Fantasyla...no, Disneywor.....no, Las Vegas without casi...no...Boy is this place Hard to Describe!

Being in Dubai is easy. Explaining Dubai is difficult. Let's see if I can even explain my confusion.

We've taken the BIG BUS tours in many major cities, the narrator indicating points of interest, museums and historically significant places, giving dates and names. The Dubai BIG BUS tours from mall to mall, indicating which rank each is in "the largest in the world" category, giving names of designer stores and opening times. Along the way, the narration is of each building that is the largest, tallest, most square footage under one roof, largest indoor span, highest indoor fountain, greatest water flow in a fountain, highest indoor ski hill, most designer stores under one roof..... After each is presented, the notice is given that this information is only temporarily true because the (name goes here) will be completed in 2008 (or 2009 or 2010) which will eclipse all other buildings of it's type in the world.

To be fair, we did pass the Dubai Museum, which is supposed to be quite nice, and the Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum's House, dating from 1896, with live portrayals of life before wealth. There is not much old stuff here because the Emirates suddenly had the money to tear down the old and build new. In Europe we found that the wonderful old cities were usually the result of a community going broke and never recovering enough to modernize. It's understandable, if you had lived you life in 120 degrees in a tent, palm-frond or coral-rock walled home with no insulation, you would jump at the chance to tear it down and put up the latest style with unlimited A/C if you could afford it.

We are staying with our Daughter, Jennifer, and Son-In-Law, Bruce, at their apartment in downtown Dubai. It is a large city, 1.2 million, with traffic problems and growing like mad. There is something under construction everywhere you look. We had read that 20% of the world's construction cranes are in Dubai-I just counted 49 from Jen and Bruce's balcony and the sun is in my eye's looking west, so I may have missed a few. Every day the street system changes as new construction gets under way and they are putting in a subway system, so miles of streets are rerouted for that. Even the newest GoogleEarth pictures are out of date.

Now some good stuff. Entry to Dubai was the easiest of any place we've been. You don't need a visa and customs involved "Welcome to Dubai!" Everyone speaks English and all road signs are in English and Arabic. The city is very clean. The taxis are very new and clean. All drivers know where they are going-which is amazing for two very strange reasons. One is the streets are not known by their names. The Emirates have a custom of putting like businesses together, so you have an area where all the banks or all the computer stores or all the car dealerships are side by side and the street becomes known as Bank Street, Computer Street or Car Dealer Street. For instance, the street I'm looking at right now is really "Sheikh Kalifa Bin Zayed Street, but because the World Trade Center is located on it a few miles away, it is known as "Trade Center Street."

The even stranger reason is-THERE IS NO ADDRESS SYSTEM IN DUBAI! The reason still hasn't been explained fully; it has to do with such fast growth and there never having to be a system when the town was small and everyone knew each other. To get around you have to know landmarks. For example, when returning to our apartment, we tell the taxi driver, in stages, depending on how much he already knows: The Centrepoint Apartments (almost all drivers know it)-off Trade Center Road (it's on Kuwait Street, but no one knows that name)-by the new Spinney's (a fairly big food store nearby, but you have to say the "new" Spinney's because there are others)-near Bur Juman (a very upscale mall which everyone knows)-in Al Mankhool (our neighborhood). We haven't gotten lost yet!

We'll continue this later. We've got to get ready for our dinner cruise tonight. Happy travels!

Dan & Gail