Because you can never get too much Curtis Cannon, here are my Dubai top ten:
10. Ordering drinks at Eat and Drink. The drink menu consists of just a list of names (and a few pictures) with names like Galaxy, Internet, etc. There are no descriptions. Just pick and name and see what you get. I can’t even remember the name of what I got, but it was humongous and awesome! Here’s a picture with my camera lens bag as a reference:
9. Dubai’s imaginary maps. While we were planning the day’s events, Curtis showed me a local map that included several islands that don’t even exist yet. Dubai changes so fast that they print maps of what it’s going to look like (or better said, what they hope it will look like, since several of the islands have been back-burnered because of the financial crisis) rather than what it looks like now. It totally made me laugh. Imagine that elsewhere. No, no. Don’t turn left. There’s nothing there. That’s where the street is going to be next year.
8. Going from 100 degrees and white sands at 10:00 a.m. to 30 degrees and white slopes by 2:00 p.m. Where else can you defrost your hands, numb from skiing, by simply walking outside? This really shouldn’t be possible. In Dubai it is.
7. Shopping with Curtis and Tim. As you can see, Curtis and Tim were awesome shopping buddies:
As were these sweet bobble-head Emirates.
6. The male to female ratio. Within 20 minutes of picking me up, Curtis was telling me about the male to female ratio in UAE. He claimed that it was more than 8 to 1 and that thus “It’s impossible to meet women.” We tested his theory later that night in Old Dubai: of 100 people we passed on the street, only 8 of them were women. Finally! After 3 years of the 1 to 3 ratio of the Colonial 1st ward, the tables had turned, and dramatically. It was almost enough to convince me to take up permanent residence. If only I wanted to marry a Pakistani…
5. Curtis’s epic fail. There were two types of lifts at Ski Dubai. One was the normal chair style, where you line up side by side and sit down on a big bench as it swings up behind you. The other was a little more old school. It consisted of individual ropes that were attached to a rotating overhead cable. On the free end of each rope was a small circular seat. The idea is that the skier grabs the rope at the base, sits on the seat, and then pulls the rope onto the rotating cable. The cable then pulls the rope and skier up the hill. Curtis, Rob and I used the first ski lift almost the entire time we were there. Just before we finished for the day, however, we decided to try the second lift. At the entrance to the lift there was a sign warning that the lift was for experts only. We of course decided this meant us (never mind the fact that by this point none of us had successfully made it down Ski Dubai’s tiny hill without falling down at least one time) and got in line. I was first, and after a little confusion about how to hook the rope to the cable, I managed to get on the seat and my board underneath me and began to steer my board up the hill (which was more difficult than it had looked). Rob was next and did the same. Then came Curtis. Or at least he should have. I missed the full performance from where I was, but from what I saw, the first rope got away from him in about 10 seconds, leaving Curtis in a heap in the lift’s path. Not one to be easily dissuaded or outdone, Curtis made his way back to the starting point and, in front of the line of waiting “expert” skiers, got another rope. This one lasted him even less time. By the time the third rope left Curtis empty-handed, the line behind him had grown from 5 to 25 people and Curtis acquiesced. It was pretty funny, even to Curtis. Chair lift: 3, Curtis: zip.
4. This:
Enough said.
3. Curtis yelling out “Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Rebekah Ellsworth” and applauding from the Ski Dubai chair lift – which, because of Curtis’s amazing persona, got everyone else applauding as well. Feeling a little embarrassed at all the attention (he seriously had almost the entire top half of the ski resort applauding and yelling), I finished strapping in, kicked off down the hill … and then managed to promptly fall flat on my fanny again. Not exactly my best performance. Good thing I got all the applause in advance. 🙂
2. These. Very possibly the highlight of the whole trip, particularly because of how amazing this is. They’re surprisingly comfortable, too, which detail Curtis neglected. Tim helped me model them in the store and was also the one who convinced me to make the plunge and buy them. I would have gotten the awesome purple belt too, but it was just a little (i.e., 6 inches) too big. I wore the pants the rest of the night to Curtis’s surprise and the strange looks of several strangers.
We topped it all off with a late-night fashion shoot. Curtis even lent me his aviators. Design and photography were by Tim.
1. My gracious hosts, Curtis and Tim. Not only did they show me around all day, but they let me sleep in their bed (that’s right – their bed. Don’t worry – they take turns using it) and eat their Trix. That’s love. Thanks so much, guys! I loved it!
Little Girl, Big World 
