Monday, March 02, 2009

Dubai

I'm now in Dubai. :)
Getting here was a tad stressful. I ended up being a little late getting to the airport and pretty much had to run to get on the plane, but made it.
I was flying on Aeroflot Russian. I was not impressed. No TVs, no music. Just a basic plane. And my MP3 battery was dead!! :O The only good thing was that the plane was pretty empty so I had 3 seats to myself. I slept on and off, read a book and did some Sudoku.
The meals were a bit of an issue as I was near the back of the plane. By the time they got to me, all that was left was fish. In case you don't know me well, I don't eat fish or seafood of any kind. The 2 flight attendants that were always on my side of the plane were quite good about it, though, and found other alternatives. For the first meal, they gave me a pasta meant for the 2nd meal. Then when the second meal came along, they realized there was only fish left again, so they brought me some sort of little quiche. Not sure where they managed to dig that up, but it was delicious! When he gave it to me, he said "Special just for you."
I transfered in Moscow and the plane there was delayed an hour, so I sat and had a fairly expensive mocha: $8. Tasted great, though.
Arriving in another country at 2:30 AM isn't the best idea, but I had no problems. Everything was still open at the airport, unlike some other airports I've been to that shut down everything fairly early. I changed the rest of my Korean money and caught a taxi to the hotel I had attempted (but failed - I didn't get a response to any of my requests) to book ahead. The taxi was 41 DHS. The Hotel Florida had rooms available, though at twice the rate listed in the Lonely Planet guide that I have (hasn't been updated?). They said that was the old price from a few years ago. The hotel is nice, though. Clean with an in room safe. A decent buffet breakfast is included.
So far today all I've done is found a travel agent. I booked my flight to Istanbul (4:25AM March 4th) as well as a half day desert safari for this afternoon/evening.
The 6 hour desert safari includes a camel ride, sand boarding, a sheesha, bbq dinner, belly dancing show, henna tattoos and an optional (for a little extra) dune buggy ride. Sounds good to me!! It cost me 180 DHS. They will pick me up at my hotel at 3 so I won't be able to do a lot today. I'll just wander around the area for a while. I'll have all day tomorrow to visit the museum and other places I want to see.
I'll try and post a couple of pictures tomorrow.

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