Dubai

Day 1

Today was possibly one of the worst starts to a trip we’ve had in a while. Other then the fact of our flight going out very late at night, it also took off 3 hours late. We met up with some friends from Romania, and then headed to the beach for some quick relaxation. I finished by book, dipped my feet in the water, and ate a tasty lunch before heading back to the hotel for a quick nap. Our friends had recommended to us a great Thai restaurant at one of the near by hotels so we decided to make a reservation and go there for dinner. We had some dumplings, king prawns, and of course Pad Thai before heading back to the our hotel. On the way back from the restaurant, the workers offered to take us back by boat so we could take a more scenic route back to our taxi. We quickly stopped by the Burj Al Arab to take a picture since entrance was forbidden without a reservation and then met up with our friends once again for some drinks before heading to bed.

-Alexandra Sandu

Day 2

Today is probably our busiest day of all. We started off by waking up early to take a taxi to the World Expo 2020 which only happens every 4 years. After a 30 minute drive we begun by visiting Korea’s pavilion which was on the top of my list. It involved a lot of virtual reality as well as technology. We then headed to Saudi Arabia which led us to pass through a giant dome. Once we got to the pavilion it started off with a ring of water coming down from the ceiling in which I got completely soaked in. It also included a room full of stars and a giant moon which definitely made it my favorite pavilion of the day. After we headed back to Korea’s pavilion where we had the best lunch I’ve had in a while, I was definitely craving some Korean food for a while. We visited some other countries such as Rwanda, Maldives, and India before heading back with the metro. Our next stop and probably the most historical was the Burj Khalifa. We got ourselves some VIP tickets to the 148 floor and at 5 began to make our ascent to the top. We stayed for the entire sunset taking several pictures of both the view and ourselves before heading down for some good Lebanese food with our friends. After we got bored of just sitting around at the table we went inside of one of the world’s largest malls (Dubai Mall) to look at the indoor aquarium. By the time we got home it was already 12:00 and was time to go to sleep.

-Alexandra Sandu

Day 3

Although we only really stayed in one location today we sure did manage to have a lot of fun. Our destination for today was one of the world’s largest water parks, Aquaventure. Our first ride of the day had go be easy, the lazy river seemed just the way to go. To our surprise it finds out the some parts of the lazy river isn’t so lazy after all, on our tubes the workers would push us onto some ‘rapids’ to gain a little speed and to get ourselves wet. When we met up with our friends we went on 2 group rides with the tubes that took us up, down, left and right. Our last ride of the day and the most famous was the ride through a shark filled aquarium. It has to be by-far one of my most favorite water rides I have ever been on. To get home we decided to take the monorail for a more scenic travel of Dubai. By the time we got back home we grabbed a quick bite, said good-bye to our friends, and then headed to the mall. Our main goal was to find a dress for me for my winter ball (spoiler, we did). When we finally arrived home for the night we were all so tired that we quickly went to sleep.

-Alexandra Sandu

Day 4

Since today was our last day we decided to take it more on the relaxation side. Since my dad had to work in the morning me and my friend hung out at the pool for a bit as well as took a look around the gym. At around 12:30 we grabbed lunch with my dad at a very good pizza place by the beach. We took a short nap at home before heading off to the World Expo once again for the last time. We heard that the lights were extremely beautiful during the night time so we decided to go later than we did the previous time. We could not leave Dubai without visiting the United Arab Emirates expo, without a doubt it had the longest line. While waiting for the line to move, me and my friend visited some of the smaller expo’s to pass the time. After a 1 hour 30 minutes wait, we finally got into the biggest pavilion at the park. It first took us through a ‘desert’ like room which was filled with thousands of pounds of sand, then to a movie theatre where we watched a short animated film on how Dubai came to be, and finally a room where we could see some of it’s newer technology. By the time our feet could not handle anymore we managed to catch some of the fireworks on our way out. Bye Bye Dubai, until next time 🙂

-Alexandra Sandu