More on the first night

Typical family photo for us, Big Buddy asleep in his makeshift
carseat, Mr. Big on the phone, and me wondering what the
Hell is going on.

Because our first night was so strange, I thought I would go into more detail about it. Mr. Big had rented us a car through Budget Rent a Car. He rented us a little Nissan, something. I guess this model is not found in the U.S.A.  Now one thing to note here is that even though most of the cars look like the cars in the U.S., they have different names. For example, the Toyota 4Runner over here is the Fortuner. As we get all of our luggage packed into this little sport utility, we quickly realize that the cigerette lighter is not working, so our external navigation won't work with it. Luckily, they upgraded us to the Rav 4. Once that was over, we proceeded to find our hotel, The Four Points hotel. Now, Our first two hotel choices fell through, on our way to Dubai, so we ended up here. This hotel is really pretty nice, they are just located about every couple of blocks from each other. So the first one we came to turned out to be the wrong one, hee hee! Back into the car. OMG did I mention how crazy the drivers are over here? There are tons of round- abouts and no one seems to signal. Maybe cars over here don't have signals...but they sure do have horns! Everyone drives super fast, weaving in and out of lanes while they honk at everyone in their way. As we were driving to the second hotel, Big Buddy said "Daddy, this car is making me feel grumpy!".

Car seats. Not many people have them. Here is a million dollar idea, open up a store that sales car seats for infants and small children. We were able to get a booster type seat for Ashton from the rental car place at $20/day. Yikes. I am currently searching for a place to buy one with no luck.

Restaurants. I mentioned in an earlier post that the menus misrepresent the food choices. So far, two restaurants same issue. The first nights restaurant took 45 minutes to get out our food. It helped me realize that I have become accustomed to children's menus, quick turn around and bargain pricing. (I am interested in diving deeper into this issue as we eat more of the cultural food). After dinner arrived, we began to eat, poor Mr. Big all of a sudden became violently ill from the spices in his chicken parmasean and exited the restaurant quickly. After he gathered his composure, he returned looking quit pale. He decided to retire to our room and took Big Buddy with him while I waited for the check. After getting to our room, Mr. Bigs key would not work and he became violently ill again. To make a long story short, Mr. Big ended up throwing up in the marble elevator. Because, Big Buddy was with him, everyone thought Big Buddy had done it. Way to take one for the team Big Buddy!  (Hopefully, Mr. Big doesn't read this. He made us promise that this event never happened ;) )

Finally, we were able to get Big Buddy asleep. What a very long day full of lots of new experiences! (Little did we know, that Big Buddy would be up in only 4 short hours!).      

What you see is not what you are going to get!

Fun and strange to see Arabic on packaging.

OK. So, I am quickly realizing that in regards to food here in Dubai, what you see on the menu or on the package is most likely, not what you are going to get. Encounter #1: The first night here in Dubai, we chose to eat at a restaurant called "Centro Citta". It is an Italian Restaurant (don't even ask why we chose to eat here). On the menu was a great looking picture of a pepperoni pizza. When I tried to order it, they said they didn't have it. Strange. So I ordered a chicken pizza (chicken is their main meat over here). Encounter #2: Because Big Buddy is having a hard time with all the new things here, we decided to find a burger joint for lunch. We came across a place called "Bobs Burgers", sounds quite American right...the pictures on the menu looked very American and very delicious. So burgers all around. Sorry, small tangent...Now, I love a good bacon cheese burger like the rest of you. So I ordered one. Now, I have learned the hard way that the people in the Middle East don't eat pork. They think that pigs are a dirty animal and they don't eat them. So instead, they have something called "Beef Bacon". I like beef and eat it all the time. So this should be good right? WRONG! Beef Bacon has a very unique taste like nothing I have ever had. I will try to describe it. It is very strong, with an aged burnt taste to it with a rotten cheese after taste. Boy, I am going to miss pork while I am over here! Now back to encounter #2. When our burgers arrived, they looked like nothing on the menu, same as the fries, LOL. Encounter #3: We ran across a gas station that had a bag of Doritoes chips. Once again a very American thing. All in all, although the chips originally taste very similar to our Doritos chips, they are still quite different. They don't look like the picture on the bag. ;)  

32 hours no sleep

So Mr. Big and I were able to eat most of the Dubai elephant. All that was left was the narley old tail and no matter how much ketchup you put on it...there just was not enough time to choke it down so we retired for the night.

Our underwear on display for the whole airport to see!

