Dubai

I had the great pleasure of traveling to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Muscat a month ago for business. I was invited by some really enthusiastic Avayans to come and speak to Avayans, Business Partners, and Avaya customers about how to unlock the value in their Avaya support coverage. This is a topic I’ve been talking a lot about and my first of a 4-part blog series can be found here: http://bit.ly/1MU22tc.

I had a really good time, despite the heat. Yeah, let’s talk about the heat for a moment: 50° C (120° F) is pretty darn hot. So hot that your own breath feels like a cold breeze. Yeah, that was a surprise. And while I’m told that Dubai tends to be a dry heat, while I was there it was quite humid. But there is so much A/C everywhere (even in the subway system) that it wasn’t all that bad. The people and the architecture more than made up for it.

I was able to catch a direct flight out of Boston to Dubai on Emirates, but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Just days before the trip, my beautiful wife convinced me that we, and our four kids (6yrs old and younger) should go camping at the cape with our neighbors. We had a great time.

This gave me an excuse to take the Ferry from P-town to Boston which was a great ride.

So, yes, an amazingly comfortable flight to Dubai on Emirates

that left me rested and ready to see the city, both its old architecture

and new.

Their mall is famous as it has an aquarium, ice skating rink, and snow ski hill.

But the best sight-seeing was going up the tallest man made structure in the world, the #BurjKhalifa. On the 124th floor, you’re actually outside looking down at the city. When you go to the 125th floor, you’re at 456M (500 yards or a quarter mile) high.

I was impressed with the elevator. It takes only one minute to go from the 124th floor to ground. Check out this video I took on the way down.

Next was a quick dip in the Persian Gulf just down the beach from the Burj Al Arab.

I worked with a lot of great people during this week, who pretty much lived and breathed Avaya alongside me for a week. Check out the views from the Avaya office in Dubai.

We did manage to get some food and laughs in along the way.

The other cool thing about this trip was that two friends of mine happened to be in town on business as well. I met up with Peter, a Duke friend I hadn’t seen since 2002 for drinks, and then later that evening, I had dinner with this wonderful woman, Jenne, who I hadn’t seen since 1997.

A great trip and I think we were successful in convincing some customers and partners to take another look at our toolset, which felt great. I look forward to an excuse to head back out there again.