Day 1 – Thursday 14 September

Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to visit Monica, Charles & our two grandsons is our destination & our journey begins leaving home at 3.15pm.  Our neighbour kindly drives us into town to catch the Murrays coach to Sydney airport, a non eventful trip in chauffer driven comfort.  We sat behind the driver, John, was a jovial talkative man, he told us about the rigorous training they have to go through every 3 months.  The new bus we travelled on was 4 month old & that it already had 70,000 Kms on the clock & that it knew its way to Sydney.  After the bus driver fell asleep & feeling reassured we had about 2 hours of shut eye too.   We arrived at the front door of the international terminal a bit after 7pm & join the queue to book onto our Emirates direct flight to Dubai.  More queues through immigration & security then the long walk to gate 57, at the far end of the terminal & wait for our 9.45pm departure. An announcement that our flight has been delayed due to the diversion of our incoming plane to Melbourne because of bad weather at Sydney airport.  We are oblivious to the weather conditions outside.  Another announcement, our flight has been delayed further until 11.30pm and they are looking for another plane to take us to Dubai, we will depart from Gate 8 so another long walk to the other end of the terminal building – good we did need to stretch our legs.  Another announcement, there is not enough fuel & we will have to fly to Melbourne to refuel & must leave before 11.30pm to beat the Sydney airport curfew on flights.  Still waiting at 11.30pm & fearing that our flight has been cancelled & that we will have to sleep in Sydney then another announcement, we have been given special exemption to depart at 12.30am & the plane is being cleaned & refuelled.  We eventually all queue again to board & quickly as it takes a fair while to load all 600 people, the plane is just about full & we eventually take off at 12.35am, nearly 3 hours late.  There are a lot of people going to miss their connection.  Monica & family are in a motel in Dubai to be there for our early arrival tomorrow – they can have a sleep in tomorrow.

Day 2 – Friday 15 September

Once settled into the flight we receive dinner at around 1.30am, we are hungry & tired.  Dinner is a choice of chicken or beef, not that tasty but we are hungry.  We sleep & are woken a few hours later to be given a beef pasty, not tasty at all.  About 8 hours into the flight we get another announcement, the plane could not take on enough fuel in Sydney to make it all the way to Dubai, they had to stop refuelling at midnight in Sydney due to fuelling regulations.  We are now going to land in Colombo, Sri Lanka for a refuelling stop & will be on the ground for around an hour & not disembark.   It is foggy & raining when we land at Colombo & the plane taxis to an isolated part of the airfield & the fuel truck pulls up & we wait the hour, during which time daylight catches up to us & the sun rises.  In the air again & after another hour we are given breakfast, a choice of omelette or scrambled eggs with baked beans, again not that tasty.  It is another four hours to Dubai & we land at 9.15am local time, more than 25 hours after we left home & not a lot of sleep.  We queued at immigration for ages & our bags were some of the last ones left to be collected.

Monica, Charles & our two grandsons were thankfully waiting with big smiles as we exited the Dubai terminal, hugs all round, so good to see all of them again.  Seeing them gave us a new lease of life & we are ready for site seeing, we must get used to Abu Dhabi time quickly.  They drove us around Dubai & showed us some of the amazing buildings of all different shapes & sizes, most architectural masterpieces.  We drove around some of the large expensive motels along the waterfront and marvelled at the massive amount of money that has & is being spent to convert the desert sands to a modern city.  A few more sights before stopping at the Dubai Mall and being amazed at the sheer size & opulence of the mall & the shops.  Most of the shops in the mall have xmas decorations up & there are xmas trees with presents beneath around various parts of the mall, we are surprised.  Charles told us that the sheikh made a ruling that all religions must be inclusive in the Emirates.  We wandered around & looked at the waterfalls inside & the aquarium before moving outside to look at the fountains & the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa at 828 metres. Very impressive.  We wander back inside the mall for a quick lunch & then off by car to Abu Dhabi & the waterfront apartment building where Monica & Charles live on the 9^th floor.  We kick off our shoes at last & relax the rest of the afternoon, getting in a few games of Uno.  The sun looked impressive as it set over the city & Charles cooked us a delicious roast dinner to welcome us to Abu Dhabi.  We eventually got to bed around 9pm, so, so tired.