Saturday, February 19: Arrival in Dubai

The time difference between Dubai and California is 12 hours, so it was not necessary for me to reset my watch as I stepped off the plane! 

The quickest route from San Francisco to Dubai takes you over the Arctic Ocean.  It is called a great circle route.  Don’t try to understand this while looking at a map of the world, but it will make sense if you look at a globe.  Because we flew across the arctic, we crossed all of Russia from the White Sea to the Caucasus.  Russia is covered with snow from north to south.  We saw a great view of Moscow from the window of the plane.  Then we flew the entire length of Iran, from north to south.  Emirates Airline takes really good care of you.

In Dubai I met Jon Rask who works for NASA and Lisa LaBonte and Hussain Al-Ansari with the Arab Youth Venture Foundation.  We went to admire the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building at 828 meters.  “Burj” means “Tower” in Arabic.  This stunning building is a challenge to photograph, especially at night, because it is so tall and so dark.  I have done my best.