Weekend in Dubai

This Thursday and Friday, I went with Patty and Michael to Dubai to do the tourist thing. Dubai is probably one of the strangest places that I've been thus far. It's a totally car-based city, to such an extent that the malls don't even really have pedestrian entrances. The first day we were there we took the Dubai metro, we had to walk over a km from the "Dubai Mall" stop on the metro to the actual Dubai mall. When we got there, there was no way to get in without going through the entrance to the parking garage.

The malls are oddly spectacular though. Dubai mall is so big that we were there probably 2 hours and didn't see half of it. They had everything, even a Dean & Deluca and La Durée (a Paris-based macaroon shop). My personal favorite find was the pink stuffed camel store, Camella.





On Friday morning, while most of the population was at the Friday prayer, we went to Ski Dubai, an artificial ski slope and winter park in one of the malls. It was fun, although the snow report should've said that the conditions were slush to ice.



I went down a couple of times, but hearing the ice when I would turn was kind of terrifying, so I decided to call it a day quicker than I thought. But we had some good hot chocolate as an apres-ski treat.



Later that day, we got to walk around the city a bit. Here we are in front of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.



On Friday evening, we went for Korean food, the first time I've had it in recent memory. Delicious!



On Saturday morning, I headed back to Paris, where I have about 3 more weeks before heading back to Chicago. It was a great, relaxing break, and I can't wait to go back and visit again!

-Laura