Travel:

all flights went according to plan, nothing too special (besides large amounts of boredom for 15 hours on the flight to dubai) ... the time in dubai was quite an experience; after getting through customs claiming bags, we got put up in a rather fancy hotel (at least 4 stars) for the night with three meals included; since wes and i were still on US central time, we didn't get tired very early and so took a 2 hour bus tour around dubai starting just after midnight; it was still easily 95 or 100F and more than 90% humidity, so the air conditioned bus was welcome after getting out to take pictures; in the two hours, we got to see the two most famous towers in dubai (the world's tallest and the crazy looking, super-expensive hotel) as well as the new hotel on one of the man-made palm-tree-shaped island clusters and a drive-through of much of downtown; before leaving the next afternoon, we took a taxi downtown to the dubai mall (bigger than the mall of america); wes took a trip to the top of the world's tallest tower while i walked around the mall and checked out the aquarium and halls of gold and diamond jewelry shops ... all of this to discover that dubai is truly an artificial city, built in the middle of a desert where hardly anything existed 25 years before