Abu Dhabi Ahoy

awrighty folks!! It's paartee time.
yep.. 33 hours after I left my aunt's place in Chicago, here I am in the city of Abu Dhabi.. safe and sound.. and EVEN ONLINE!!! yayy for that. Not that it has been completely uneventful


first of all, when I went to the airport to return the car, I realized that the firm that I had rented the car from (enterprise) wasn't available at the standard airport location. Not knowing the location, I parked at a reasonable spot and called the 1-800 number to be given the local branch's number (This being Memorial day, not many people were up and working in the US :-S). But darn it.. calling the branch only sent me to this voice mail that said the branch was closed. DARN IT. My flight was in 2.5 hours!!! (I had started a bit early.. giving me plenty of time...) I called up enterprise 2-3 times. I guess that there were like 3 people working all the phone lines. One time, I got hung up on.. another time, I was told to just find the place as it was shown as 'open'. So, I parked the car at a hotel parking lot on the way and asked a cabbie. This guy, a sweet eastern european guy (I guess...from his accent), told me the way. So, off I went.. and his directions being so good, I managed to find it pretty quickly. The shuttle driver that dropped me off was also very nice. He actually refused a tip from some people (Now now now...I am still a college student!!! don't expect me to give tips like that!!) And he helped ppl with their luggage. All in all, a good experience.

now... came the fun part. Travel!!! Checking in took no time... the first flight went by pretty quickly too. This high school girl sat next to me.. she wasn't much of a talker...but she did chat a bit just before we landed. maybe she was scared of my moustache.
ooh... then came a 7 hour layover in Cincinnati. 7 hours!!! for a while, I sat in an empty corner of the terminal. I mean.. there was almost NOONE there... as there were no flights there for a few hours. All this time, I has some good company in Dumas' "The Three Musketeers". Then.. an 8 hr flight to London Gatwick. This was kinda painful..I did think that Delta had better aircraft but this one was slightly cramped. The guy next to me was this tallish Oriental guy who looked even more uncomfortable than me. A quick halt in London Gatwick where I decided to walk rather than use the moving sidewalks. It was a long walk but good exercise between sitting still for ages. Emirates was a nice flight from London to Dubai. The flight got a bit delayed.... but not by too much. I was bout 300 pages into the Three Musketeers now (out of around 700). And to top it off, sitting next to me was this really charming old British couple.. coming to Dubai to visit their son. Very friendly, jocular and helpful. It was nice. And really sweet to see them. The gentleman was telling me as to how emirates was one of the best airlines he had flown in, and considering his age and the places he mentioned that he travelled to, I am sure that he was well qualified to make that statement. And I agreed. There was plenty of leg space, even more than I remembered from earlier. I watched "In Good Company" for a while and then was sleeping on and off.. and eating food..and reading...and before too long, was in Abu Dhabi. was out of the airport in around half an hour!!! That WAS quick. Drove down to Abu Dhabi.. and here I am.

I love flying for one main reason. The views can be spectacular. I got a window seat on my flight from London to Dubai and it was so beeyootIful. We flew over green cities... quaint towns with plenty of houses... seas and rivers....small undulating hills...sand dunes stretching for miles... seas bordered by yellow strips of coastlines... rivers. Then there are the majestic clouds. But my best memory is that of another aeroplace.. zooming through the sky.. flying towards us. The speed is just so incredible. You can see the stream of water vapor that they leave behind them... and you get a good idea of the speed of aircraft from that angle. Oh My. Thank goodness that the aeroplane was flying at a different altitude. It was Lovely.

now, I better go freshen up...