Tag: travel

We had just one CIEE related activity this day – a farewell brunch at 2:00 pm.  With the entire morning to kill, K. and I decided to go for a walk.  We first headed southwest to Safa Park, which is one of the bigger parks in Dubai.  It’s quite beautiful, but it’s not free.  It…

We were back at AUS this day for another lecture.  This time it was Dr. O. Ishaq Tijani on gender and culture in the gulf from a literary perspective.  Also present was Basima Muhammad Yunus, an Emirati writer.  They talked about female oppression and how women authors in the Gulf use their stories to challenge that…

We had a full day guided tour by Dr. Samia Rab to Ras Al Khaima, one of the less affluent Emirates, and to Sharjah.  I shot another photo as we headed to AUS to pick up Dr. Rab that does a pretty good job of illustrating what it feels like to drive through Dubai: The…

This day started with another trip out to the American University of Sharjah.  While I typically sat in the back of the van, I requested to sit in the front this day so I could get a clearer picture of the traffic (bad drivers, but not as bad as I thought) and so I could…

Day 6 was a day of panels and lectures.  We started out with a panel presentation on the UAE as the new Arab media hub.  Panelists included Abeer Al-Najjar, an Assistant Professor of Communication at AUS, Mohammad Ayesh, a professor of media and communications at the University of Sharjah, and Mishaal Gergawi, an op-ed columnist for…

This was our first day of lectures. CIEE has a center at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) and they drew upon the expertise of the professors there to give us additional information about the UAE. Like many institutions in the UAE, the AUS is new, having been founded in 1997. It was built over…

Our first full day was a day of site visits. The first stop was Masdar City in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Masdar City is being billed as the first city being purposely built to be environmentally friendly to the tune of zero-carbon emissions and zero-waste. The roofs of the buildings are covered with solar…

My first full day in the UAE was a Friday. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the weekend in the UAE is Friday and Saturday, not Saturday and Sunday. The CIEE seminar didn’t begin until 2:00 pm. Having sat around on planes for the last day and a half, I wanted to get…

My first flight took me to Newark. There I boarded a flight for Zurich, Switzerland. In examining my itinerary I realized I had a four hour layover. Ever up for adventure, I figured I could slip out of the airport real quick to see Zurich, especially since the downtown is only 15 minutes away by…

A little background may be in order for blog readers… As part of building the case for the accreditation for the University of Tampa, those developing the most recent application materials included an international component (it was before I arrived, so I wasn’t involved). From what I’ve been told, the basic idea is that we will…