Boy, was housekeeping ever excited about today. We finally let them into our room to clean. Everybody seemed so relieved.

We began the day the right way, with coffee delivered with our early-morning wake-up call and our newspaper. It was quite fabulous, and the closest thing I have ever had to room service. I could get used to waking up every morning to a pot of coffee, BBC World, and the newspaper, all brought to me in bed. Jonmikel had to be up and about today, so I was on my own to get up and get ready at my leisure. I watched idly as Jonmikel ironed all his clothes for the day; the boy is an ironing machine. How lucky did I get? We said our goodbyes for the day and parted. I slowly went through the entire paper, interested in the much more colloquial style of English-language Arab papers. I got the feeling that, unlike AL-Ahram Weekly in Egypt, this paper was written specifically with ex-pats in mind. The news covered the major parts of the world from which Dubai draws in immigrants: the US, UK, India, and Pakistan. All of the rest of the Americas were thrown together onto a single page, as was all of the rest of Asia, and Africa got one small mention concerning Chad on the single page devoted to “The Rest of the World.” It’s amazing how volatile and HUGE Africa is, and how little attention it gets anywhere. At least I take solace in the fact that it isn’t just the Americans who ignore the continent. But the paper is much to my liking, physically, with lots of color pictures and a waxy finish that keeps the ink from rubbing off on my hands and inevitably all over my face just as I walk out the door. One thing I did notice was that President Bush was only rarely referred to with his title, while emirs and sheikhs and other presidents received the respectful honor; I don’t care how much you don’t like the US president, he always gets respect. You always refer to him as “president” when introducing him in journalistic writings. I found the omission extremely rude.

Anyway, I had plans for the day, so I did eventually shower and all that, and managed to get out of the room before housekeeping dropped by. I took a taxi out to the other side of the Creek to the museum, which turned out to be delightful. It cost less than a dollar to get in, and was housed in what is referred to as the oldest building in Dubai, the al-Fahidi Fort, built about 100 years ago. I find the entire concept of such a new city fascinating. 50 years ago, there was nothing here but a fort, some fishing huts and sand. Today, the city is teaming with high-rise buildings and construction. Every other building along Sheikh Zayed Street, aside from being at least at high at Arthur’s Seat, is 10 years old and has already been gutted to make way for a new enterprise. The ones that are still complete offer stunning reflective windows are equally stunning advertisements for the builder, renovator or contractor just in case you want your new building to look just as nice. All shrouded in a layer of fog of varying thickness and intensity. It’s quite a contrast to Morocco, where people lived in homes that were almost 1000 years old.

I reach the museum, pay my entrance fee, and go in. As I had heard good things about the wind tower model they had in the courtyard, I headed straight to that. The concept of a wind tower was brought over from the Iranians, and good thing they did. It felt like it would’ve been a lifesaver in pre-air-conditioning days (today, small a/c units are attacked to every, single home throughout the city). It’s a tower that stands on one corner of the house and has openings in all directions; something about the way its built (don’t ask me, I know nothing about architecture) pulls the wind from whatever direction it’s blowing into the home, cooling it down immensely. During the winter, when there is no need for cool ocean breezes, it is simply sealed off. Pretty clever, I thought, and standing under it, I could feel its effectiveness.

The greater part of the museum was dedicated to life-sized dioramas of daily Emirati life. Tons of artifacts and other educational material. It was all quite informative and rather neat, despite the hoards of uninterested tour-bus groups that arrived after I did. The members of these groups, whether speaking Arabic or French or English or Italian, walked zombie-like through the exhibits, dutifully taking odd photographs and getting in the way of people who were genuinely interested. I can’t imagine spending money to look at stuff I didn’t care about. Most of them should have stayed in to hotel today. The little museum also had most of the artifacts from the archaeological site from yesterday, which was the main reason I wanted to come here. There was a large collection of pottery there, but I was acutely interested in the glassware; it’s not often you find glass jars and pots dating to around 600 AD. And it was etched and shaped quite nicely. I was impressed. There was also a caste of a grave found on the other side of Dubai; it was dreadfully romantic: the grave contained a man and a woman, both covered in jewelry and weapons of all kinds, and they faced each other with their limbs entwined. It is assumed they were husband and wife, but a find like that has never been made elsewhere in the Arab world. It is uncharacteristically intimate. The girl in me swooned. I also learned some fun facts, mostly that even though pearl diving was such a lucrative business pre-oil business, all the wood for all the boats had to be imported (made sense when I thought about it, as there are few trees in the desert), that all the spices associated with the Middle East are really a culmination of spices from all over the world, that Arab sailors used 48 different stars to navigate by depending on where they were going, and that gerbils are from the Arabian Peninsula. Who knew?

