Notebook of a Nomad

2/3/25

I landed in Dubai today at 1:17 pm. 17 (117 for 3 digits) is my favorite number so I took it as a good omen. Dubai was never really on my list to visit but the flight(s) from Sydney to my next destination were over 24 hours long so I looked at all the layovers and found a city I would like to explore. Dubai was a clear winner.

The only two things I know about Dubai are that it has the world’s tallest building and it has a manmade island in the shape of a palm tree. I decided to start my Dubai chapter in Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. When I saw that there was a hotel in the building, it seemed like an obvious choice.

My taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was the first time that it’s actually felt like I was on a world tour. Australia and New Zealand were planned well before the election and well before I had any intention of traversing the globe and hitting every continent in 2025. Dubai was never part of the plan. Dubai happened on a whim.

When I was checking in to the hotel, I was told my room was on the 5th floor. I felt disappointed since I was in the tallest building in the world but the clerk offered an upgrade to the top hotel floor, an executive suite on 39th floor with a view of the fountain and twice the floorspace. I thought I might never come back to Dubai and 39 certainly sounds better than 5. I told him that I’d take it without fully understanding price.

The man who checked me in at the front desk gave me a tour of the first floor and brought me up to my room. I was impressed by the hospitality and googled Dubai’s tipping culture. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to google the conversion rate of UAE Dirhams to Dollars. I traded my remaining Australian dollars for some Dirhams at the airport currency exchange desk but didn’t even count my Australian dollars. I threw the hotel tour guide 100 Dirhams and hoped that was appropriate. And then the man who brought my suitcase came into the door so I gave him 100 Dirhams. As soon as they left I finally checked the exchange rate. 100 Dirhams was equivalent to $27 US dollars. Being a kid from the cornfields, I thought it was a generous tip but was happy with it.

Once I was in my room, a nap seemed like a good idea. I started my day at 3:00 am in Sydney after one last hurrah with my cousin Paul. I was pretty exhausted waiting to board the 14 hour flight to Dubai. I thought I should be able to get some solid sleep on the plane but I wanted to wait as long as possible to try and get my circadian rhythm as in sync as possible. It was a good plan. But good plans can still fail. I only slept for an hour on the plane. Woof!

After my much needed hour nap, it was time to check out the observation deck. There are three different observation decks available in the world’s tallest building. The first is at floors 124 and 125. The second is on the 148th floor. Then there’s the premium option on floors 152, 153 and 154. Can you guess where I ended up? https://www.burjkhalifa.ae/experiences/observation-decks/#the-lounge-burj-khalifa

If you guessed the 154th floor, you are correct. As soon as I booked the hotel room, I booked The Lounge experience for 5:00 pm hoping to catch “golden hour.” Golden hour is the last hour before sunset and the first hour after sunrise and it offers the best pictures.

So far Dubai has been incredibly easy to navigate. Everyone I encountered at the airport and hotel have all spoken English. (I don’t think my taxi driver did but he understood “Armani hotel at the Burj Khalifa.) I was somewhat confused where to go to begin the observation deck experience. Thankfully, my hotel tour guide mentioned which elevator to take down to get to the mall.

I took the elevator to the floor below the lobby. There really wasn’t any other option so I started walking down the only hallway I could. There wasn’t any signage and I was kind of confused and didn’t want to walk 15 minutes out of my way and miss my experience. I found a worker who wasn’t associated with the tour but he hooked me up and told me to go under the rope and stick to the right which was the line for The Lounge experience. I finally saw a sign when I entered the line right at 5:00. It read “45 minute long wait.”

I thought I was probably going to miss golden hour. The sign wasn’t lying. It took over 40 minutes to get through the lines. One to get to elevator to floor 124. Another to get to the elevator for floor 148. And finally a line to get to floor 154.

At the checkin desk on floor 154 the hostess told me that I better get down to the outdoor observation deck on floor 152 quickly because sunset was in less than 20 minutes (at approximately 6:00 pm). It was amazing to look down at all the tall buildings surrounding Burj Khalifa and see them dwarfed by the world’s tallest building. I took a few pictures and then took a moment to really appreciate where I was. It’s easy to forget to stop and appreciate the experience you’re living in that moment. (Especially when you’re trying to capture it in pictures for a travel blog. Lol)

After about fifteen minutes on the observation deck, I decided to check out the buffet that was included in the experience. I had a dinner reservation at 7:00 so I wasn’t going to eat unless it was quite a spread. It was a solid spread but not enough for dinner. I had an incredible chocolate filled donut though. After my donut I ordered my complimentary cocktail. I walked around enjoying my champagne and checking everything out.

I figured I better get back out to the observation deck and see the city closer to sunset. The door man stopped me though because I couldn’t take my drink outside. I debated if I should just put it down somewhere on a table or hide it in a corner to come back to. I thought that it was too classy of a place for a move like that so I did the classy thing and just chugged it. Lol

It was 6:10 pm and I was pretty much done checking everything out. But there was a fountain show on every half hour so thought I should wait for the 6:30 pm show. I took a few more pictures outside on the observation deck. I was getting chilly though because there’s some wind 154 floors up. The wind was actually pretty tame. I assume the architects and engineers put the observation deck in a location with minimal wind.

I waited twenty minutes for the fountain show that looked more like a light show from that height. It was still cool. I took a couple of videos and got into another line to head back down. The line was LONG. I didn’t even realize how long. It wrapped around a corner I didn’t see. And then another corner. Thankfully that last corner was a very short one. I was starting to worry that I might miss my 7:00 pm reservation.

Thankfully my reservation was at the Indian restaurant, Armani Amal, in the hotel on the fourth floor. I was 15-20 minutes late but there weren’t many people in the restaurant yet. When the hostess sat me she asked if I wanted a magazine or a book or anything. Immediately my mind went to the scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. “It’s going to be boring if you’re just sitting by yourself.” Table for One – Forgetting Sarah Marshall

The view from my table was incredible. I was looking out over the fountain and the show looked far better from the 4th floor as opposed to the 154th. There was a stage set up in front of the fountain that had plenty of entertainment for the event there. There was music, magic and even some juggling unicyclists.

The real show was playing out in front of me though. The tasting menu was delicious and the restaurant staff was incredible. I can’t say enough good things about the hospitality in this hotel. During dinner I had another moment of “Damn, this is pretty cool. How am I living this life?”

During dinner my waiter saw me taking some photos and kindly offered some help. He walked me over to a better vantage point where I could capture the entire building and then he told me where to stand so he could take a few pictures of me. I appreciated his help and thought it deserved some recognition so I pulled out another 100 Dirham bill. He was incredibly appreciative and wanted to make sure that I had the absolute best experience for the rest of the meal. He was actually giving me too much attention after the tip. Lol.

There have been quite a few moments in Dubai where I’m awestruck and can’t believe the life that I’m living. Riding in the taxi and seeing the impressive skyline of Dubai was one. Looking down on the world from the tallest building in the world was another. And my great Indian tasting menu in front of the hotel fountain was another.

My life is pretty remarkable. I grew up in a drafty farm house where my bedroom didn’t have heat or air conditioning. Winter was spent hiding under an electric blanket that kept my body warm but didn’t do much/anything for my face. Summer was survived with a cheap fan and lots of sweating. Going from that background to spending a night in an executive suite on the top floor of the Armani Hotel at Burj Khalifa has been a wild ride. As Drake put it, “Started from the bottom, now we here.” Started from the Bottom – Drake