Day 37 (13 July): Flying through the Arabian Middle East
I spent most of the day today on planes and in airports with long layovers in airports getting from Goreme back to Istambul then through Dubai to Mumbai. Nonetheless, a couple of interesting things happened:
- In the airport in Istambul, I got a tap on my shoulder from Jorge Garcia who started his MPIA degree at UCSD a year after me. It turns out he was on the same flight but stopping over in Dubai for 36 hours and then heading on to Mumbai where we planned to meet up. Jorge, however, is only in India for 5 days.
- On the Istambul to Dubai flight I had a good coversation with the man assigned to the seat next to me. He was an architect from Al-Ain, which is another one of the Emeriates about 100 km from Dubai, that makes up the UAE. He thought it was great that I was making an around the world trip, but was a little upset that I wasn't stopping over in the Arabian Middle East at all and that more Americans don't feel safe there.
Observations:
1) The Dubai Airport is quite an experience. It must be one of the largest shopping malls I have ever been to and also one of the most pristine airports as well. They seem to have the airport set up with long layover (mine was 4.5 hours) so that people shop there and money flows into Dubai.
2) Emeriates Airlines employs almost no UAE citizens as stewardesses as most of them do not traditional do such work. Instead the stewardesses are mostly Western European women. This is inline with Dubai having nearly 25% of people living there as expat workers.
Question of the day:
1) If you look at the statistics for Americans killed out of the total population, are we more unsafe in Souteast Washington, DC than we would be in the Arabian Middle East or even Iraq? Mohammed, the guy sitting next to me on the Istambul-Dubai segement, pointed out people from the UAE go to places like New York in the US that they fell unsafe going out at night (which is something many Americans do as well) whereas there is little need to feel unsafe going out at night in the UAE.
- In the airport in Istambul, I got a tap on my shoulder from Jorge Garcia who started his MPIA degree at UCSD a year after me. It turns out he was on the same flight but stopping over in Dubai for 36 hours and then heading on to Mumbai where we planned to meet up. Jorge, however, is only in India for 5 days.
- On the Istambul to Dubai flight I had a good coversation with the man assigned to the seat next to me. He was an architect from Al-Ain, which is another one of the Emeriates about 100 km from Dubai, that makes up the UAE. He thought it was great that I was making an around the world trip, but was a little upset that I wasn't stopping over in the Arabian Middle East at all and that more Americans don't feel safe there.
Observations:
1) The Dubai Airport is quite an experience. It must be one of the largest shopping malls I have ever been to and also one of the most pristine airports as well. They seem to have the airport set up with long layover (mine was 4.5 hours) so that people shop there and money flows into Dubai.
2) Emeriates Airlines employs almost no UAE citizens as stewardesses as most of them do not traditional do such work. Instead the stewardesses are mostly Western European women. This is inline with Dubai having nearly 25% of people living there as expat workers.
Question of the day:
1) If you look at the statistics for Americans killed out of the total population, are we more unsafe in Souteast Washington, DC than we would be in the Arabian Middle East or even Iraq? Mohammed, the guy sitting next to me on the Istambul-Dubai segement, pointed out people from the UAE go to places like New York in the US that they fell unsafe going out at night (which is something many Americans do as well) whereas there is little need to feel unsafe going out at night in the UAE.
posted by Traveling Brian at 8:37 AM
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