Got to New York today at 2pm and hung out in LaGuardia airport for a few hours while I figured out what I was going to do until 9:30pm when I was supposed to be at JFK. I thought about going into the city, but I had my large duffel bag and I didn't figure that would be any fun, so I had some lunch and headed over to JFK. When I got there, I needed to use the restroom, so I put my duffel bag next to a cement column and left it unattended (key work here) for five minutes. When I came back, there were TSA officials with walkie-talkies walking around it while keeping their distance. When I walked upto it, they asked me if it was my bag and I said it was - at which point they called the people on the other end of the walkie-talkies and told them to stand down. So, lesson number 1 - turns out they're serious about all that "don't leave your bags unattended" stuff. They really didn't seem very annoyed with me considering the trouble I had caused - they just smiled and asked me not to do it again. I thought about saying something like "don't worry - I'm Lebanese" but something in me told me that wouldn't be a good idea ;-)

Joy, Bonnie and Eden on the flight to Dubai

I had dinner and around 7pm, finally ran into the first of my colleagues - Stephanie and Shannon. Shannon is a junior at the Carlson School of Management and does the type of aerobics you see in Cirque du Soleil. She is really cool. Stephanie is 19, Canadian and earning her A/C repair technicians degree in Canada. Five minutes after meeting her, we were giving each other crap and laughing...she'll be a good friend on the trip. Over the next few hours, all 14 people showed up and they all seem really nice. Marion is the most beautiful 40 year old I have ever seen who is looking for a new career after years as an investment banker. Mike is the other engineer on the trip - easy going and a looker to boot. Doug is my roommate tonight - he is 41, has two birds and has been on three Global Village trips before this one. Luke is Canadian and this is his first time out of the country - he had never been on a plane before today! Jared works to raise money for an AIDS organization and is so passionate about his work - I think I want a job like his. Eden is one of the most un-assumingly confident people I have ever met - I really like hanging out with her. Her friend Timberlee lives in Houston and works for Sprint - together, they are two of the most entertaining duos I have ever met. Betsy is in her sixties and works for the EPA - she is very intelligent and very comforting...like the grandmother everyone needs to have on a trip. Dave is from northern California - a fact you could deduce within a minute of meeting him (sandals, long hair and says "word" a lot :-) He is twenty and goes to San Jose State University. Bonnie and Joy, the trip leaders, have their act together and are very energetic...just the type of people you want leading you into the plains of Africa.

We flew an awkward route to avoid entering Iraqi airspace

Around 10:30, we headed for the terminal and got on-board our plane. Now I have flown trans-atlantic flights many times and am used to a certain amount of cool-stuff aboard aircraft, but this blew me away. We crossed on an Airbus A340-500. Each seat has a personal television screen which has, among other things, the following capabilities:

1) A selection of over 100 movies in seven different languages
2) Dozens of games
3) Over 100 channels of music
4) E-mail (yes - you can e-mail from the plane)
5) The ability to see the view out of cameras located on the nose of the plane
- one pointing forward and one pointing straight down


And I'm just getting started. Each seat also had a telephone. If you picked it up and dialed a seat number, it would ring the phone at that seat. We may have had a little bit of fun with that one. Each seat bottom was made of a two-segment cushion. The front segment could rotate through about 30 degrees so you could adjust it such that your feet didn't touch the ground. Couple that with the foot-rest which swung out from underneath the chair in front of you and if you leaned your seat back, rotated the seat bottom up and put your feet on the foot rest, you felt like you were practically horizontal even though you weren't even close. Last but not least, the plane actually had Wi-Fi...I should have brought my laptop! :-)

We took off at 11:30pm and were served a lite snack almost immediately. It consisted of lamb chops in a gorgeous sauce with rice pilaf and pita bread, a greek salad, cous-cous, wine, cheese, biscuits, fruit, juice and seconds of anything we wanted. That was the snack, mind you. We had two more meals (breakfast and then a late lunch). If the snack was that sexy, imagine how good the dinner was! So I spent my time eating, watching movies, flirting..err..talking with my teammates on the phone. I figured e-mailing was going to be really expensive, but it turns out they are trying out the service and are offering it at a price of $1/e-mail. Still very expensive, yes, but not too expensive to try. So I set up and account and starting writing messages. Only one problem - I don't know anybody's middle name...something I need to write them at work! I knew Sarah's is 'Royston' and Becca's starts with an 'M', but I couldn't remember Cari's. So I wrote those who I could and hoped the others will forgive me.

Madinat Jumeirah with Barj Al Arab (the Arab tower) in the background

We landed 13 hours later and it seemed like the flight was a few hours long at most - time flew! We got to the airport in Dubai, collected our bags and headed to the hotel. We have a tour set up for tomorrow morning - we are going to see the city and spend an hour at the markets (gold, spices, etc...), but some of us wanted to do something tonight (after all, it was only 9pm when we got to the hotel). So we went to a bar called 'Barj Al Arab' - located on the roof of a really tall, beautiful building which is the token skyscraper for the city. We hopped into cabs and drove over there only to find out you couldn't get in without closed-toed shoes and a collared shirt. No worries - we went to this beautiful resort next door named Madinat Jumeirah and had $10 drinks while chatting about why each of us was there and what we hoped to get out of the experience. Finally, we came back to the hotel around 1:30 and as soon as I finish this, I'm off to bed.



So far, the trip has been a blast. Dubai is definitely a place I would like to come back and visit when I have more time, but for now, I am trying to enjoy the high-life while keeping in mind that tomorrow, I am going to sleep in one of the world's poorest nations and over the next two weeks, try to make it a little more enjoyable for a few people