When I was scheduling my flights to India, I discovered just about all of them went through Dubai. That made it relatively easy to book the weekend I was flying back so I arrived Friday and left Sunday. And before I even left, I figured I would splurge on a fancy hotel,¹ because I might need it after India. And, oh my God, did I need it after India. My flight was delayed, much to my annoyance, but I still had time to swim in the pool and lounge in the hot tub while gazing out over the city.

After that I wandered out into the city looking for a place to grab a bite. I eventually found someplace² and had some risotto and followed that with a shisha. By now somewhat more relaxed, I wandered back to the hotel and spotted a Trader Vic’s, and thought I’d have a nightcap.

Let this serve as a warning: do not try and have a nightcap at a public bar in Dubai on a weekend. The place was packed to the brim; all of the seats were completely taken; there was loud, live, headache-inducing music; smoking is apparently legal³ so the place smelled like an arson investigation at a slaughterhouse. I fled, and finished the evening in my hotel room, poking at the computer and enjoying the ready availability of diet soda from the grocery store around the corner.

I had bought breakfast at the hotel⁴ and didn’t have plans until the evening, so I did what every American teenager without any ideas of what to do does, and that’s go to the mall. Specifically the Dubai Mall, with the aquarium and ice rink and dinosaur skeleton and haunted house and the 1,200 shops.⁵

There are these weird spaces that utterly transcend locality — airports being the classic example — and with very few exceptions (the signs are in Arabic as well as English, alcohol isn’t sold anywhere, there are discrete prayer rooms scattered throughout, the lingerie store ads feature significantly less cleavage than elsewhere) this mall could exist on the outskirts of London or Chicago or Berlin basically unchanged.

You might think this would stand in the way of understanding Dubai, but I think it’s actually key to it. Dubai’s been on a massive building spree, flush with money and trying to cement its place in the global economy.⁶ That becomes plainly obvious if you look out over the city at night compared to during the day. At night the place is gorgeous, all glittery lights and flashing neon, like Blade Runner was a utopian vision. During the day, though, you can see all the dead spots, the dusty vacant lots and huge stretches of empty real estate.

Dubai is inventing a modern city from scratch. And they’ve got some things figured out. The architecture around here is great, with swooping curves and organic lines and fantastical outlines. But there’s places where their imagination just fails. Case in point: the showcase fountain show outside the Burj Khalifa⁷ is surrounded by a bunch of cheap chain restaurants like Pizza Hut and Pret a Manger. Not to mention the massive efforts to create a playground for the rich (or at least the middle class) while spending decidedly less on the workers and lower classes.

I suppose there’s a reasonable critique for the whole project, summoning a modern city out of a desert but, eh, it’s no worse than Las Vegas. Better even; it’s not like the UAE had a lot of competing choices. Creating an architectural marvel and then filling it with the same chain stores you could find in Schenectady is disappointing, but I guess that’s what people want. Bugsy Siegel bet on gambling and celebrities and it’s hard to argue that didn’t eventually pay out.

I spent most of the day wandering around the mall, people watching, with a short break to catch a movie⁸ mid-afternoon. After that I had a frozen yogurt⁹ and it was time to head to my appointment to see the top of the Burj Khalifa. I had splurged for the extra ticket, gets you to the observation deck at 550m above the ground — still only two-thirds of the way up, but a full 100m higher than the Empire State Building.

In a just world, I would have headed back to my hotel to turn in for the night, or at least went over to the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah for cocktails, which I had heard was well worth the cost. But I (still!) am not feeling 100%, so I cancelled the cocktail reservation, and one of the vagaries of airplane travel from Dubai to Europe is that lots of flights leave at 3am. Back when I was being clever I thought I could save some money by not getting a hotel room Saturday night, just heading to the airport, hopping the plane, and sleeping my way through the 7 hour flight.

And, well, that’s the plan. I’ve got about two hours until my flight boards, and if there’s any justice I’ll be asleep within 15 minutes of doing that. Either way I’ll be landing around 7am, local time, and I’ll be crashing with friends, fully recovering from being sick, and in general just trying to get back to a normal sleep schedule. I’ll have to leave indoor skiing and cocktails on the Persian Gulf for the next time around.

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Footnotes

¹ “Fancy” is relative, here. I did check out how much it would cost to stay at the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, the “Most Luxurious Hotel in The World,” and, uh, yeah, that’s not happening. I booked a week at a fancy resort in Mexico during tourist season and it wasn’t as expensive. I could have booked an all-inclusive week at a fancy resort in Mexico during tourist season and it would have been only slightly more expensive.

² Okay, my first choice — and I’m not going to apologize for this — was Chili’s. Dubai (surprisingly or not) is filled with Western restaurant chains: Chili’s, Burger King, Cold Stone Creamery, KFC, Buffalo Wild Wings, Shake Shack, Bareburger, Fuddruckers, Cheesecake Factory, McDonalds, Five Guys, Denny’s, Texas Roadhouse, IHOP, TGI Friday’s, Johnny Rockets, etc.

And it was after 10pm and I was tired from the flight and really just wanted a veggie burger and it was literally next to the hotel and I was curious what it was like and I got there and it was closed. So I had to find someplace else anyway.

³ I cannot recall a country I’ve been where smoking was still legal in restaurants. Ouagadougou probably isn’t big on restaurant regulations, but having never been to one I wouldn’t know. And I think I was asked if I wanted to be seated in smoking or non-smoking once in India. But beyond that?

⁴ There was an egg station and a crepe station!

⁵ Although, sadly, not a ski slope. That was the other one.

⁶ You’d think it was all funded by oil money, but the UAE has never had much of that compared to its neighbors. The UAE got its money through trade and financial services, and it clearly wants things to remain that way.

⁷ The one I saw was scored to Theme from the Magnificent Seven for some reason.

⁸ A Star is Born, finally, I suspect just in time to see it lose the Oscar. The showing I saw was in English, but advertised both Arabic and French subtitles, which I naïvely assumed would be accomplished through some cool glasses or handheld devices or something. Nope. They just stuff both languages at the bottom of the screen.

The showing I saw featured food, which you ordered at the kiosk when you bought your ticket and they delivered during the show. What was not clear at the time was that the catering was handled by Guy Fieri’s Kitchen and Bar, so I’ve inadvertently eaten there as well. It does clarify why the nachos I ordered were called “Trash Can Nachos,” although I’d love to know who forced him to add hummus to his menu.

The nachos tasted fine, by the way, although the presentation was really, honestly terrible.

⁹ Pinkberry, natch, although I was horrified to see there was an ice cream kiosk called “London Dairy.” Because really, there’s no sectarian flash point that isn’t open for a creative food-based pun.