From Delaware to Dubai: Dubai day one!

After a few weeks of uncertainty of the possibility of sending 9 students in the honors section of Global Agenda to Dubai for spring break, and a long 14 hours in the air traveling, we FINALLY made it!! We arrived in Dubai this morning, Sunday, March 27 around 8 am with (alhamdulilah) no setbacks or problems. Seems like the 9 of us, plus Sara and Ralph, are meant to be here to soak in as much of this phenomenal city and culture as possible.
It really hit me that we were going to be in the Middle East for the first time in our lives (for the majority of us) when Professor Begleiter, with an hour left in our last leg of the flight from Heathrow to Dubai, came back to my row and said to us, "We're flying over Iraq right now. Out your right-hand side window is Kuwait City." My jaw dropped when I finally realized that our plane would be landing in the UAE in a mere hour.
Funnily enough, I (and Conor and Sean) signed up for the honors section not even knowing from the get-go that a trip to Dubai was in the cards. Safe to say it was the greatest shock and greatest treat to learn the second day of the class that Ralph was trying to get funding to send each of us there for the entire week of spring break. Great things happen when you least expect it, I guess.
Our first day couldn't have included a better introduction to the Emirati lifestyle, thanks to the girls at Zayed University with whom we had video conferenced three times while back in the states.
We were greeted in the Dubai international airport by Will, one of the girls' professors at ZU. He escorted us back to the hotel around 10 am. After a solid 14 hours of traveling we learned that we couldn't get into our rooms until 2 pm, but all of us made the best of those four hours. Conor, Greg, Kaitlyn and I needed to move around after being cramped on a plane for so long, so we took a nice jog around the hotel and found ourselves unable to keep saying, "Just running in Dubai, no big deal." It was truly like a dream, looking at the skyline of such a dynamic city that had literally gone from desert to an international metropolis in the last ten years as we relished in the dry heat that was such a welcome change from the freezing cold weather in Newark...we were all on such a high! We came back to the hotel for a little R&R by the pool with the rest of the group: did a little tanning, a little napping and recooperating, and a little swimming before being let into our rooms at 2.
The hotel itself is perfect for our group. We all noticed from the moment we stepped in just how international Dubai truly is. Ralph and Will mentioned to us that we had probably seen more Iranians in the hotel lobby than we had ever seen or possiblywill see in our lifetimes. Tourists from all over the world also found themselves at the Arabian Park Hotel along with our group. The fact that people from every continent come to Dubai, and the fact that on almost every corner of downtown Dubai a new building is going up or one is being renovated, are irrefutable testimonies to the exponential growth and potential for future growth in the Middle East thanks to the oil industry.
We relaxed a little at the hotel after checking in before taking a shuttle to the Wafi mall from the hotel to meet up with the ZU girls. We met up with them at Galler, a Belgian chocolate shop that serves everything from crêpes to the most decadent hot chocolate, for a snack and just to break the ice before our first big dinner together as a group. I think the majority of us in the Delaware group were surprised to see that the majority of the girls had shown up. We weren't sure how many to expect, but by the time 6 pm rolled around, we had a huge table filled up by Delaware and Dubai students, sisters of some of the Dubai students, Ralph, Will, and Sarah. The conversation flowed easily as we discussed everything from music and movies, school, clubbing in Dubai, and dress code, to gender roles and politics. It was an amazing feeling to be able to get along so well with girls who come from a very different world.
The girls are all incredibly sweet, they refused to let us pay for anything the entire night! They treated us to the chocolate, a walk through a haunted house in the Wafi mall, AND an incredible meal at Wafi gourmet, a traditional Middle Eastern restaurant where we sampled baba ghanouj, hummus, fattouch salad, shwarma, stewed eggplant, kebabs, and much much MUCH more. I have never seen a table so full of food! We loved the meal, the conversation, and the beautiful view from the rooftop table we had at the restaurant of downtown Dubai. What a night!
Early morning tomorrow: dune bashing and other crazy adventures to be had in the desert!

Inside the Wafi Mall.