Looking at the itinerary in my previous post, I feel like it gives the impression of a smooth, pleasant holiday full of passive sight-seeing and shopping. While those elements did exist, that was most definitely NOT the overall experience. Instead, life threw us a few good curveballs that kept us on our toes.
First of all, Ethiopian Airlines forced me to spend the night in Addis during my layover because they overbooked the second leg of the flight. Or something like that. No one ever bothered to give us an official reason or announcement. About 20 of us were simply left wondering what was going on after 3 hours of standing and being jostled in a crowd in the middle of the night as airline employees randomly boarded people onto transport buses from one end of the crowd and then the other at their whim. (Side note: the fact that Africans can't seem to stand in line and wait their turn for anything - something which highly annoys me - turned out to be justified in this instance because, if I had pushed more, I might have made it on that flight. Maybe I need to stop judging and adapt instead.) Eventually, we were herded to a kiosk and given hotel assignments and new boarding passes for the next day's flight - the exact flight my friend was arriving on, which means I didn't have to wait for 12 hours in the Dubai airport to meet up with her. Definitely a happy ending to curveball #1.
We arrived in Dubai and found our hotel with the help of a random friendly local who simply grabbed the handle of my suitcase and started walking when we stopped to ask him if he knew where the Time Square Hotel was. The fact that he got lost and had to call to ask for directions should have made a bigger impression on us, but we were too tired and excited to put much stock in it. Later, when we got lost trying to get back and realized we hadn't thought to grab a business card with the hotel's name and address on it, we knew we were in trouble. After two hours of wandering around the streets (and the wrong neighborhood for a good chunk of that time) we managed to find our way back to our hotel at 2:30 a.m. Curveball #2 successfully deflected.
The Dubai Festival City Mall's Light & Water Show was okay and a nice, laid back outing after traveling for 24 hours and being overwhelmed by a shiny new city, but it is really just a 10-15 minute event at a mall and is definitely not the most exciting thing to do there. It did prove to be a convenient location to get (mall) food and purchase some toiletries that got confiscated from my friend at the airport.
Btw, we totally rocked public transport while in Dubai, especially on this first day. We only took cabs a couple of times when we were either late or lost. Other than that, we managed to get everywhere we needed to be except for one place on the metro or, in the case of the Festival City Mall, the public bus! That's right, there are buses in Dubai. You know, mostly for the the anonymous plebs who make this fantasy city run, but that's okay. The system also benefits cheap tourists on occasion, too.
First of all, Ethiopian Airlines forced me to spend the night in Addis during my layover because they overbooked the second leg of the flight. Or something like that. No one ever bothered to give us an official reason or announcement. About 20 of us were simply left wondering what was going on after 3 hours of standing and being jostled in a crowd in the middle of the night as airline employees randomly boarded people onto transport buses from one end of the crowd and then the other at their whim. (Side note: the fact that Africans can't seem to stand in line and wait their turn for anything - something which highly annoys me - turned out to be justified in this instance because, if I had pushed more, I might have made it on that flight. Maybe I need to stop judging and adapt instead.) Eventually, we were herded to a kiosk and given hotel assignments and new boarding passes for the next day's flight - the exact flight my friend was arriving on, which means I didn't have to wait for 12 hours in the Dubai airport to meet up with her. Definitely a happy ending to curveball #1.
We arrived in Dubai and found our hotel with the help of a random friendly local who simply grabbed the handle of my suitcase and started walking when we stopped to ask him if he knew where the Time Square Hotel was. The fact that he got lost and had to call to ask for directions should have made a bigger impression on us, but we were too tired and excited to put much stock in it. Later, when we got lost trying to get back and realized we hadn't thought to grab a business card with the hotel's name and address on it, we knew we were in trouble. After two hours of wandering around the streets (and the wrong neighborhood for a good chunk of that time) we managed to find our way back to our hotel at 2:30 a.m. Curveball #2 successfully deflected.
The Dubai Festival City Mall's Light & Water Show was okay and a nice, laid back outing after traveling for 24 hours and being overwhelmed by a shiny new city, but it is really just a 10-15 minute event at a mall and is definitely not the most exciting thing to do there. It did prove to be a convenient location to get (mall) food and purchase some toiletries that got confiscated from my friend at the airport.
Btw, we totally rocked public transport while in Dubai, especially on this first day. We only took cabs a couple of times when we were either late or lost. Other than that, we managed to get everywhere we needed to be except for one place on the metro or, in the case of the Festival City Mall, the public bus! That's right, there are buses in Dubai. You know, mostly for the the anonymous plebs who make this fantasy city run, but that's okay. The system also benefits cheap tourists on occasion, too.
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