MzMari3

Whew! This 30 for 30 is pretty tough. I am in the middle of traveling, taking two classes and teaching three classes. But I am a woman of my word, so I will keep it up until day 30. This blog will be summary of my experience during my travels to Dubai.

Growing up my family traveled a lot. This was partially due to the fact that we lived 520 miles away from our family. (Yes, I googled the mileage boo!) So you can imagine, every holiday we were packed up and gone!

Quick story: I remember the days before we would depart for whatever journey that was in store, we would have these “presentation days”. Presentation days were when my mom would check every outfit that you packed. She would tell us that WE represented HER and also that we never know when we might land in the hospital so we needed clean underwear!!

So because of these many adventures, I developed a yearning to travel the world. I always loved being on the move. When I entered college, I met so many people from all over the world and would always say I would “go someday”. Well in college I was broke so I never really ventured out. After college, I began to watch a lot of travel documentaries and started a log of places I wanted to go. Besides hitting all 50 states, I wanted to travel internationally.

One day I was watching a documentary, as always, on architecture and they featured Dubai. I was so amazed by the history, architecture and their technology that included Dubai to my list of places to visit. Little did I know that in a few years I would actually make it there.

Last christmas, I was able to make that trip. Now this was one of the longest trips I had taken at the time, 18 hours!!!

Here are a few summaries of my experience:

Flight:

After being on the flight for 18 hours, I had enough!!! Our travel time was very interesting. First, our flight was delayed so we missed out connecting flight in Paris. Thankfully, we were able to catch the next flight out. Unfortunately we were not able to get our original premium seats and had to sit in the regular, barely reclining seats, for 8 hours. Not to be bouji, but after 8 hours of a flight, you do not want a regular seat! You want to be sitting in first class or at least premium seats! It’s worth the money people!

Besides the horrible seating, I experienced altitude sickness. If you don’t know what that is, boy let me tell you!!! Basically what this when you reach a certain altitude at least 8,000 feet at a fast pace. This will create ridiculous pressure in your head. In other words, you will have a severe migraine until you have lowered altitude. Most people do not feel this on a normal domestic flight. This is actually a sickness that occurs in mountain climbers.

Unfortunately,  I had a severe migraine for 8 hours. I took everything I could possibly think of to feel better. It was so bad that I could not sleep. Because I did not know what was going on, I had WebMD myself without the internet, and I according to my calculations, I didn’t have long to live. I had diagnosed myself with so many brain issues (that’s what happens when you were a Bio major in undergrad). The crazy thing was that as soon as we were landing, I felt the pressure being relieved. As soon as I got off the plane, I was brand new like nothing had happened. Once I googled my symptoms, I realized I was NOT going to die.

Length of stay:

We stayed in Dubai for 8 days.  That was actually not long enough. Even though I experienced everything that I planned to do, but there was so much more to experience. It was like going shopping for one thing. You get that one thing but as you are walking to the cashier, you see so many other things that you want to come back for.

The time difference is 9 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. So just imagine the jet lag that was upon me. I was sleeping during the day and up at night. It was horrible. I had to force myself to stay up all day to get on their cycle of time. I left at night. Arrived in Paris (layover) during the day and finally arrived in Dubai at night. 

First impression:

After going through customs and getting into the Uber, I was in awe of the architecture. The buildings were soooo amazing!!! To be honest, I heard a lot of good things about Dubai, but the biggest reason I wanted to visit was to see all the amazing architecture. Driving to the hotel, I was like the kid staring out the window looking at all the buildings in amazement. It was like being a kid at the candy store. I love architecture!!

Women:

I am trying to find the words to say about this without offending the culture. Let’s just say it was a culture shock for me. I am not going to lie, I already knew how women were treated there. I was prepared. I read up on their culture, talked to people who have been to Dubai, but it wasn’t real until I experienced it myself. I really had to learn how to fall back and not take the independent black woman approach to things.  There were several instances where I was overlooked because I was a woman. I had to speak up for myself at times. If you are with a guy, they will assume that you are together. They will even address you by his last name if you do not correct them. I had to remember that it was their culture. It wasn’t that they were trying to disrespect me. They look to the guy first, then the woman if needed.

Besides be second to the man, I had to pay attention to what I wore to not offend the culture. Even though I think I dress pretty decent, my “pretty decent” is not decent for Dubai. I couldn’t wear that cute off the shoulder shirt, or that tank with the cute daisy dukes. That is offensive to their culture and I have even heard stories of people going to jail. Now I don’t know about all that because I never felt that people were watching what I wore. They could have and I didn’t notice.

What I did realize was that when I was in the city, the dress codes were a little relaxed. I saw a group of people who looked like they are getting ready for a banquet and they looked pretty normal. When I was in the desert, bruh, it was a different story. I had to dress the part. Now, I did not have to cover my head, but I wasn’t wearing my summer shorts and crop top. Just know my knees, arms, and stomach were covered.

Family life:

I noticed that the family dynamics there was different. I saw a lot of families together. Several times while in the taxi, I saw families parked on the side of the road having picnics. I thought that was so cool. I also noticed that when families were together, the children were not confined. By that I mean, you didn’t see parents holding their child’s hands. You saw everyone walking so freely. It was like, this is a safe place.

Also, the malls seemed to be very family friendly. They had rules for entering the mall. They even had security walking around to make sure the rules were enforced. Some rules included that included you being fully clothed and no PDA, whatsoever.

I thought the rules were kind of cool. It kind of allowed the children to remain children for as long as possible. You didn’t have to worry about your child at the mall seeing two people eat their faces off or some girl with no clothes. Just my opinion.

-Mz.MAri3

#yearof30

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