My husband is a goalkeeper in a soccer team in our home town. One of his team members runs a company in Dubai (Middle-East) and he invited his whole team to come over and play 2 games in Dubai during Fall Break 2003. I don't care much for soccer, but having the opportunity to travel to Dubai was exiting, so I decided to go with him. Most of the players brought their wives, so we could support our team during their games. Reservations were made at the Milennium hotel (near the airport in Dubai) and during the week we could use the van, that was arranged for the group. We did some excursions to the gold souk and spice souk and did some shopping. Also we took a trip in the desert (dune safari). The drivers of the dune jeeps let some air out of the tires, because in that way the jeeps have more grip in the sand.
Dubai is a very sandy, but rich country (because of the export of oil) and has some Western standards. At the same time it is very Arabic, alcohol is hard to get and most of the population is Moslem. We noticed quite some differences between rich (Western immigrants and tourists) and poor (locals).
