Arrival in Dubai

I'm digesting a late night hamburger in my hotel room right now. The flight was great, as forecasted. The Emirates airplane had the most extensive movie selection and the most overhead storage I have ever seen on an airplane. This is also the first time I have received little extras like toiletries and wet towels in economy. On top of that the food was surprisingly good and above par for airplane grub. The pilot listed about 10 languages spoken by the staff on the airplane as we were taking off, including some languages I have never heard of.

The Dubai airport is enormous. It also contains a flying saucer as decoration inside. I was walking for a good 15-20 minutes at a good clip just to get to customs. The lady who checked my passport asked about the purpose of my journey and when I mentioned I have an extended stopover in Dubai before completing my trip to Riyadh, she shot me a look of disapproval mixed with pity and advised, "Take a nice vacation here before you go there." She also told me to go shopping with my man's credit card.

This is my first taste of censorship while surfing the web tonight. I was trying to view some Sesame Street pastry heads. Elmo and Big Bird heads, to be exact.


It's 2am here and 6:45pm Toronto time. My circadian rhythms are all confused by the time difference. I'm going to try to get back to sleep now =)