litUAEtion

I vividly remember waking up on Christmas Morning 2014 with no expectations of booking a flight anywhere, especially not the Middle East. As I was on the phone with my dad, my phone was booming with texts and notifications from GroupMe. Behold the holy grail of traveling... a flight glitch. By glitch, I mean a $900 plane ticket on sale to UAE for $200.  With a trivial amounts of hesitation and our friend Jenai being the brave soul to book first, we were going to Dubai.

Traveling from Chicago, California, New York and Houston, our friend groups merged for a week long excursion. Although people tried to make us feel uncomfortable about going and being in a Muslim country, we were greeted with nothing but kindness and sincerity from the people of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Taking serious consideration for their religious beliefs, we emerged in their culture and customs wearing traditional garbs and visiting such places like the Sheik Zayed Mosque. Granted, as cultural as the trip was, we are still young professionals with a lot of turn up.  If there was any possibility of a party,, we found it. From standing on couches in VIP to the infamous bottomless and never ending buffet Saffron brunch to the yacht rental, we did the trip nothing less than right.