So even though I did my best to relax my curiosity of the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and my sense of adventure got to me. After having mojitos at the Burj's pool the first day and meeting an American couple (gay couple) and Sikh's that were mates from work from England that got a kick that 2 Americans took interest in chatting them up a bit, Rich and I finally thought to rent a car and go beyond the grounds of The Burj. We took the Toyota Earth Destroyer we rented and headed to Abu Dhabi to see something different and also see the Picasso exhibit at the Grand Palace. We also decided to visit one of Rich's friends' cousin that actually lives in Dubai.
The last time I was in Dubai it was definitely not as developed as this time. Skyscrapers are flying out of the sand an the world's tallest building, the Burj Al Dubai, is near complete and in the center of the new Middle Eastern, or rather, Persian Gulf, Manhattan, that when done, will be much larger and more grand than Manhattan. I did my best also to meet local gays, but most sexually oriented websites, including social networking sites, are blocked. In the end we gave up on finding gays to socialize with and headed to The Mall of The Emirates www.malloftheemirates.com, which seemed to be a bit cruisy, but you didn't hear that from me!The rest of the time we did laze around a bit but always made it a habit to go every night to Wild Wadi
www.wildwadi.com! I had not been to a water park since I was very young so I was kinda excited to go, but was even more thrilled when I found out how the park worked! You see, I think it is the only water park in the world where you do not drag up a tube to the top, but rather are jetted up to the top (see Master Blaster under the rides section) by jets that continuously propel you up the slide until the top and then you choose how you want to get back down! FUN!Our trip all the way back to The States was not going to be a piece of cake due to connection times between Gulf Air and American Airlines, so I decided to take a half a day in Bahrain just to check it out. We rented a car and decided to bum-rush Saudi Arabia for shits and giggles (Bahrain is an island connected to Saudi Arabia by a 21 mile causeway). On our way there we say an amazing building that we saw the night before on the Discovery Channel where the architect designed three large windmills in between the two legs of the building so it will be the first electricity self sufficient building in the world. So we bum-rushed Saudi and on our way back we heard an ad on the radio for Bahrain's water park so after shopping for shoes (shoes, shoes, let's get some shoes) we drove out into the Bahraini desert to The Lost Paradise of Dilmun www.lpodwaterpark.com (it does seem as though we went on a tour of the fabu water parks of the Persian Gulf, right?!?) A quick Cartman at Casa Bonita 1 hour run through The Lost Paradise of Dilmun and we headed back to watch a quick movie at the mall before getting on our flight to New Delhi, so instead of seeing the Indiana Jones movie which we missed by a few missed we watched a New Zealand flick called "The Ferryman." Sometimes it is cool to see other countries' flicks!
A quick night night flight back to New Delhi, continued sleep at the ITC Sheraton (ITC, ITC, luxury hotel, 5 star...LOL...you'd get the joke if you went to India!)a quick run through the markets and then finally out of (not so) Incredible India. Another 15 hour flight to Chicago, popped in to town to see a good friend that just moved there and then on to LA to have a quick night with good friends before going back home the next day (gotta get those Elite Qualifying Miles!)
