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http://www.endoruddle.com I'm really happy today to spend just a few minutes and give you a little recap on a long, long trip that Phyllis and I took to the Middle East. We've had many opportunities to travel extensively in our lives to virtually every continent on the planet and we've been to the Middle East before but this was a special trip because we hadn't been there for some years. Let me give you just a little recap about some of the places and the people and the things that I experienced—that Phyllis and I experienced together during our trip. Well, it was a two week trip that started on January 9. We flew down to LAX and out of Los Angeles you can catch a direct flight to Dubai. That would be our first destination and we were going to fly Air Emirates. I would have to say, if you're flying, you might want to consider Air Emirates because it is one of the better airlines we've ever flown. It competes right up there with Singapore Airlines. Obviously when you get on the plane and you're going to be flying for 16 hours, it's very important to make friends with the stewardesses. They're a delight to have around and especially when they're courteous and polite and we had a remarkable trip over even though it was long. We took the polar route. During the polar route, it was a really interesting journey to look down and fly over some of these areas at 30,000 feet, you can make out the continents perfectly. But, our trip started and we basically took off and headed out, we took the polar route. During that route, pretty much when you're up over the North Pole you see nothing, but as we started to come on down into continental Europe, it was interesting flying right over some of the places that we all know so well and of course those places would include right over Copenhagen, hit the European continent, headed South over Germany. Crossed Austria and finally Turkey and then we were flying directly over Iraq. We could look down and see Najaf in the North and then we could see Fallujah and Baghdad. As we headed South and approached the Persian Gulf, we could see Bosra right below us. Well, heading south, at about 600 miles an hour, you could see out the left window, to the east, Iran. And of course looking out our west we could come over Kuwait. We could look out and see Saudi Arabia, the little island of Bahrain and all this was nice because we were rapidly approaching our destination. If you look at the Arabian Peninsula, there's a little boot and Dubai is right on the toe of the boot. It's actually very close to the Straits of Vermouth which is a very politically hot topic right now in international discussions. Well, it was interesting arriving there at Dubai. You came into the airport and we basically transferred to the hotel. Dubai quickly said, is a desert city, on the water, that only a few years ago was more or less a little desert town. Today it's a phenomenal, architecturally splendid city and it has a lot of interesting architecture and it's noted for its towers. Of course, on the tower highlight, I would like to bring your attention to the Burj Khalifa which is the tallest tower in the world. It was designed by a firm out of Chicago and to this day it's up there, I don't know about 2400 feet, roughly. Well, we went to our hotel, the Intercontinental Hotel and checked in. Then, a little bit later went down to check out the ballroom where I'd be lecturing tomorrow. That's just something that Ruddle likes to do, to kind of have it in my mind. It was Ballroom A. So, on the way out of the Ballroom A, just taking that little look the night before the lecture, I ran into the very people that actually had invited me to come to Dubai and that was a thrill. Because for the first time I met Sammy Chogle and my old friend Harold Goodis, and of course the President of the Pan-Arab Endodontic Dental Society, Zuhair Al-Khatib. Zuhair was a really cool guy. He was the second President of the Pan-Arab meeting and so these were nice guys and they were very cordial. Of course, Harold and I knew each other and have known each other for 30 years as a Schilder graduate out of Boston University. In fact, he's at the Boston University of Dubai. So, that's what's going on in Harold's life. For more information on anything endo visit http://www.endoruddle.com the official website of Clifford J. Ruddle DDS, FACD, FICD. Dr. Ruddle is internationally recognized as a leading expert in all aspects of clinical endodontics. Be sure to LIKE us at https://www.facebook.com/EndoRuddle to receive notices each time new videos and articles are released.