We are at the Dubai airport waiting to board the plane to Entebbe (the city half-an-hour outside of Kampala where the airport is located).  The last twelve hours have been so much fun.  Dubai is beautiful - cripplingly hot, but beautiful.  We began the day with a tour of Dubai.  Our tour guide was an Egyptian named Mohammed.  This gave me a great opportunity to practice my Arabic.  I sat in the back of the bus and throughout the tour, whenever I had a question, the sound of Nicholas yelling "Mohammed, Mohammed!" echoed throughout the bus.  The group thought this quite funny and it quickly became one of our first inside jokes...everyone's a comedian :-)

A view of Barj Al Arab from Souk Jumeirah (the Jumeirah market) Click here to see a photo tour of Dubai

The most entertaining event of the morning has to have been our stop by the beach.  The water here is so blue and so warm, several of us were toying with the idea of swimming, despite the fact that we had only five minutes at this particular stop.  We began cautiously wandering into the ocean, pants rolled up, a few steps at a time.  The tranquility of the moment was quickly shattered by a loud "WOOHOO!!!"  We turned to our right to see a blur, first blue, then progressively more peach as Dave (Northern California or 'NoCal' guy) stripped to his boxers while in a full sprint for the ocean.  At this point, most of the rest of us looked at each other, shrugged, then jump in as well.  Dave is awesome.

After finishing our tour, we headed for the airport and boarded our plane for the six hour flight to Entebbe.  The flight was great fun - this time we flew on an Airbus 330.  Not quite as luxurious, but still very nice.  We stopped in Nairobi on the way to Entebbe, but weren't allowed to get off the plane.  Our flight attendant was absolutely the man of all my female friends' dreams - a tall, blond, gorgeous Australian fellow.

While stopped in Nairobi, I met a Lebanese flight attendant who told me my Arabic was no good, then laughed, told me she was mostly joking, and gave me two decks of cards with the "Emirates Airlines" logo on them.  She was so beautiful - I'd forgotten how beautiful Lebanese women are!  We arrived in Entebbe around 8:30pm and were greeted at the airport by a very jolly Ugandan fellow named Robert and a lovely Ugandan woman named Jaime.  They work for Habitat here in Uganda.  We collected our bags and hopped into a van to begin the half-hour drive to Kampala.

The drive was very entertaining - shall we say that traffic laws are more like traffic suggestions here?  The air smells of smoke, but not exhaust - it's the smell of crops and compost heaps being burnt - it actually smells quite nice.  We arrived at the hostel (Kolping guesthouse) around 10pm and headed up to our rooms which were quite modern - beds with mosquito nets, western toilets, showers, sinks, a phone and electrical lights.  One last modern hurrah before heading to Muterere.  I joined some friends at the dining hall and had a delicious Ugandan beer called Tusker before going to bed.  Doug is my roommate tonight - he seems like such a wonderful fellow.