Friday, November 24, 2006

A sleep over at the Burj Al Arab

I think that last night I was possibly one of Dubai's luckiest girls - well myself and three other girlfriends.

We had all finished our annual exams which can be quite stressful. Our assessments take place through exams and practical assessment, covering everything from initiating evacuations on the aircraft simulator (which rolls you from left to right with life-like gut churning accuracy) through to delivering babies and jumping down big slides from the aircraft. So yes, it can also be a little bit of fun too!

Here we were, out on the town celebrating one more year until we hit the books again. The four of us were on a nightclub roof top (which is almost a club in in itself, in that it has two bars, a dance floor and pillow packed lounges all around) sipping on our cocktails when luck shone down on us in the guise of two extremely humorous men from America (something which I wasn't sure existed). After giving them the once over, which even the CIA would have been proud, we were able to establish that their intentions were honest and it was only our company which they sought. We were treated to bubbles and cocktails for the rest of the evening which were bought to us at their table. My first taste of VIP treatment and it didn't taste too bad!

At the end of the evening one of the men announced that we were all very welcome to come back to their hotel to continue the celebrations. Images of a dank, rundown Motor Inn with a vibrating bed filled my head. As we all begin feigning yawns and mumblings of an "early night" the yanks quickly informed us their place of residence for the next three nights was at room 301 in the Burj Al Arab (http://www.burj-al-arab.com/), and their Rolls Royce was waiting to take us from from the club to the hotel. "Sure sure" we said, "we're Australian girls and you cant pull the wool over OUR eyes, but just to make sure we'd better check this car out".

Sure enough the Rolls was there, and so too was the room at the Burj. It was outrageous. More gold than even Mr T could handle and it was certainly the first time I'd been in a hotel room which had a spiral staircase (hell, I could even slide down it! See picture).



They were true gentlemen, offering us the pullout lounges for sleeping arrangements and in the morning kept insisting we order breakfast (but with our morning-after panda eyes we declined and did a very brisk walk of shame out of the hotel).

The whole experience was like a Pretty Woman-esque, fish out of water, dream sequence where the humble girl/s meet filthy rich slightly older but handsome man/men (minus the prostitution element).

1 comment:

Lipstick Lou said...

Noice, I especially like mirror on the ceiling...