I was going to rediscover myself last summer. Possibly fall in love for real. Maybe have my heart broken. I was going to learn Arabic and reconnect with my Middle Eastern roots. And most of all, I was going to spend some quality time with Dad. I imagined the two of us out in an archaeological field, bonding over trowels, mattocks, and leaky water basins while labeling and filing precious ceramic fragments his squad of research students dug up from the ground. And to make this vision even more perfect, I was going to have my best friends, all four of them, along for the ride. With school now behind us and university not far ahead, this trip was our last chance to do something fun together before our paths diverged and we got too busy to hang out.

I was so proud to have made it possible for my friends to join me on this trip. Though rummaging in the dust while being assaulted by the desert sun wasn’t exactly their idea of fun, the prospect of visiting Dubai had gotten my friends pumped. That’s why I chose not to correct them whenever they’d mention Dubai and all the sightseeing it promised; we’d be spending most of our time at Tell Abrar—the site of an ancient settlement east of Dubai city, where my dad, Andreas Scholl, the head of the archaeology program at Dunstan University, was leading an international excavation campaign. Regardless, my excitement was so epic it was almost a living, breathing thing made of nervous insomnia and short on patience. I just knew the summer was going to be remarkable. Or, at the very least, different.