This girl woke up early on Wednesday, Nov 12, 2014 doing her usual “getting ready for work” thing like any other normal day—and within an hour of getting dressed for the day decided out of the TOTAL BLUE that she was going to go to the Middle East the very next day all by herself!
With absolutely NO PLAN, NO FORETHOUGHT, and NO IDEA HOW to pull it off she set her mind to it. My bosses at work looked at me crazy for giving them ONE day’s notice—but even I only had a day’s notice to plan everything since I had just decided that very morning to do something so, obviously, insane.
And with the help of a few awesome friends, I was able to pull off the impossible and figure it all out and left the next day on a 12-hour flight overseas to Dubai, United Arab Emirates for 10 days! THAT GIRL’S A THUG!! WHO DOES THAT?!
(I have SO many beautiful pictures and videos that this will be a 6-part series. I hope you enjoy all the videos and pictures from my time in the UAE. Wish you could have been there!)
This trip was so last-minute that I still didn’t even have a hotel reservation when my friend arrived at my house to take me to the airport! I was booking one on my computer as she stood there waiting for me. Then off I ran out the door!
My family and friends were freaking out and texting me all day when I was overseas checking on me—“where are you, what are you doing, who are you with?”
I don’t travel and have hardly been anywhere in my life that doesn’t involve cars, buses, or trains because I’m terrified of planes. Hence, my face in the second picture above when it just dawns on me at the airport what is about to happen! First of all, BY MYSELF; second of all MIDDLE EAST; third of all PLANE!
I don’t know why I snapped when I woke up that morning but I did. And now my life was about to get even more exciting. I didn’t have time to research ONE THING about this place I was going to. So I figured when I landed I was just going to “wing it” each day. Yes, I clearly lost my mind.
But, ohhhhhh, how I absolutely fell in LOVE with this city—and the entire country. As soon as I landed and got through the insane customs line, I pulled out of the airport in a cab and within 20 seconds I swore I never wanted to go back to America.
Someone asked me if I felt “safe” in this country. I felt much MORE safe than I ever feel in America. I did things in this country by myself that I would never even attempt to do in America. The emirati have this country on lock. They don’t play. Cameras are everywhere, too.
I just loved waking up every morning in my new home away from home.
I loved meeting so many people along the way. I was wedged between two awesome guys on the plane in a really tight space. We took selfies together. One lived in the States but was from Tehran, Iran and was going to visit family; the other guy was from America and told me all about his travels to Afghanistan and such.