First night in Dubai

Greetings from Dubai!

Our flight from IAD went smoothly, and was on time. The flight was just under 13 hours.

We arrived in Dubai around 4:30. The hosts of the wedding that we are here to attend arranged for a car service to pick us up from the airport and bring us to the hotel. Actually, they also led us to get our luggage and through customs as well. Very helpful!

We checked into our hotel around 6:00. Jimmy was here to greet us (Thanks, Jimmy!). We are sharing a hotel suite with Reeves and Paula whose flight would get in about 3 hours after ours, so Dick and I were the first ones in the room. We unpacked, and felt much better after taking a shower. :)

Jimmy and Pavan called around 8:00 to ask if we wanted to join them for dinner. We weren't terribly tired (managed to sleep a bit on the plane), and really wanted to jump into the time zone. (Dubai is 12 hours ahead of San Francisco.)

We had dinner at the complex where Jimmy lives, which is only about 10 minutes away from our hotel location. We had a lovely dinner out on a terrace restaurant with Jimmy, Pavan, and some of their friends. It was a nice way to get to know some of the other guests before the wedding events start tomorrow. I had an especially nice time sitting next to, and having a chance to get to know the Bride, Pavan. :)

Here are a few shots that I took of one of the skylines of Dubai. (Jimmy says there are four separate skylines!) It was a gorgeous evening out, and a really wonderful way to spend our first night in Dubai.





Jimmy drove us back to our hotel after dinner. I know this is super geeky, but I took a photo of his GPS screen to show the Palm Island as we were driving around it. Both Jimmy's apartment complex, as well as our hotel where we're staying are on the Palm Island.


a shot of Jimmy's GPS screen

When we arrived back at our room, Reeves and Paula were already here and unpacked. We had a very quick catch-up before heading to bed.

Let's see if we can successfully managed to jump into the time zone! :)