After the museum, I decided to wander around. Compared to life in Morocco as a single woman, traveling around Dubai was a breeze. The most of got were some interested stares, and the only people who spoke to me wanted to sell me stuff. I’m OK with that. Though my stylish, knee-high boots, I looked and felt more like an ex-pat local than a tourist, of which there were plenty around. The day was not that hot (80, perhaps), and yet I was disturbed to see so many women revealing so much of their bodies. Yes, Dubai is a fairly tolerant city, with many international groups represented, but is IS an Arab city, so I mean… come on, be respectful. I could understand if it was ungodly hot, but it wasn’t. And these women were running around in shorts (which is really not acceptable for even men), and spaghetti-strap shirts. It was really unnecessary, and even if it’s tolerated, it’s still disrespectful (respect seems to be a theme today). Too many tourists just don’t stop and think.

At any rate, I ended up in the Bastakia district, the part of town that used to house the Iranians when they first began to flock to Dubai to take advantage of the free-trade in the city. It is a good example of how fancy wind towers can get, and many of the buildings have been restored to house tourist-oriented shops, art galleries and airy cafes. It was quite a nice walk, breezy and sunny, with not too many other people around. I attempted to find the Hindu temples that were supposed to be behind the Grand Mosque, which was across the street from the museum, but I gave up after realizing I had seen the same store three times. There’s nothing more futile than trying to navigate old cities and finding yourself going in circles. I finally decide to call it a day in favor of catching some fading sunlight at the hotel pool, so I head back to the main street to get a taxi. This seems so easy, in a big city full of taxis. But I encountered two major problems: first of all, on the main road where taxis congregated, there were also a plethora of hotels that tried to monopolize taxi business. Most of the taxis I saw were already occupied. My second problem began when I finally got one to stop for me. I hopped it, ready to relax on the drive back, told the driver where to go and…. Was promptly kicked out. “Deira?” He had asked, when I told him the JW Marriott. “No. I won’t go there now.” And he gestured to me to hop on out. Well, I never…. So I have to wait a while again for a free one to drive by, and when one does, I’m given the same response: a definite, non-compromising “no” and a wave to the sidewalk. Apparently, traffic is so bad at this time of day, no one will go over the Creek. Soooooo I begin the multi-mile walk back (not a happy prospect in my non-practical boots). I keep my eye out, and eventually I get a guy who reluctantly says, “OK, yes, get in.” I’m stoked, because my arches are starting to kill. Turns out, traffic is miraculously nonexistent; I give the guy a great tip for taking a chance on a silly tourist.

I get back for a short stint at the pool before going back to get dressed to go out for the night. I have always wanted to see the Burj al-Arab, the world’s only seven star hotel. Jonmikel got to have tea there last year, but no luck this time; I would have to satisfy myself with a good view of the sail-shaped building. We headed out this time to Medinat Jumeirah, a tourist shopping enclave done up in traditional style and surrounding a series of very clever, manmade canals. We got a number of views of the hotel, lit up in almost every color you could possibly imagine, sometimes shimmering in all its conspicuous consumption glamour, sometimes remaining an impressionable purple for minutes at a time. We wander around the shopping area for a while, taking in the rows upon rows of shimmering slippers, multi-colored hookas, and faux antique furniture. We didn’t buy anything there on Rip-Off Row, but it was a nice meander. We eventually stopped for dinner at The Meat Company, an interesting South African steak house right on one of the canals. As our luck with getting tables is always superb, we managed to get a table right on the canal with a perfect view of the Burj al-Arab. We get to watch it change colors all night while we eat and people watch. It was interesting the kinds of people there: the women covered in their abayas, the men in their traditional dress; European women in fancy dress; tourists in comfortable, casual LL Bean style travel wear; women in silk, brightly-colored saris. There was even a silly American 18-ish-year-old in some kind of short slinky dress. She tried to cover herself up with a shawl, but it just made it look like she had nothing on underneath. Nobody gave her lewd stares, but most people did give her bemused looks and half-laughed as she walked by. Silly tourist. We called it a night afterward, as Jonmikel had to get up sometime around 4:30 the next morning, and headed back to the hotel.