A lazy, leisurely day. Aaaaah.

Dolores and Andres had previous plans to head out of town for the weekend (in Arab countries, the weekend runs Thursday through Saturday) so today I had to start fending for myself in Dubai. But first I did my laundry at their house. I have never been so excited to laundry in my whole life. The last time I had done it was waaaay back in Bilbao so, yeah, it's been a while. Funny how the longer you travel, it really is the little things that start to make you so very happy. Clean clothes is kind of like a little piece of heaven on earth. If you have a washing machine in your house, you should go kiss it right now. Really.

Since I couldn't check in to my new hotel until 2, I decided to just chill with Dolores for the morning since I wouldn't see her again. And then in the course of conversation I found out there was a salon in her building. And suddenly I decided to spend part of the morning getting a pedicure. Let's just say that a month of wearing flip flops every single day takes a toll and that I should have paid the poor woman double. When I was done, I felt like a brand new woman! As I said, it's the little things.

Made it to my hotel, reveled in the comforts of it for a while and then decided I should do at least ONE productive thing for the day. Not super productive, mind you, just enough so that I wouldn't feel totally guilty about having wasted a whole day. So I headed to the Mall of the Emirates. And, no, it wasn't for shopping. They have a... ready for this?.... an indoor ski slope! With REAL snow. And four chair lifts. There's even a black diamond slope. Inside. Pretty crazy to be able to be walking around in 100-degree weather one minute and be snow skiing the next (they rent the snow clothes out with the skis as of course no one here has winter clothes). So I just had to go see it. And have dinner while I was there, watching people ski while I was eating. And that was about as productive as my day got.

.

Even though not much was accomplished today, I am perfectly content with it. On the one hand, I feel a pressure to be constantly experiencing something, learning something, seeing something as I don't want to waste a single minute of being in such amazing places. But on the other, when you're traveling for such an extended period of time, you just can't keep up such a rapid pace and every once in a while you just need a day to chill and enjoy just BEING in a place. And so today I did just that.