las Vegas in the Middle East and make gambling and drinking illegal there? Dubai, apparently. This place is architecturally the biggest show of wealth I’ve ever imagined. I was able to see the skyline from the plane ride in. I took flydubai, a budget airline, with bad reviews. I had an unremarkable flight in seats that provided less-than-average comfort.

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From the airport I cabbed Over to my hotel, and then walked to get dinner. One of my first thoughts as I was strolling was “is 24 hours here going to be enough?” I’ll get back to that one. My next thoughts were many about the people and place. There was far more diversity than I expected. Every resident I met seemed to be an immigrant, hailing from all over the Muslim world. North Africa, the MIddle East, Eastern Asia seemed to be standard amongst the yokels. Most Europeans I saw or met were tourists, with a decent number of Brits. I did not meet a single American, which was fine, but a tad surprising. I noticed that many of the cars were white, very disproportionally so. And everything felt spread out. Despite their size, most buildings had big offsets, the streets were very wide, and the entire density and ratios just seemed… off. It was vertical yet not as densely urban as my head told me it should’ve felt. My walk to dinner took me through a less towering part of the city. I ate at an Iranian kebab restaurant and finished up dinner around 10 or 11. There was a barbershop still open, and I was due, so I went for a local look. My barber was Egyptian and there was a lot lost in communication, so he took the requested amount off the top (all of it) but too much off the beard. I can now say with confidence that you haven’t lived until an Egyptian man sticks his fingers in your ears.

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Monday morning I was headed to the beach, and found a good Turkish restaurant along the way. I had never heard of menemen before, turns out it was one of the best breakfasts I’ve had of the trip. It’s essentially scrambled eggs with tomato sauce and veggies and loads of spices that’s cooked just until the eggs are about to set. Upon my return (or maybe on this trip when I have kitchen facilities and the willingness to make breakfast) I plan to get some recipes for menemen and add it to my repertoire.

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Then Jumeirah Beach. Oh boy, what a spot. I went to North Jumeirah, where the aqua marine water gently lapped at some of the finest sand I’ve ever walked on. Small fish darted through the warm shallows. Out to sea you could see jetties and cranes, while a 180 degree view was of Dubai’s iconic skyline. I was looking forward to the beach but didn’t know how perfect the water and sand and views would be. I walked to the southern counterpart, separated by a small waterpark, which was near identical. Between the two a security guard informed me that I couldn’t walk topless alongside the waterpark – only on the beach.

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Most women out and about in Dubai wore modern clothing, sometimes revealing. The same went for the beach, where bikinis reigned supreme. The beach (and other subsequent tourist spots) was the only location where I had seen an equal ratio of men to women. Everywhere else it seemed to be 2 or 3:1. Throughout the city there was probably 10% of men wearing traditional garb, roughly similar to the percentage for women. The people, the architecture, and the customs all exhibited a similar pattern of overarchingly modern, with some traditions throughout.

From the beach I headed to the urban core. This stretch reminded me of South Florida. Lots of 1 story modern homes, concrete and stucco everywhere. The wide blocks, lack of pedestrians, and flora al screamed suburban Fort Lauderdale. As I got to the area I would describe as “the city,” I came face to face with Blakeslee’s paradise (this is a Connecticut-based precast concrete fabricator). 5 or 6 story precast parking garages stretch in both directions, seemingly endlessly. Each skyscraper, one block further in (each building was a block), had it’s own garage. As I stepped between them, the combination of their shade and tunneling the wind was glorious. Still in South Florida, this part of the city had more of a new age Miami Beach vibe, the tall buildings here creating a colonnade standing against the residential community to the south.

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I walked amongst these monuments to oil money, and then to the Dubai Mall. Huge, high end finishes, modern and artistic decor, touch screen directories, but still just a mall. But a mall with an ice rink and two four story fountains and and aquarium and the entrance to the world’s tallest building.

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Ah yes, the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

This building was about 80% of the reason I wanted to get off the plane in Dubai. It exceeded my expectations. We’re talking about two Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other. Three eiffel towers. 15 Healy Libraries. 70 Ossining High Schools. A lot of building. It looked like it could pierce the atmosphere. Having visited the Burj Khalifa Dubai shortly after slogging through Auschwitz, I had transitioned from hell on earth to the height of man. I walked around the entire building and fountains and parks associated with the site.

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I was a little early for my 4pm entrance to the top so I went for a walk and grabbed lunch, then meandered back to take the elevator rides up. I purchased a VIP ticket which was very much worth it. We skipped lines which probably totaled over an hour of waiting to go both up and down. Furthermore, the general access was to levels 124 and 125. We went to lounge on 148 where we were greeted with coffee and treats. I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking.

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Some Burj Khalifa Facts: The building is 828 meters, or 2,716.5 feet tall. This is three Eiffel Towers, or two Empire State Buildings. It takes 3 months to clean all 3,400 glass panels on the facade. It opened in 2010, and will no longer be the world’s tallest building as of 2021 when the Jeddah Tower opens in Saudi Arabia. Construction took 6 years and 22 million manhours. If all of the rebar in the building was placed end-to-end it would stretch 1/4 around the world. The two elevators that go from the ground floor to 125 are the fastest in the world, traveling at 10 meters per second. All of the AC condensate is used to water the gardens below.

I arrived at the bottom of the Burj Khalifa just in time for the first fountain show of the evening. Nice, but I seem to remember being more impressed by the Bellagio’s. I took over 6,000 photos of the Burj Khalifa and surrounding site, here are a few.

