Okay, so all the way on the left, to the left even of "The Palms", the islands they are building int he gulf, sits The American University in Dubai. It's right by the edge of the picture, the little patch of green between the blue road, Sheikh Zayed Road, what those of us in America would call a "freeway", and the water. That's the university.

All the way at the other side of the image, you see "the Creek," the rather large inlet from the Persian Gulf, or, as this map has it, the Arabian Sea. The Creek is the heart of downtown Dubai, and within a few hundred yards of it, all my pictures, so far were taken. Bur Dubai is the south side (the side the university is on) and Deira is the north side. In the very upper right hand corner of this picture, is the part of the Corniche pictured in the Dubai gallery, the sole palm tree, looking like it's about to fall over in the heat. And where I nearly fell over and died from the heat.

Between the University and downtown are several residential neighborhoods, of various ethnic breakdowns, very few of which have I see so far. Though the other night, my taxi took me through Umm Suqeim and Jumeirah, which seem to be fairly well-to-do areas, to say the least. The "villas" are really pretty spectacular. We also passed several "palaces," which, as you might imagine, were rather palatial.

The famous Burj al Arab, the hotel everyone has seen pictures of, the one with the helipad and Rolls Royces instead of taxis and with a butler for every room, is about half an inch to the right of the Palm Tree islands being built, just where Al Sofouh Road sort of dead ends at a T. If you look in the gulf right about there, you see a little white dot in the water. That's "the Burj."

A cabbie told me yesterday that about ten years ago, most of the area on this map was desert. I suspect this may be an exaggeration, because some of the buildings certainly look older than that, but I think also the spirit of his remark is true. Most of this was undeveloped.

So, that's Dubai, from a sattelite.