1/21/2010- Home to Dubai

Really weird how you can have this lifetime experience, where sometimes you feel like it's a miracle that you managed to finish each day... and then you get back and it feels like you never even left in the first place... then again it really was only 9 days... and then again, 9 days is a pretty good sized vacation, no matter where you're departing or taking time away from. It's almost like I carved 9 days out of nothing- time stopped and I got to live for 9 days outside of the normal space-time continuum or whatever, running into all these different people and seeing all these different things... and now I've popped back down out of that and the world hasn't moved an inch... sort of like "Lost." Hope I didn't spoil anything for anyone there...

Funny thing about travelling in airports around here... you hear the folks on the PA announce flights to places like Kuwait, Tehran, Kabul, like they're as innocuous as Denver, Austin, Portland, whatever... and after a while, they feel just as innocuous, too. Nothing weird about going there... nothing interesting or dangerous... just another day in the life. I may as well be at Sea Tac, waiting for my flight to Denver, etc., etc. It looks, feels, and smells pretty much the same... or at least in the unrenovated parts of Sea Tac. Except in Beirut you're allowed to smoke in the middle of the terminal. The good old days.

An airport's an airport's an airport... unless your flying into DBX (Dubai), Terminal 1... Terminal 2, however, where the budget airlines operate, different story (same as the rest I guess)... If the main terminal is the glittering, glamerous face, Terminal 2's the... well, I'll let you guess. What does "#2" imply... Dubai's dirty, not-so-well kept secret... Took about an hour to get through customs because a flight from India full of what I imagine are laborers (the physical hands responsible for actually constructing this glittering monsterpiece) arrived minutes before us. I hope they're getting their due, because none of this would be here without them. Sort of like the recent reverence for Mexican migrant laborers in the US. Except the Indians are all documented: Not only do they have passports and are given visas, but they're run through a retinal scanning system. At the airport. And there will be more tomorrow. Maybe on another flight arriving now, just before midnight.

Well... now that a major leg of this trip is over, I'm sort of at a loss as to what to do with this blog... though I will be heading to Istanbul in a few days. So stay tuned. It is nice to be back though, in, well, not exactly familiar surroundings, because I was here all of maybe 36 hours before turning around and flying out to Jordan, but... ok, familiar surroundings. And don't get me wrong, anything written that sounds sardonic or overly critical, there's a sunny side as well. It's nice to be back here.

Being in all these different places and very different major cities has really allowed me some perspective vis-a-vis Dubai, the contrast I expected to become evident upon my return... even though there are a ton of tall buildings, and quite a bit of traffic, there still doesn't seem to be very many people here: Dubai is just a skeleton compared to Beirut; Amman; Damascus- any other major world city. It's got a relatively straight highway for a spine running straight through the middle of it, with tall skyscrapers on either side for limbs, ribs, other extremities... but so little on the periphery, so little in the middle. There are maybe four different neighborhoods (so far), and their all separated by at least a couple miles of highway, and if it weren't for a thin layer of strip malls in between, there would just be sand in between them. Meanwhile in Beirut (like New York; Seattle; any other major city), you've got neighborhoods, and neighborhoods within neighborhoods, and every place in between has it's own character, flavor, and it's all grown more or less organically over a number of years... locally owned bars and restaurants... maybe the architecture's different from place to place, and maybe has some historical significance... Dubai, everything's just been plugged in. They can recreate any kind of architecture they want, but instead of the little Italian restaurant or local dive bar that's been on that corner for years it's a California Pizza Kitchen; or some ritzy nightclub where you need the right shoes, clothes, connections, $300 haircut... instead of some local person attempting a coffee start-up it's a Starbucks or something like it, maybe more expensive and pretentious. Very little of that organic business. All major chains. No Boxcar here (a beloved night spot close to home). Maybe an abandoned rail car where the Indians hang out after a 14 hour shift. Maybe that's where it starts. If they're allowed to stick around that long. Because all the Bedouines who originally inhabitted this place are either dead or filthy stinking rich. And why wait for culture to create itself when you can buy it and have it immediately, in any form you want... and ship the 'detritus' away on the next plane back to wherever... instant gratification. On an immense level. But this is a playground, was generated with that idea in mind; the world's other escape. And you don't go to Vegas to see how the hookers, the strippers, the dealers and the pitbosses live... You come to be amazed by all these wonders- by the fact that there are hookers and strippers and dealers and pitbosses that you can patronize and who will serve you for the right price within the wonderous works of architectural and engineering genius they operate out of... And all that other stuff said, I am looking forward to seeing them sometime within these next couple weeks I've carved out for myself... well, maybe not the hookers...