Zambia- the happiest place on earth

The adventure begins!!! 

As I didn't know anyone on this trip, I was really praying to meet someone on the plane that would be a great travel buddy to run around and explore Dubai with. Not even 5 minutes after I got out of the car at the airport Andrew I ran into a fellow Teach One girl!!! Nayibe! I was so excited and so relieved instantly. God answered my prayers and made it obvious he was going to be there to ease my fears. 

After a little shuffling of bags at the airport in Dallas (all my bags were at 60 pounds and the limit was 50, oops, luckily I brought an extra bag to throw stuff in, and paid the extra $175 fee 🙄 but it was all worth it to bless those teachers and kiddies with the school supplies) I spent some time alone, decompressing and praying. Then I set out to get some breakfast and find my new friend. As we began to chat, I quickly learned that not only had God blessed me with a travel buddy, in His true fashion he also blessed me more than I deserve with an AGGIE who grew up in Arlington... I mean, really?! Haha, I love it when God does that! 

I was super excited about my window seat on the 15 hour flight, when I got to my seat there was a mother and a daughter who asked if I would switch seats with their father so they could sit together... I of course said that was fine... 

Then I realized his seat was in the very middle of the middle.. In between two very grown men. They were friendly, but needless to say, I didn't sleep quite as well as I would have liked. My Fitbit said I slept for 3.2 hours 😫.  But I watched some great movies and I ate some yummy food... Braised lamb and some yummy mushy stuff! 

And I watched the live feed from the plane... SO cool!! 

I'm pretty sure that is the ballpark in Arlington... If it's not, I'm believing it anyways!! Hehe. 

We landed in Dubai around noon (3am Dallas time). Nayibe and I navigated the airport with each other to find the transport to the Emirates hotel for the night. That airport. Wow! 

Luckily the airline kept my 4 bags of luggage so I only had my carry on to lug around. We checked in, signed up for a 4 hour city tour, and then decided to lay horizontal for an hour before we set out. I slept hard for that hour, it wasn't easy to get up but I knew I had to take advantage of the time we had in Dubai! We grabbed some lunch at the hotel buffet (included with our boarding passes) and I tried some new foods! 

New favorite treat: Baklava. Don't ask me what it is, but it's good!! :) it's up in the corner of my plate. 

Because it is Ramadan and they fast during the day, we had to eat our lunch behind the curtain 

Dubai. Wow. Everything in Dubai is over the top extreme. From the buildings to the indoor waterfalls to the luxury cars. On our tour we first visited the Mosque at Jumeriah - beautiful Turkish architecture. Just snapped some pics outside since Friday is their holy day. 

Next we visited the beach (we think it's the Arabian gulf, but we don't have google so we aren't sure!) it was pretty though! And HOT! 104 degrees.. I mean it is a desert! 

We also had a view of the Burj Al Arab the only 7 star resort in the world. The cheapest room is $2000 a night. Oh what I would have given to go inside!!! 

Next up the Atlantis! Again, just got to see it from outside, our tour guide was pretty strict. 5 minute limit everywhere. I might try to go back to see the inside on the next layover. 

After that we went to the Dubai mall- the largest shopping mall in the world!! The Burj Kalifa is at the mall, they had a fountain show (like the bellagio in Vegas) at 7:30 pm. Our tour guide dropped us off at the mall and said "go straight. Do not look right, do not look left. Go straight to the fountain and come straight back when it is over." I mean how do you take this girl to the largest mall in the world and not let me shop?!!! What?!! I followed the rules well, I mean I can go to Pottery Barn in the states any time I want, there were mostly American stores any way. It was pretty wild though seeing all of the restaurants closed because the sun was still up. There was a long line outside all of the restaurants with closed doors. Check out these bobble heads! Hehe. 

 

We made it out to the fountains and it was beautiful!!! 

It was at the base of the Burj Kalifa, the tallest building in the world. Again, I was hoping to head to the top, but there wasn't time :( As we were waiting for the fountain show while the sun was setting we heard a loud boom like a firecracker. Of course my mind did not go to firecracker first... Nayibe and I grabbed hands and fear struck our eyes. We looked around and nobody else seemed to be concerned so we relaxed. Shortly after that the Islam prayer started over the speakers, so I'm thinking it was maybe to symbolize the end of the fasting for the day??? It was definitely an interesting experience to say the least. The fountain show was really cool, again the biggest fountain show in the world. These people in Dubai must be really competitive because everything has to be the biggest or the best in the world! Haha. What's crazy is how young most of the city is. They said that about 20 years ago the city area where we were was desert! 

When we got back on the bus, we finally got to drink our water!!! I don't know how they go all day without water! I kept thinking how hard it would be for mom to go without her water bottle everywhere! Haha. Did you know it's cheaper to drink gasoline than it is to drink water in Dubai? Pretty fascinating! 

At this point Nayibe and I were taking turns nodding off on the bus ride to the market... Haha. I was really excited to check out the market and get some cool stuff! Every time I saw a rug store I couldn't help myself from singing "take me on a magic carpet ride" from Aladdin.  Dubai is nicknamed the "city of gold" I get it now!!! Haha. This is what almost every store window looked like. 

Of course we couldn't afford anything, but as we walked around every other man we saw tried to get us to go in their store. I kept thinking about the beginning of Aladdin, "it will not break, it will not break, it broke".. Why does every adventure in life remind me of a Disney movie?! 

They would say "oh madam, you need a purse! Prada, Gucci, Louis Vitton?! This way, follow me" and they all started to try to lead us down a dark ally way. Ya no thanks! I'd like to not be captured just because I wanted a cheap purse... Haha. If they would have had just one store up front in plain sight I would have been very interested, but not in the business of getting taken! We finally got too creeped out and found a guy on our bus we met from Ghana and decided to walk back to the bus with him and call it quits on shopping at the market. Instead we watched fancy boats go down the river from the bus :) 

Our tour ended, we grabbed dinner at the hotel, this time with the curtain open because it was after dark:). And went to sleep- the shuttle was leaving at 7am for our flight to Zambia!! Woooohoooo!!! 

I woke up this morning with pure excitement I felt like a kid on Christmas morning waiting for mom and dad to wake up! Of course, in the elevator I met a group of sweet girls heading to Camp Life! They were precious and invited me to eat breakfast with them :) behind the curtain of course. We jumped on the bus and got to the airport in plenty of time to explore the airport AND get a Starbucks! Yay for no fasting at the airport! We saw some interesting toilets, rode a bus to the plane and we were off!!! I'm not going to lie,  kind of excited to not be on a plane for awhile. If my feet swell anymore they won't fit in my shoes!