I woke early and finished packing before heading down to breakfast and then started the long process of goodbyes. Even after I'd said goodbye upstairs it seemed that people came down to the Reception area in case they'd missed somebody.
We headed down to Lion's Gate to catch the taxi which was due to arrive at 8.30 to get us to the airport at Tel Aviv in good time for our flight but things got a little dicey as we waited and waited. My patience when that sort of thing happens starts to get a little frazzled so by 9.10 I was getting a big bit worried and then when the taxi/people mover arrived he couldn't turn in the tight lane so we reversed all the way back down the hill which took quite some time because, of course, there was traffic coming up the hill and down the hill as well.
The driver told us that he'd been stopped a number of times and his papers checked - just another example, sadly, of what many Palestinians go through each day. Anyway, after all that we managed to get to the airport in time to get into line to have a big bags x-rayed and all 5 of us managed to have something in our bags that needed to be explained. The system is good because they put a barcode on your bag then if it needs further exploring they check the barcode and it brings up the item/s that need checking and exactly where it is in the bag.
Then It was time for a drink before heading through passport control and thankfully none of us needed to do too much explaining about where we had been nor what we had been doing. The flight to Amman was a little late leaving, which after the late taxi, made me wonder if we were going to have a repeat of the trip over with everything being late.
We had an 6 hour wait in Amman before the flight to Dubai so after wandering around the shopping mall and then getting something to eat Libby, Joe and I joined Gay and Peter in a little cafe where they had ordered a meal. There was wifi available and so we basically stayed there for the afternoon with purchases of tea, coffee and biscuits at various times to keep the 'business' satisfied.
Then it was off to Dubai and the plane left almost on time so that was ok. It was a 4 hour flight and I was able to watch one movie and still have a chance to doze but although I was getting worried because I now had an upset stomach and was desperately needing to get to a Pharmacy in Dubai to get something to make life a little easier.
We had quite a deal of wandering round in Dubai before we actually got to the lounge we were booked into for 4 hours but in the end we got to the right place and we settled in for a slightly better place to relax during our stay of over 9 hours. I got some tablets and didn't eat anything in the lounge or afterwards to give my stomach a time to settle.
A long day and an even longer flight back to Australia leaving at 9.50am (Dubai) time to look forward to.
No comments:
Post a Comment