Sunday night: arriving into Dubai

Sunday night, January 10, 2010


Wow! I can't believe I'm sitting here looking out of my room at the incredible scene overlooking Dubai Creek. The creek is lined with beautiful (and now lit up in the night) fishing boats. Behind them, I can actually see the newly opened and famous "Burj Dubai" (meaning Dubai Tower). It's claim to fame is that it is the tallest man-made structure in the World. It sits among many other very tall, modern business buildings. The 124th floor has a viewing platform. I hope to be able to go up sometime this week.

The Hotel Riviera is also beautiful. My room is nice with a shower with a big tub, hot water, shampoo and fresh towels, and wireless internet! I just want to crawl into my nice bed under the great big comforter and fluffy pillow after that long flight from Ghana.

Our experiences travelling through the Ghana and Cairo airports were interesting.

We left the University at about 8 p.m. for the Ghana international airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11:30 p.m.

The airport was HOT and very small - only two terminals. Egypt Air has a stringent weight requirement for taking bags on board - 15 pounds. So the first thing the students did was to try to unload some of their baggage onto themselves. This meant that they were wearing several layers of clothing in 90 degree weather!

Getting through customs was aggravating, standing and lines, trying to figure out how to fill out the form, and dealing with customs agents who seemed to enjoy looking stern and intimidating - just enough to make us sweat even more than we already were from the heat.

Because there were only two gates for all the fights, we could not get through security until our plane was ready to be boarded. Then we had to get a lot of people through one security gate in a big hurry. I was the last of our group and it was just before the plane was set to leave so they rushed me through, no time to get my things back together or tie my shoes. The security was light inside. Then when I got outside to get onto the airplane, they were doing spot checks on bags and they wanted me to quickly open it. I had already put my lock back on my bag and couldn't see the combination in the dark. I fumbled for my glasses and flashlight as the impatient security agent waited. Finally, he waived me through and my racing heartbeat began to slow again.

Gender benders

Fortunately, I slept through most of the 6 hour flight to Cairo and woke up to the announcement that we would be landing. As we entered the airport, I felt like we were in Egypt, with all the signs in Arabic and men and women in traditional Muslim dress.

My first stop was the lady's room where I immediately encountered two women in full dress that were very upset that a man was in the bathroom. Immediately aware that they were referring to me, I assured them that I was in the right place.

Then we went through security to get to our gate, my change in my pocket set off the alarm; the security guard proceeded to do a full body search as is required, but when he began with my chest he was immediately and thoroughly horrified to find that I was a woman and he quickly waived me through as he apologized profusely (for feeling me up)!

I suppose the Arab culture is not used to women with short hair! I may need to go out and get a head dress for my stay in Dubai so that this does not happen repeatedly.

Finally, after spending a small fortune on a cup of coffee and muffin, we boarded the plane to our final destination .... For this week.