Commercial Blitz through Dubai

I am knackered again, after a wild commercial blitz through Dubai. I had a well-planned mission to visit the Ibn Battuta (or City Center) Mall and managed to park my baggage before catching a cab with another woman who was on my Kabul-Dubai flight. I successfully purchased a new MacBook and a Canon EOS 450D digital SLR camera, both much long-awaited acquisitions. After working with many Mac-using colleagues and being amazed at the speed and performance of their computers, I decided to make the move. Now, I'm just going to need to figure out how to use my new laptop! And Tariq and I wanted to have a nice camera to shoot baby pictures on, so I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun with the Canon. I'm looking forward to having some time off of work to hopefully use not only to sleep and change diapers but to get back into the creative side of photography.

After Kabul, Dubai is overwhelming. I barely feel ready for the western world... so many people, so fast-paced, so many chain stores. But there is McDonalds and Baskin Robbins... I stopped at the former and ordered some chicken nuggets. Somehow just eating at McDonalds (Tariq's favorite vice) made him feel a little less far away. After sharing a cab back to the airport with a young executive from an elevator installation company that happened to be waiting in the long mall-line up with me, I checked in for my connecting flight to Bahrain and then Frankfurt.