The following events occurred in the last 9 days....

The journey across "The Pond" was tiring yet uneventful, your typical, uncomfortable, international flight. After a brief layover in London, I boarded a Emirates Airlines flight bound for Dubai.

Bar none, it was, without a doubt, the best plane, and the best service I have ever received on any airline.

The flight attendants that greeted us were in traditional Muslim attire and instead of wearing veils, they were smiling like there was no place in the world they would rather be than there.

The inside of the plane had an easy on the eyes color scheme, the cleanest, by far the best food, (it was restaurant quality, salmon appetizers, with lamb for the main course), and ANYTHING you wanted to drink was complimentary.
I was in coach, but it rivaled any seat in first class I ever sat in. After the meal was served and they turned out the cabin lights for those who wanted to sleep, and the roof of the cabin had been painted blue and illuminated by tiny lights making it appear to be a starry night. Even the TV embedded in the seat in front of me had over 300 movie, TV, and music channels with options to pause, or rewind like a home TiVo.
This definitely was a treat considering where I was heading.

Hours later upon landing and passing thru customs in Dubai, I was taken directly to a hotel in Sharjah, located in one of the 7 Emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates.

Like most cities in the U.S. there are poor and rich areas. No where in the world is the expanse so wide between these two groups than here in the UAE. Sharjah is a poor area, even with the many small shops selling a wide variety of goods, from clothes, electronics, food, jewelery, and gold. This is also a part of the world with little or no copyright enforcement, so there are many bootleg items available too. Fake watches, clothing, and DVD movies that are still in the theaters back in the U.S. just to name a few.

There are blocks and blocks of these shops on hot, dusty, and very pot holed dirt streets. Mostly without AC in the 100 degree plus weather. Walking past many of them, the shopkeepers come running out to the street to persuade you in to buy their wares. Sometimes even to the point of standing in front of you stopping your forward progress with their sales pitches.
The whole place really just looks like the middle of Beirut. Well...except for all the blown up buildings that are there now.

Then like taking a time machine...but it only took 10 minutes of my time...and the "time machine" was a taxi, with a Pakistani driver, who in very broken english, told me how much he loves the "Jerry" show, referring to Jerry Springer.
Anyhow in 10 minutes I was delivered to one of the most obscenely wealthy cities in the world...Dubai.

Cranes erecting high rises are in every direction you look. In just one area that seemed barely a mile square, I counted 20 cranes erecting high rise structures up to the sky. As I was driven around I spotted several billboards touting "History in the Making"...for what will be the world's tallest building, currently under construction.

Here in Dubai, is the Burj Al Arab, the World's only 7 Star hotel. Sitting off shore in the Persian Gulf it looks like a gigantic sail. On TV Andre Agassi and Roger Federer knocked some tennis balls around on the helo deck on top of the hotel, which the Al Arab turned into a tennis court just for them to do that very thing a year or so ago when they were here for a tournament. The view from there is breathtaking.
They have a fleet of Rolls Royce's to carry their guests around, no Lincolns or Caddy's here. Even just to get a tour of the place it costs 100 U.S.

There is also a huge shopping mall billed as the "World's Largest". It even has an indoor ski mountain inside the mall with real snow. It has ski lifts to the top, for a downhill run, a snowboarding side, and small hills for the kids. It is quite a sight to see the locals here wearing traditional Muslim attire...with a parka over it...and ski boots on.

So after seeing all this, I didn't need to be reminded anymore I wasn't a millionaire and decided it was time to grab a taxi and get back to my peeps in Sharjah!!

The next day I went back to the airport in Dubai, and boarded a charter destined for Baghdad International Airport. If the Emirates flight was the best I had ever been on, this had to be the worse...little did I know, the worse was still yet to come.

Landing in Baghdad, and stepping off the plane onto the tarmac, you know immediately life as you know it, has changed. Any personal comfort levels you have had up till that point in your life, you have to forget about. You must adapt and accept that is how it is here, or you are gonna freak out...and many have.

Walking on the very hot, dusty tarmac to the terminal of the former Saddam International Airport, you can see it is still not near the level of even the worst airport in the U.S.
I was here a year ago, and it does not appear much has really changed. A mercenary looking contract company, (from Latin America I was told), patrols all access to the airport and the grounds, with what appeared to be Russian made AK-47's. Some had huge knives much larger than a K-Bar at their sides that were certainly not for cutting their meat at dinner.

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