Dubai- Day 4

Finally I can say,

Welcome to Dubai!

Julie,

Today was a WONDERFUL day! It actually started out not looking to be too promising. The good thing was they gave us an extra hour to sleep in and we didn't start until 9am as opposed to the usual 8am. I got up, had breakfast, and was down to class as usual.

The really good part started during our break in our Econ class. I overhead a couple other students talking about how cool the private beach was that the hotel owns and how they were considering going in the afternoon. I thought through the schedule and realized they were talking about going during our scheduled speaker which was about a 2 hour allotment of time. That would also be the last activity of the day before dinner so we would have somewhere around 3-4 hours to enjoy the time at the beach.

That got the wheels turning and during the rest of Econ I weighed my options. The reason it was a debate was because a couple days ago during one of our other speakers only about half of the class (including me) attended the scheduled speaker. We received a chastising announcement that speakers were required to attend. It is understandable especially because Duke wants to maintain good relations with the influential business people of the area and by having poor showings at the speaking engagements they arrange won't show very good on the school. The problem is, however, they have scheduled WAY TOO MANY speakers for this trip and did not schedule any free time. This is something we are working out with the program, but obviously that doesn't help us in the here and now.

I finally decided I just couldn't take it anymore. I had been one of the people that stayed for every speaker and I was going nuts being cooped up in the hotel everyday. The only problem with that decision was that for the rest of my classes today, all I could think about was going to the beach and getting out of the hotel. Finally, 3:15pm rolled around and it was time to go to the beach.

After changing we all met outside and caught 2 or 3 cabs for a 15 minute ride to the beach. When we got there, it was about a group of 10 people so we figured we would go find a place on the shoreline and hang out. Funny enough we ran into another group of Duke students that over doubled our size. 20 minutes later ANOTHER group of 5 to 7 students came. In all we had 27-30 Duke students living it up on the beach all afternoon long. The sand was white and clean and the water was pretty clear. It was so nice! (Sidenote: It did make me alertly aware of how out of shape I am).

The Line Up
(Duke Students working hard to advance their careers and get their MBAs :)

View from my Lounge Chair

Jumeriah Beach Hotel
(The Sister Hotel that owns the beach)

Me on the beach

After a little while on the beach, we ventured into the water and that was really nice too. The sand is nice and soft, the water is clear and quite warm, but the water is also REALLY salty. Actually it was so salty that when I first got in and dunked my head my face started burning. It burned for a while and then went away. We stayed in the water for probably an hour to an hour and a half, a lot of the time just discussing various topics about the program, life, etc. Finally a part of our group decided to head into the pool area because it was happy hour and they wanted to get drinks. Four or five of us stayed out for a little while longer and then headed in. It was so crazy--as we walked back, I was subconsciously rubbing my hands together and realized they felt really sticky. I couldn't figure out what it was until I realized it was just the high saturation of salt. It was so weird, I had never really experienced anything like that before.

When we got to the pool area, we went to the hot tub, which around this area is better called the luke warm tub (none of the hot tubs we've seen are very hot) and we sat and talked until it got dark. By this time it was a little after 6 and since dinner would be starting at 6:30pm we decided to head back.

Night View from the Hot Tub

The Mall that is attached to our hotel.
We had to go through here to get to our Lebanese dinner.

Dinners here have been really great. The hotel has multiple restaurants in and around it and so Duke arranged for us to go to a few different places. Tonight was at a Lebanese restaurant. I wasn't sure how it would be before we got there, but it ended up being really good food. They put us out on the patio, it was still a little warm outside, but I really liked the atmosphere.

Dinner at the hotel's Lebanese restaurant on the patio.

It was REALLY GOOD!

After dinner, it became a normal night again. My team met for a little bit to discuss a case for decision models and then it was time to call it a night.

I was really glad I was able to get this day in today. I was really starting to wear out of being in the hotel so many days so it was great to get a change of scenery. Tomorrow we have our corporate visits and I am going to Dubai Healthcare City. I am excited to see how this has developed and what it actually means by way of innovations in healthcare.

You're the best.

Love ya,

Brock