In 2016 I took my THIRD trip to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). WHY you ask. I met a handsome Egyptian fella during my 2015 trip that knew how to say all the right things. I had my first Stella moment. When we met he was 27 and I was 38. Deep down I knew this was a train wreck waiting to happen, but I went with it.
I booked a 3 week stay so I could spend some real time with him to see if the outcome would surprise me. Week one CRASH & BURN! I don’t think we made it 7 days. Oh well! I did what I do best. I found the lesson in the situation. It is the lesson that I am most thankful for because this is the trip where my solo travel spirit was born. I realized I no longer had to miss out on travel because of other people’s restrictions (time off, money, kids).
I also learned the lesson of keeping myself flexible. I had booked 3 weeks non-refundable hotel stays so I had 2 weeks to roam around Dubai alone because I couldn’t switch up my schedule and do anything different. I had two friends there from my 2012 & 2015 visits but they worked and they had a small child so they didn’t have a lot of time to hang out.
I learned the Dubai Metro system and I figured out how to do all the things I had planned for this trip on my own. The main place I wanted to visit was Dubai Miracle Garden. I found out about it while researching my 2015 trip but I didn’t realize it was seasonal because of the summer heat. When I arrived in September 2015 it was not open, so it left me thinking I still needed yet another trip to Dubai. That made it easy to book this third trip for a man because I still had my own agenda.
Global Village was also on my list of places to see and that was luckily one of my “dates” before my little romance went down the tubes. LOL The Glow Garden at Zabeel Park was another cool little place I stumbled on since I had free time to burn. I really enjoyed my visit and funny enough I started to seriously consider Dubai as a place to move even though the man I planned this trip for was out of the equation.
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