Events

Actually, London ties for second with New York and San Francisco. Here follow some reasons. First, Golden Square in the West End: Jermyn Street, where I would buy all my clothes if I made, oh, £10,000 a month: London also has history embedded in strange places. Take this block of apartment buildings on Courtfield Gardens, South Kensington, about two blocks from my hotel: An old friend lived in the near building for a couple of years. She explained that the building at the end of the row—her...

Remember how I mentioned packing for two out of the three climates I expected to encounter on this trip? I should note that I expected London to be warmer than Chicago. I also expected that I would only be outside in Chicago traveling from the O'Hare tram to my car, and my car to my apartment. I'm debating finding a wollens store and buying a good, heavy, Scottish sweater. Our next residency lets me do the same thing only moreso, when I get to go from Chicago to Delhi, India, at the end of January. At...

I've stopped in London for a day and a half to get my bearings and ease the transition back to real life. Also because it was less expensive than changing my return flight to the U.S. or staying one more night in Dubai. Some observations: This isn't your granddad's British Airways. The flight from Dubai landed early, and the flight's bags got to the carousel before the passengers. Yes, you say, because British immigration takes forever. No! I say, because from the plane stopping at the gate (in their...

The second CCMBA residency ended officially about an hour ago, so all that remains is the drinking. And the packing. And the flying to London and thence Chicago, and not having a functioning laptop for either flight. One last photo for today, then on to other (if not better) things. I mentioned the Burj Dubai earlier, with factual comparisons to other tall buildings. I neglected to mention that it simply doesn't seem that tall, because it tapers to such a thin profile. Last night, on the way to the...

The good news: our professor extended the deadline for our Cultural Disconnect paper until tomorrow. The bad news: tomorrow at 6am. This is almost a distinction without difference, some of us muttered, and it means that I will probably submit the paper at 12:05 instead of 11:55. While I'm doing that, you can see more photos. First, our hotel and its sister building: Another photo of the Dubai Creek: And the view out my hotel window, of the Dubai International Finance Center (also known as "the Gate")...

Mostly photos today, because I have an economics assignment due before I can get some desperately-needed sleep. Today we did our Culture Dash (see the entry about the deliverable) through some of the same Dubai streets I walked just yesterday. Some highlights: first, Dubai Creek, with an abra (commuter flatboat) in the foreground and an Airbus 330 taking off in the background: The textile souk in the old Bur Dubai neighborhood: And last one tonight, a minaret during the evening call to prayer: More...

After a two-hour walk in the 34°C heat, I actually feel much better. (People who know me can feel free to express surprise and alarm.) As I mentioned yesterday, spending too much time in a hotel depresses the life out of me. When will I ever again visit Dubai? Probably never. Since the hotel has gone to great lengths to make itself indistinguishable from any other similar hotel in the world, I fled the official corporate tours and hopped the Dubai Metro for Deira, the old part of the city. Sadly for my...

Some people might enjoy a week in a five-star hotel where the weather is warm and the beaches are only 10 minutes away. I might, too, if I had time to leave the hotel. Each residency, we have to write a "cultural disconnect" blog post describing an incident within the local culture that resulted from a disconnect between the cultures. For example, in London a student wrote about making a joke in an elevator that caused his American classmates to laugh out loud but the English people nearby to flee. He...

Dubai has tall buildings. Many of them. Like our hotel, the Jumeirah Emirates Towers: The 51-story hotel is 309 m tall, about the height of the Chrysler Building. But that's not the tallest building here. No, from my hotel window I can see this: That's the Burj Dubai, which at 818 m is almost double the height of Sears Willis Tower back home. Here's a comparison (from Wikipedia): I'm working on an essay (not explicitly for the CCMBA) about Dubai's growth, including its monumental projects like the Burj...

Is anyone surprised that Hamid Karzai, who brazenly stole the election in Afghanistan not too long ago, managed to get rid of the constitutionally-required runoff scheduled for this week? It really makes you wonder what we're fighting for over there.