The eagle has landed

Our last couple of days since we left Sydney have been a little busy...
I’ve decided I like flying business class, it makes very long flights bearable. Etihad was excellent, good food and very good service.
We arrived in Dubai at midnight local time after a 14 hour flight, and made good time to J & G’s place. They live in a housing estate about 15 minutes outside of downtown Dubai. The estate is massive, and it’s all expats living there so.
We got up on Wednesday morning and went for a drive around Dubai (In the 49% degree heat – and I’m not exaggerating !).We stopped at a fake souk called the Madanat (fake as in built with aircon for westerners) had lunch and then drove out on the Palm Jemeirah. Awesome construction feat, man made island shaped like a palm, and they’re building 2 more ! The amazing thing about Dubai (apart from the ridiculous heat and the constant dust haze) is the construction. Dubai is pretty much one big construction site (hence the dust haze). The Palm Jemeirah’s land has been all finished, but they’re still doing heaps of construction on the homes and the units. Wed arv we went to the pool at about 4.30 (once the pool was shaded enough for my ghostly white skin) and stayed there for 2 hours). Then for dinner we went to the Dubai Polo Club for dinner, very British Colonial.
Thursday we got up and went to the Emirates Mall, saw Ski Dubai but didn’t have a go – we’re going to be living in snow pretty soon, so we decided against it. Off to the pool again for several hours, then a quiet night at home with J, G & little A (a very cute, really really smart 3 y.o.)
Friday we got up and had brekkie at the Burj Al Arab (that 7 star hotel that looks like it has big white sails that you’ve seen Agassi & Federer playing tennis on the helipad) which was a bit of a disaster to start with. We’d booked into the set menu brekkie, but the set menu was 2 options, both of them egg based, and G doesn’t eat egg !
So we ended up having brekkie at the asian buffet, but we only had 45 minutes to eat it so it was a bit of a seek and destroy mission. After our big brekkie, we went for a drive into the old area of Dubai and took a cruise on the Dubai Creek (it was a river, but they call it the creek). For the first time since the airport I felt like we were actually in the middle east. Everything else has been fairly generic, experiences we could have had anywhere else in the world. Not that I didn’t enjoy myself heaps, but it wasn’t really your typical middle eastern stopover.
Fri night was takeaway at home before we got picked up for our trip back to the airport.
A good flight again, thanks to chemical assistance. Otherwise the little baby 2 rows behind me crying for the entire 14 hours may have ruined the flight for me.
Anyway, I had a great time catching up with J & G, getting to know little A as the awesome little person she is J
So now we’re in Toronto, the visas were approved at the airport this morning without any issues at all, and we’re all good to go.

Off to grab some lunch now :-)