Dublin, Ireland and London, England

Dublin, Ireland

Dublin was one of those places we've always wanted to go to, though we weren't sure what exactly we wanted to see and do there. We knew we wanted to go to an Irish pub and to see some of the city, and that would probably be about all we had time for in our two short days there.

Cardiff (Wales), Stonehenge, and Edinburgh (Scotland)

During the decade before Carter was born, Doug and I spent nearly every Thanksgiving weekend in London. It was a quick trip during which we'd go out to eat at our favorite restaurants and go to a lot of theatre, and do a little bit of Christmas shopping, if we had time. The last time we went was when I was pregnant with Carter, and I basically haven't been to the UK since. When we realized that we could organize the trip so that we could be in London over Thanksgiving, we decided it would be a lot of fun to continue that tradition.

We spent two weeks in the UK and Ireland: We started in Cardiff, Wales (and took a side trip from there to see Stonehenge), then headed to Edinburgh, Scotland. After that we went on to Dublin, Ireland, and then to London, England.

Jerusalem, Israel

Our final stop in the Middle East was Israel. Doug has been to Israel for business on several occasions, but this was my first time there. It was a quick half-hour flight from Amman, Jordan to Tel Aviv, Israel, and from there we had a road transfer to Jerusalem.

Jordan and Petra

Our original plan had been to fly to Cairo from Dubai and spend a few days in Egypt. But it became clear several months ago that Egypt is probably not a good place to go as a tourist at the moment, and so we changed our plans and stayed in Dubai a little longer before heading to Jordan.

Our primary reason for going to Jordan was to visit Petra, the ancient city carved out of the rock faces of a canyon. But first, we spent a day in Jordan. We had a nice room at the Sheraton in Amman with a balcony and lots of space to hang out, and we really enjoyed it.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

I think the first time I heard about Dubai was about ten years ago. One of seven emirate states of the UAE on the Persian Gulf, Dubai is the most populous by far - though the vast majority of the population are immigrants from other places in the world who've come to work.

Dubai is a city of excess in nearly every way. The wealth on display is unbelievable, jaw-dropping. We saw incredibly expensive cars, families with a nanny for each child, and new buildings and roads going up everywhere. There are huge construction cranes in nearly every direction you look, and everything seems designed to make you feel like you're surrounded by glamour and wealth. It's like Las Vegas without the vice.

And it has the (current) tallest building in the world: the Burj Khalifa.