Big Buddy's first flight.

Sunday morning we were up by 7am running around like crazed chickens. All in all, we were only 10 minutes late to the airport. At the airport we quickly found out that two of our bags were overweight. What? One was 19 lbs the other 14 lbs over (so much for my excellent packing job.). Luckily, Mr. Big had stuck an empty bag in one of the overweight bags so we were able to disperse the weight out and check four bags instead of three (this would come back to bite us later). Surprisingly, we sailed through security at the airport, sewing needle, scissors and all. Our first flight to Atlanta went better than expected. It left on time, and Big Buddy (my three year old son) did really well. (Special thanks to my employee who gave me the awesome idea of making little goodie bags for the people sitting around us on the plane. They were a big hit!) I made these little goodie bags that had a note letting the people around us know that Big Buddy is three years old and that it was his first flight. I included a pair of ear plugs, some Andies candies and some Werthern caramels. It made everyone around us super friendly and nice. Big Buddy really enjoyed the aircraft take-off and landing. He read books, watched part of a movie and put a puzzle together. He also realized right away that he loves the snack cart!

I don't even know what to say.

In Atlanta, we had a three hour layover which was heaven. We ate dinner at Chili's and had enough time to run off some energy before boarding our next flight. LOL! At Chili's they were providing plastic knives with their metal forks. Glad we didn't order a steak. Also special thanks to Chili's for the bag of Halloween candy that they gave my son right before we boarded a 14 hour flight (can you say "sugar high")!

I guess there really is a good reason for the plastic knives...

Our 14 hour flight from Atlanta was an experience. First it boarded almost an hour late since someone on the flight prior to us puked all over. I mentioned earlier that we ended up checking four bags instead of three. Well as we were trying to board the plane, Ashton's passport was pulled and several airline/security people discussed a bag that was associated with his name, Very strange. We had to explain why we checked an extra bag and why it was under his name. They eventually let us onboard. Once aboard, it was interesting to see the demographic of people flying to Dubai. We felt a bit on the minority side. Big Buddy was one of only four children on the flight. All were extremely well behaved. Being stuck on an airplane for 14 hours, you run out of things to do. Each headrest has a movie screen in it so you can watch movies and play games, however after your fourth movie that is no longer fun. Luckily, Big Buddy fell asleep two hours into the flight and stayed asleep till one half hour before we landed (there is a god!). It really confused him since he boarded the plane at night and got off the plane in Dubai at night. Before he fell asleep, Big Buddy and I took glow in the dark bracelets to each of the kids on our flight. I figured it would be a nice and fun thing to give kids on a plane at night to keep there attention for awhile. I was surprised to find out that the three Arab children had not seen a glow stick before. There mom was a bit concerned when we tried to give it to them, however after a little coaxing from the children, I was allowed to do so. How strange is that...never played with a glow stick/bracelet before!

Big Buddy hanging out at the Dubai Airport.

At the Dubai airport, I felt a bit panic stricken. Strange country, man of the cloth everywhere, and really no children. We landed after 7pm and made our way to the visa checkpoint. Our passports were scrutinized, and then we were finally let into the country. As we proceeded to pick up our rental car, we exited the airport and was greeted with the hottest muggy air imaginable. Strange for after 9pm at night. A nice clue that it must always be this way were the giant air conditioners spitting out a mist of water as you exited the building.  All in all, our first night ended up with us arriving safely in Dubai. Neither Mr. Big nor I slept at all on the plane so all totaled, by the time we were all checked into our hotel and asleep, it was 1 am the next day. A record for me, 32 hours without a drop of sleep!

How does one eat a Dubai elephant?

Woody, Jesse and Buzz

As we have been trying to pack for several days/what feels like weeks, I have quickly realized that I am trying to eat a Dubai elephant. This elephant seems so massive. On one hand this trip seems so exciting, on the other so scary and unknown. What does one pack for an adventure like this? As Mr. Big (my darling husband) and I keep trying to tackle this large elephant, I keep trying to remember that to eat a Dubai elephant, one must do so one bite at a time. What if I am no longer hungry for elephant? Right now it is 11:54pm on Saturday night and we will be flying out Sunday morning. We still have six major tasks to accomplish before we can turn in for the night. :(  Does anyone have any ketchup? Maybe elephant would task good with ketchup. Hummmm. Looks like we will be eating through the night until our flight leaves.

Here we are in our Halloween getup! Happy Halloween everyone! Look out Dubai, here we come boots and all!