When we went to Musandam this last weekend, we passed through Ras al-Khaimah, one of the seven emirates that makes up the United Arab Emirates. (We actually got lost in Ras al-Khaimah, both on the way there and on the way back, but that's a whole different story).
Driving around and around and around in Ras al-Khaimah I realized that it was the fourth emirate I've been to.
The other three? Well, obviously Dubai, as I spend most of my time here. We've driven through Sharjah a few times, it's a little sketchy, dirty and a weird vibe - but there's one really cool thing there. They have these huge metal warehouses with about a hundred air conditioners on the side - that's where they keep the cows that make the milk and cheese for the UAE. Huge air conditioned cow condos. I figure it's not actually that bad to be a cow in the Middle East. I mean, do the poor Indian workers have AC? Probably not.
Anyway, our package store where we buy our beer and wine is in Umm al-Quwain, and that makes four.
Not bad, considering that the country is roughly the size of Maine (the UAE is 32,278 square miles, and Maine is 33,414 square miles).
It's actually pretty good, though, as I've never even been to Fort Kent or Lubec.
Anyway, it got me to thinking, four of seven, I've seen more than half of the emirates already. How many states in the United States have I seen?
Most of them I hit on my drive to California in 1998 or my drive home in 2004. It's kind of cheating, since I don't think we stopped at all in Illinois or Indiana on either trip. And my excursion to Four Corners checked Utah and Colorado and New Mexico off the list pretty quickly. (I'll tell you about the fun I had in Arizona with the elk at the Grand Canyon some other time).
But I've never stopped in Sharjah or Ras al-Khaimah, so it's a fair comparison.
All-in-all, I've been to or through twenty-six states.
That makes fifty-two percent, just shy of my fifty-seven percent of the UAE I've seen. I've seen more of the UAE in two and a half months than I have of the US in 30 years?
Huh. |
