The Angelico Austrian Adventure - Dubai

Now I've blogged about Dubai a few times before. So what's new this time?

Well, today we're here at night. It's just past midnight local time, and the heat and humidity are unaffected.

Also, due to some renovations at Dubai International, we're at Dubai World Centre - a sort of outer airport, like Avalon or Tooradin. It seems to have a lot more room to grow than the main airport - or that might just be that it doesn't already have a shopping centre the size of Chaddy+Eastland+Highpoint built in.

The WiFi here is good, but requires us to sign up, and pay for it once we've had half an hour. Why do people bother? They don't even make us visit our email and pick up a confirmation code, so mailinator.com must be absolutely spammed with people creating a new account every half hour. Anyway, it lets us get online. Afterthought: it must use cookies, because when I'm in incognito mode it has no idea that I already exist... deleting the cookie is an option I guess but Ctrl-Shift-N is easier.

Midga decides to visit a coffee vending machine. Anyone would think he was at work and waiting for SAP to do something... I have no idea what the exchange rate is, but apparently an Australian 20c coin is an acceptable substitute (Lord High, of course) for a One Dirhan coin. 60c later he has a cup of coffee!

This is just a technical stop, so we were allowed to leave our luggage on the plane. I came ashore with them of course, to pick up some more power and have something to blog about.

For some reason the gate opens 90 minutes before departure time, and almost all the passengers get up and go through straight away. There's more room in the waiting area but for some psychological reason people prefer to be one step ahead while they're waiting. Maybe it breaks up the waiting time too. Anyway, we have a seat and we still have WiFi so it really doesn't matter (matter matter matter matter) where we sit.

That's really all there is to tell about this stop. But one more thing about the 787 (just one, this time). Midga was standing up in the middle seat (it's 3+3+3 in economy) and could stretch up on tip toes without bumping his head on the luggage bins. This plane has been designed for tall people. Isn't that lovely?