Dubai - Part IV - Going Home and Final Thoughts

(I've been home for over a week - I had composed this before I left, but delayed publishing it. I wanted to chronical my trip and post them in order).

My business in Dubai is done and I can come home! I was able to get my flight changed from the red-eye tomorrow night/Friday morning to tomorrow at 11:35 am - which means I'll get back to NY late on Thursday evening local time, be able to sleep through the jet lag and start Saturday all nice and fresh. It's supposed to rain - joy, joy, joy.

Dubai is an interesting place - good and bad. It's extremely expensive - a regular cup of coffee is $6 US, and a bottle of water is not much cheaper. People are very friendly - but as a visitor, it is unlikely that you'll encounter many native Emirites. Almost everybody who works in a store, in a restaurant, or in any sort of service capacity, is a foreigner. My driver was from Pakistan, the hotel staff are mostly Filipino, the lawyers were from India and Egypt and Ireland, and of course the jewelers were Indian and the rug merchants Kashmiri. I think the only Emirites I met were at the leasing office.

Women seem to be treated well - most native (meaning from the Gulf states) women covered their heads and wore some form of full body black garb, from wrists to upper neck - but few were in bourkas. Many were unaccompanied by men, but few were alone. I found it interesting that many women wore a lot of face makeup, the black abayas were very form-fitting, and trimmed with embroidery and lots of crystal. Women depicted in advertising ranged from the aforementioned natives in black with head scarves, to Western women in relatively scanty attire. Western woman are permitted to drive - and it is possible that native women do as well - but I didn't see any (didn't really look either).

I confess to avoiding ethnic food - one look at something called "foul madamas" and that put paid to any adventurous eating. Except for the sweets - tiny little things made with phyllo type dough, butter, honey and almond paste.

For the obvious reasons, I'll be sad to leave - it's been like a stay in lotus-eater land. Room service, turn down service, wake up service, no worries about parking, someone to carry my bags, a hotel suite twice as big as the bedroom at home. Reality is going to hit me in the face when I have to do my laundry! But I miss my family, my friends, the rest of my pillows (although the mattress here is far better than my own), my own bathroom (the less said about the toilet's water pressure, the better), my towels (why is it that even a 5-star hotel can't supply soft towels).

I miss my beads, my Macintosh with the big monitors, my comfy desk chair - access to Google.com, rather than Google.ae (where everything's in Arabic). Did I say I miss my Mac? Chinese food, beverages that come with plenty of ice, the occasional piece of crispy bacon (there is pork here, but it's segregated and the bacon's of the English, streaky variety, which is flappy, fatty and gross). I miss the autumn leaves, the chill in the morning and at the end of the day, the crisp fall air and the deep blue skies of New York in October. I miss the maples in the showy scarlet and gold dresses, the flocks of Canada geese thinking about going home and pooping everywhere. I miss the moon and the stars at night - between the light pollution and the air pollution, I've not seen a single star in the sky. I'm tired of the heat, the haze, the dust and the sand. Dubai is lovely, but it's not home.