After early morning (4:30? 5am?) reading and a failed FaceTime home, breakfast beckoned. We re-upped the cost analysis game. We could have the hotel breakfast buffet, get street food for breakfast (which proved elusive at 7am) or go back to the lemonade art hotel. When we arrived, the waiter asked what room we were in as we seemed so familiar. Indeed we had been back for lemonades yesterday, and their cat even knew us. I’ve been told you can’t step in the same river twice, and yet here I was at the banks. What we saved in breakfast we are losing in airport transfers. When T heard our friendly auntie innkeeper-to-be’s voice, he could not say no to her offer to arrange transport though he had an email with a cheaper quote. In the calculus of ahead and behind, we are still ahead as we are healthy, exploring and not in zero degree weather. And I have a husband so brilliant that he made me believe it was the potential long lines in lieu of …

We decided to try the souk markets as they are more traditional than the malls. And the most traditional of the souks? Why the fish market of course! Blue crab, red crab, lobster, shrimps of every variety. “Come, boss. Try this!” Vendors kept approaching T, but as the only woman in sight I was the fish out of water. An eager handshake of a vendor left us wondering how Purell hadn’t been a part of our outing. There were easily 10 rows with 20 salesmen each, and a second section where 40 men waited to slice and dice your fish. And they wonder why there might be 2x as many men to women here in Dubai. The adjoining fruit and date market was less intimidating, so allowed me to get my camera out. A gold souk and a spice souk later, we caught an abra, a traditional wooden shuttle ferry. Men jumped on and off with ease, I claimed my seat paying 1 dirham (about a quarter) for our shuttle. A pretty efficient system, minus …

The minaret chants woke us up, calling many to prayer and having us recall we were far from home We started our day a skip away from our hotel, with breakfast at an art hotel in the historic old Dubai. In a peaceful courtyard with refreshing mint lemonade, we contemplated ditching our mall plans for our Kindles and countless lemonades. But as our time to explore was limited, we pressed on. Thanks to a speedy, clean metro with Chihuly-like chandeliers, we arrived at the Dubai mall readily. The metro offered to drop us at over 5 different malls in its main line, but as this mall was near the Burj Kalifa skyscraper, the fountains and had the indoor aquarium, it seemed like the “must see.” Turns out as suspected, we aren’t mall peeps. We had no room in our backpacks for the offerings from Dior kids, Kate Spade, the Cheesecake Factory, and the infinite designer stores at our disposal. At a glance, the children’s play space was doing the best business. That is until you …

After a literally bumpy start on an otherwise smooth 787, we were finally off. We drifted between old TV shows (Original Battlestar Galactica) and naps. By 3 pm Dubai time (6 am Boston time), we decided it best to stay up, and wished a snoring neighbor had the same idea! We opened the window for a stunning mountain view which went on and on. Our plane map indicated we were over Iran, and indicated Erbil and Tabriz weren’t far off. Later, we were able to identify Urmia, Iran as the lakeside town we’d admired from above. Some call it The Paris of Iran. No wonder I liked it! As fate would have it, we strolled from our Dubai hotel to a nearby Iranian restaurant where we were ushered to a back family dining area. We dined on delicious grilled meats, breads and yogurt sauce. It made Urmia seem even more intriguing. But since we are in Dubai, we’ll hit the malls and buildings tomorrow, and leave Iranian dreams on hold until Pardis or Mojdeh give …