I'm Here!

So after a 13-hour flight from JKF to Abu Dhabi, the crew (Johanna, Heidi, Joel, and Tiffany) and I landed in our new home!  The flight was long, yes, but not bad!  We flew Etihad airlines (google it - it's pretty amazing!) and rather than sleeping, I watched 4 movies (Katie would be proud!).  I managed to doze a couple of hours, awakened by the frequent meals, snacks, beverages, and headphone supply.  Of course, the one time I actually slept through a delivery of snacks was when they apparently brought the Snickers Ice Cream!! 

After landing, we five trek through the airport (me with a huge, stupid grin on my face!) and come to a fork in the airport.  "Haha.  'Eye Scan'.  We should go there!"  I'm picturing a sci-fi retina scan which also brought forth memories of a gross scene in a Dan Brown novel.  Instead we go to the line that says "Passports: Other Countries".  We're in two lines.  I walk up to the man, he takes my passport, says something in Arabic, and I say, "Pardon?" indicating that I don't speak Arabic, but am also extremely polite : )  He points to the little blue tooth and says, "I'm talking to him" and commences to scan and stamp my passport.  I move along, and as Joel is also having his passport silently stamped, I see the other 3 in our party leave line and go towards the green "emergency exit" sign.  I look at them, I look to Joel, and he walks through and we wait.  "Where did they go?  Should we follow?"  Well, our passports were stamped and we went down to collect our luggage and wait for our comrades to appear.  

We waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Finally, I find someone who's not a porter and ask where they might have gone.  

"Oh.  They went through the Visa line.  Then to Eye Scan.  You didn't?"

Ummm... "What should we do?"  

"You need to go back to the security and then it's a police matter if they let you back out of security."

Gulp!  "Thanks..."

So Joel and I, with our giant, red-tagged heavy luggage piled on top of a cart, wheel ourselves back up the ramp towards security.  The line of porters waiting to help anyone who looks willing to pay try to call us back - "you're going the wrong way!" - I can only assume they're saying.  We try to mime back that we need to go back ... we know what we're doing (yeah, right!) ... but how do you even do that in English?  So up we went.

As we go up, we explain our situation to the man at security, he finds the guy who stamped our passports, and directs us towards the emergency exit sign.  

...

After many questions and lots of waiting, we finally meet up with our group.  (Long story short: We only had copies of our Visas.  We gave these to man behind a window and he had to go somewhere else in the airport to obtain our original Visas - this took about 20 minutes.  After he returned, we had to have our eyes scanned ... still not sure why, but it was painless, and then we were set free!)

Once we made it through all of this, we five were greeted by two fellow employees who have been living here for 1+ years.  Our luggage was loaded into 2 vans and we were taken to our respective apartments.  (Tiffany and I - who will be roommates - are in temporary housing living with other teachers for the week while our future apartments will be vacated and prepared for our arrival.)  After a quick freshen-up, we were then taken to Lebanese Flower for dinner.  There were about 15 other colleagues waiting for us and introductions were made and food and shisha were ordered.  Falafel, hummus, and chicken shawarma (?) was shared amongst several of us and it was all super delicious!  

After much eating and talking, we finally returned to our apartments where I showered (yay!) and fell fast asleep : )

THE END

Oh.  Yes.  The weather!  Well ... I've really been preparing myself for the worst.  I mean, I remember waiting for the bus in August in Athens (GA, not Greece).  It was 7am and I walked outside and was instantly covered in a layer of sweat.  So, leaving the cold air conditioned airport, I was braced for the wave of heat and humidity to knock me down.  I pull my carry-on behind me and exit through the sliding glass doors.  "Hey!  It's not so bad!"  I continue to walk, noticing that I'm walking through a concrete corridor to the outside.  "I was really expecting the worst, but this isn't so baa.....oh-kay."  Then I felt the heat.  It was 8:00 and around 45degrees celsius (113 fahrenheit).  But while waiting for my skin to start melting off, I was pleasantly surprised that I stayed (mostly) dry!  Yes.  It was nighttime.  But!  It was bearable! I've definitely lived through more humid conditions - without air conditioning, might I add!  So, maybe I'll survive the summer after all.