Nine hours in an airport does not weigh heavily in the “fun scale” after being up all night. Fortunately, Emirates Airlines provided a free buffet for breakfast and lunch to ease the pain a little. There was also a “Quiet Zone” with chairs frozen in a reclined position. The combination of the two equaled an hour and fifteen minutes of restless inactivity. REM was only an unachievable fantasy.
The good news is that the Dubai airport had free internet stations. This allowed for a few quick e-mails to family and relief from staring at the same group of airplane tails. I was simply too tired for sydocu or reading.
There were two hi-lights to the extended stay in Dubai. First, during lunch, I shared a table with a very nice Chinese man from Shanghai who didn't speak a word of English except, "hello". We had a great non-verbal smile-fest and were able to communicate which foods were good, "Would you like more tea?", "Will you watch my bag a moment?", and other essentials. When it came time to leave for the plane, we shared a warm handshake with mutually bowed heads. This lunch experience made my entire day!
The second unexpected joy was seeing the sand barges, that are creating the new island communities, "in action". Dubais is famous for its man made islands in the shape of the world or palm trees. These barges scoop up sand from the Persian Gulf and then spray their load into a single location to create a brand new "man made" island (fit for Michael Jackson to buy).
Egypt was a bit of a mystery. I had serious reservations about being an American in a dominantly Muslim country. This turned out to be situationally unfounded. My driver from the airport, Yasser, turned out to be such a nice guy that I hired him for the next few days. His advice was, “If anyone asks where you are from, say Canada.” Magic… instant political "Bush relief". Interestingly, maybe out of necessity, the Arab tourism industry has learned to bifurcate the US government from its people.
Then, Yasser even went so far as to say, “What Al Qaeda is doing is wrong and anti-Islam.”
(Ok, I’ll bite.) So, I asked him, “If what Al Qaeda is doing is wrong and anti-Islam, why hasn’t a “Fatwa” been issue against Osama bin Ladin?” (Long silence.)
Yasser finally replied, “We’ll you see, we hate the American government, and he does too.”
So, I added, “In other words, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?”
“Yes, yes, that is true.”
The beautiful thing about this disturbing conversation was no one was agitated. We were simply sharing ideas and asking questions. Hopefully, there was some bridge developing beyond a polite desire to achieve a decent fare.
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