What you look for is never what you expect.

On Friday (the only day off I have here), I decided that I would search out the Dubai Museum.  Even though I knew that Dubai's history only extends 50 years (before that there were a lot of camels and even more sand), I wanted to see the roots of this place.  One of the problems with the US is that there is no real sense of history...it's only 200+ years old, right?  So if you spend any time in Europe (thanks, Oxford!), you can start to appreciate the shortness of breath which is the history of the US. Perhaps I should refer those of you who are unfamiliar with me to my adventure with the spice souks...as in, I never found them, just as I didn't find this museum.

This is what I found instead.   A road, stuffed with cars, half of them buried in sand.  The Suzuki pickup is stuck.  I kept walking (as I am prone to do)...and found this.  A monument, to what I'm not sure, in the middle of the same apartment complex.

There were pilgrims (?) kneeling at the far sides, removing their shoes, washing their feet, and bowing in the general direction of this.  Still in the hunt for the Museum, I moved on...

This is the Mosque tower by Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's palace, right on the Dubai creek.  The walkway was packed with people fresh from the water taxis, headed home or out to shop.  I kept on getting jostled, poked, prodded, and all around disturbed me as I tried to enjoy the sun setting behind the green and lavish area.  So I kept on walking.

This is the sunset from near Mankool road, but further towards the Gulf.  By this point, I was exhausted, having spent several hours on foot, searching for this museum (which I later found out is literally minutes away from Community 317)...but I couldn't resist getting closer, even though this area is completely fenced and cordoned off, to keep prospective tourists from trampling on the virgin sand.

One of the things I've had to adjust to here is the daylight hours.  The sun rises around 5 am, and sets around 6pm.  And this hasn't varied since I've been here.  It's always sort of weird to walk into my building(s), and walk out around 7pm, still expecting it to be light outside but be completely wrong.

I'm currently teaching Math to the senior girls at Dubai First School.  They are all locals, cover themselves totally when not in class, and have loved me ever since I brought in a bag of candy for them.  Yesterday, they finally told me why they keep saying my name so often:  "tim" (with a slightly different inflection) means "stay" in Arabic.  So everytime they say it, they giggle, because I always stop what I'm saying/doing.  I'm going to try and take some pictures of them.