Thursday, March 16, 2017

The Spray Who Loved Me – Erich

One member of our happy traveling band rarely gets mentioned on this blog. That one member is the best at taking life as it comes, rolling with it, and staying unfazed by anything that happens on our trek. You see, Syarra travels with an easygoing, ready for anything, calm, soft, and fearless purple unicorn. Her name is Littlelicorn. (The unicorn's name. Syarra's name is Syarra.) Littlelicorn is more than just a boon companion, she's a pillow too. And a well-traveled one at that.

I'm sure Syarra knows that Littlelicorn loves her. And I now can understand that at a new level, because I learned that there is a fountain that loves me.

Last night we visited the Dubai Fountain. First, it is at the foot of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. And it's not the tallest by just a couple of inches. This one blows away the competition.
Look at me! Tallest in the world!
The Burj Khalifa is 828 meters tall. The second place building is the Shanghai Tower (bet you can guess which city it is in) at 632 meters. The design of the Burj Khalifa is interesting. It goes up in an almost conic way, but from some angles seems to have juts one direction and then another. But from another direction it almost looks like an inverted spiral funnel.

Nearby is the Dubai Mall, which is grand, as are many malls. Why do big buildings like to have malls near their base? I mean, that's not universally true, but we have seen it in other places as well. Especially in Asia. The Dubai Mall has some beautiful artwork, including an entire three story structure in one corner called the Waterfall.
How did they get all those silver men to dive at once?
But just outside the mall, stretching to the base of the Burj Khalifa is the Dubai Fountain. It is the largest performing fountain in the world. Each evening, it does a "dance" once every thirty minutes. And we got to see one of those performances.
It doesn't capture the entirety of the spectacle
The engineering involved in the design of those sprayers and spigots is unbelievable. The water can fire upwards easily fifty feet. The sprays can gracefully curve together like synchronized dancers. The spray can switch from a directed flow to a fine mist arcing out in a fan in only moments. It was an incredibly artist display.

And it was all synchronized to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." So not only was I entertained by the fountain, but it was declaring its love, (its eternal love,) for me.

How special do I feel? The world's largest performing fountain just sang about how much it loves me and always will. That's as good as a unicorn, right?

On second thought, there were well over a thousand people at that fountain watching the same show as me. So maybe the lyrics were directed at them as well. That's makes me a bit less of a unique object of affection for a hydrolic system.

Hmm. That's a bit disappointing. But I'm going to remain unfazed by this realization. You know, like Littlelicorn.

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