It's So Hard To Say Goodbye

It was really, really hard for us to leave Europe. And I mean that in a physical sense. Apparently the French went cheapo on their navigation system at Nice Airport, and some low clouds (yes, run of the mill clouds) caused our inbound Emirates flight to divert to Milan. Then our first officer became ill before the flight, and another had to be flown in from Munich. We should have arrived in Dubai late last night, but instead I watched the sun rise out the window over Saudi Arabia this morning.

Mentally it was much easier to leave Europe than I thought. I was expecting to be sad and wistful after 3 years of life on the continent. Perhaps I was exhausted from the delays, but mostly I felt glad to be on my way to Dubai. Europe was comfortable, relaxed, and pretty easy to live in and travel through. But as we started to roll down the runway, I was pretty excited (and Andrea was too) to be heading somewhere...well...foreign. This evening we took a stroll along Dubai Creek and through the outdoor souks. We heard the call to prayer erupting from the mosques at sunset, there wasn't a bottle of wine in sight on restaurant tables, and the smells of sheesha (flavored tobacco waterpipes) and kebabs filled the air along the waterfront. I think it's going to be a good few days here.