A brilliant sunrise through the window woke me up as we landed at Sharjah, the Emirate next to Dubai. Getting off the plane was like stepping into an oven.

It was 95 degrees at 6AM. As our bus took us towards Dubai proper, I peered across the hazy desert until the skyline appeared. The Burj Dubai was barely visible, but it looked like an organic, alien creation towering over the surrounding skyscrapers.

Our first stop was a day's stay at the Park Hyatt Dubai, a sprawling hotel resort complex across the creek from downtown Dubai. Some metrics list it as the world's largest hotel. All we knew was that the brunch buffet certainly earned its title as the best brunch in Dubai. My favorites were the fresh honey comb and the date milk--date purée mixed with creamy milk. Brandon H., Max, and I then hit up the pool and spa.

Although it was only 11am, we dried off instantly once out of the pool. Spa time! Brandon guided us through the sauna and steam room. At 195F, the sauna was hotter than I'd ever experienced, and the steam room's eucalyptus-flavored steam was a great way to refresh before heading out to the top of the world. The Burj is surrounded by a huge shopping mall with every store and restaurant from the States (Shake Shack, Caribou Coffee, Tiffany & Co.), plus more. They even had an aquarium with huge sharks right in the middle of the mall! We took the 60-second elevator to somewhere around the 264th floor, and stepped out to survey the desert. The sandy, smoggy haze made it tough to see far, but there was only desert beyond the strip of skyscrapers that made up Dubai. The sense of height was less than I expected since there was little to compare to aside from the nearby skyscrapers, which did seem tiny, but the endless desert removed all sense of scale. But the Burj itself is architecturally gorgeous and felt as if we stepped into a sci-fi film.

Next up was the indoor ski slope at Dubai's other huge mall. From 110F outdoors to 28F indoors. There was a short ski slope complete with quad ski lift, and they even had emperor penguins for the kids to meet! Party music played as we skied down over and over again. I'm glad I practiced in Vale on winter tour to prepare for this!

In the evening, we sang for a Yale club event at the Park Hyatt, and got to meet some fun alums over dinner.

From one 5-star to another: since we only had rooms at the Park Hyatt for day, we took cabs to the J.W. Marriott Marquis in downtown Dubai, the world's tallest hotel, where we where hosted for the next two nights.

Around a third of the way up, McKay and I shared a gorgeous room on the 26th floor, with a view of the Burj just down the street. We woke up to have a delicious brunch buffet, even more extensive than the first, with breakfast foods from around the world, and the best shrimp dumplings I've ever had. The breakfast restaurant was huge. Today, our activity for the day was to visit Wild Wadi Water Park, right beneath the Burj al Arab, the world's only 7-star hotel.  We spent hours on the dozen rides, cruising around in inner tubes and dropping from a tower where you stand in a launch booth as the floor disappears from under you and you plunge down a tube for 10 nearly breathless seconds. Needless to say I loved it!

That evening we headed to yet another huge hotel, this one attached to the horse racing course in Dubai. We were here to sing for the American Business Council's Independence Day celebration--Fourth of July over Dubai.

It was a huge event beneath the hotel/stadium's IMAX theater. We sang a concert and were truly surprised when canons filled the room with confetti as we finished the national anthem. After hotdogs and burgers, everyone moved out to the stadium itself for a laser and fireworks show.

I've never seen anything like it.

Now we're off to Kenya!