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Now into my final few hours in Dubai. I grabbed a Moroccan dinner and took a circuitous route back to my hotel to grab my bags and cab to the airport. Dubai is not a pedestrian friendly city. There weren’t always sidewalks, and the massive amount of construction everywhere often made it difficult to get around building sites. Jaywalking is illegal and frowned upon, which is fine as long as pedestrian routes are accommodated. The shopping district near the mall had catwalks, but few others transitioned highways. Some final observations: they seem to like paired towers, this was a recurring pattern. Lots of chain restaurants everywhere, many American. But no American people! Definitely a popular European vacation destination, a few people assumed I was Russian (and given my new look, one asked if I was Muslim). I could’ve made good use of another day or maybe two here, between more beach time, more good meals, maybe some water sports or a boat tour of the manmade islands, and I never made it to the Marina, in the southern part of the city. Even so, given the places I had queued up to visit next and was itching to experience, the day+ that I spent here was a perfect amount of time.

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Lastly, a new personal record in Dubai: 47,129 steps in one day!

And now, as promised, closing the book on my time in Europe. Good golly, what to say about Europe? I could say a lot. I’ve said a lot. And many people have been to Europe so I don’t expect I’ll have much to profoundly offer. Regardless, here are some disorganized thoughts that I’ve jotted down. Just some snapshots of things in my head. I’ve also updated the Best Of so you can see what I enjoyed most, with visual aids. Below, some thoughts with no particular organization to them…

I did ok communicating. I tried learning key phrases, but was only able to commit these to memory/reflex in Germany and Italy. I didn’t spend enough time anywhere else to be in a situation to try to communicate effectively in the local tongue. There was also a lag, so I habitually tried to speak German my first couple of days in the Franco lands, and attempted Italian in Slovenia, etc. Most people spoke English along the way, or could understand similar enough keywords. I always had my ears tuned for overhearing some English. When people were laughing or using onomatopoeia my brain instinctively recognized it, but I often realized moments later that I recognized only those sounds and not the language. What I struggled with more than language was the lack of places that accepted credit cards (especially in Germany, which I found surprising of all places).

Getting around was largely a breeze. I had no issues with the car, and never once regretted it. Definitely a great way to tour a big chunk of Europe if you want to see multiple cities and small towns between. Within cities I mostly walked. I took a handful of trams and pretty much whenever using public transit found it reliable, clean, and efficient. The thing I liked least about the trams was the resulting crisscrossing wires that ran above most main streets. Messed up so many photos! Other drivers were sometimes a struggle, especially in Italy. I never got used to drivers being able to go anywhere. Most memorable was in Mainz where I was walking through a wide open pedestrian plaza when all of a sudden a car honked at me and zoomed by. Similar to cars being allowed everywhere, dogs entered any kind of establishment. They were all well behaved, except in Prague.

The two biggest adjustments for me in restaurants were no free water (most establishments refused to provide tap) and getting your bill. I can only recall one time when a bill came without provocation, at a restaurant that had a large wait. Every other time it needed to be requested, and often still took a while to receive and/or process. They just don’t need to turn tables over like American service industry staff do. In some cases when I paid by card I didn’t have an opportunity to tip. The food, meanwhile, was generally excellent. I put a decent bit of effort into finding good authentic restaurants and the best versions of traditional local dishes. I really began to take to the coffee culture. Just a shot (or two) of espresso after most meals. I initially struggled to find iced coffee or even a full size coffee to go (aka americano), but gave in and embraced their ways.

When it came to people, the cultures varied somewhat significantly in small geographic areas. The Alps seemed to separate the more reserved Swiss, German, and Austrian folk from the more passionate Italians to their south. And if I thought those folks were reserved, I needed to check the Polish for a pulse. The Czech locals seemed to be some of the coldest, I was told as a result of the overwhelming number of tourists. I thought I’d see a little more vaping, but nearly everyone still smoked regular cigarettes, and did so constantly in every place. I found that telling people I was American got a neutral or negative reaction, while telling them I was from New York generally elicited a positive response, so I stuck with that. Speaking of New York, there were more Yankees hats in Europe than in the Bronx. People got a kick out of learning that I’m and Yankees fan, because everyone wears the logo but few have met a real fan. I deliberately didn’t bring any clothes with logos to avoid outing myself, but I bought a Yankee hat knowing that it was actually camouflage. If you noticed my NASA shirt in some photos, this I also grabbed overseas – I needed a light colored shirt for the Amalfi Coast (all the t-shirts I packed were dark solids), and had at this point abandoned fear of being outed as an American – it never really mattered.

A statistical snapshot of my experience: I traveled in Europe for 40 days, covering 4,076 miles (6,560 km). I spent over 80 hours in transit and took 880,000 steps. I visited 26 cities and 25 towns across 10 countries. I saw 4 old friends along the way and made 22 new ones (criteria for this is loose, but requires more than a one-time interaction). I stayed in 12 hostels, 3 hotels, 7 airbnbs, and was hosted twice.

Places I’d like to revisit: Rome, the Amalfi Coast, and Tuscany (so you know, all of Italy again), the Swiss Alps, Alsace (eastern France), and Prague.

Places I could’ve seen with a different route/schedule but skipped and would still like to see: Berlin, Scandinavia, more of France, more of Switzerland, Croatia, Greece, Vienna, Budapest – really all points east and/or south. I also regret skipping Cinque Terre in Italy – the little research I did made me apprehensive about trying to visit it via car, and I was in a bit of a rush given my large southern Italy itinerary.

Places I could’ve done without: Luxembourg (the entire country… if it wasn’t for that concert), Trieste, Salzburg, Genoa, Naples. Naples was the biggest disappointment of these – it was dirty, hilly, and didn’t offer anything that couldn’t be found in nearby Rome, Pompeii, and the Amalfi Coast. Regardless, Max, Rachel, and I had a good time there. The waffle in Liege singularly made that city worthwhile.