After my meeting I was able to catch a flight that left much sooner to Chicago. The whole intention of my trip was to see my brother and his family prior to going to work in a location that would not allow me to go do that very frequently, also my new nephew was being baptized.
It was a great trip. I met my nephew, played with my niece, Taylor, who seems to like Star Wars quite a bit, watched Episode III with my brother and with my mom a bit, watched the Packer’s very convincing win, and watched Dallas very convincingly lose.
There are a ton of photos from the weekend, some of which have been posted to flickr, and one of which is posted in the entry below this.
I am starting to bone up on my Arabic language and culture to prepare myself for my immersion into yet another society to which I don’t belong. With Scotland I didn’t think it would be that much different, but I was very surprised that while many things were the same, even more were different. I have a feeling that, no matter how many people tell me this is a western city in the Middle East, there will be plenty of differences to deal with.
Language is the first thing that I am going to try to conquer to some degree. In Scotland the language is the same but the slang is different. I think to be able to carry myself while I am in Dubai I will have to learn at least common phrases, (Hello, Goodbye, thank you, your welcome, please, how much, no, yes, etc …) Please add any suggestions for me.