Good-bye South Dakota, hello Dubai!

Well, we made it. I am getting older, and am definitely out of practice. In the old days I could work all day, jump on a flight to London, go to the office, work all day, have a work dinner and hit the bed at night. Let’s just say – these are NOT the old days.

We left Rapid City Friday morning on a 6AM flight to Dallas. First problem – the American Airlines gate agent refused to check our bags through to Dubai. I was not impressed. I huffed and puffed and informed her that she absolutely could check our bags through. She huffed back and informed me they could be picked up in London and moved to the next person. She didn’t check our documents (and we went through a whole bunch of crap to get those COVID tests and visas done!) – just sent us on our way.

At the gate when trying to board, our passports required scanning. Then the fun began. Our passports would not scan, we held the line up, people were not happy. Lucky for us the new General Manager for American for Rapid City, Rhonda (my new best friend, but that’s another story) was behind us in line. She jumped out, helped us and informed us our flight from London to Dubai had been cancelled. So yes – the gate agent checking our bags was absolutely correct – she could NOT check our bags to Dubai as we didn’t have a flight. No one had bothered to inform us – including her! Of course, the next problem was the plane had a mechanical, but that just gave Rhonda more time to help us sort out our next steps with the cancelled flight in London. Rhonda worked the American side, I was on the phone with American Express (we had used them to book the ticket) and by the time the flight took off we had assurances that it would get worked out. In DFW, it did – we were on a flight to Dubai that left 8 hours later, so a 6 hour layover turned into a 14 hour layover but being upbeat I reminded Jim we were still on our way!

In Dallas we rented a Minute Suites on the D Concourse of the International Terminal. We had a 6 hour layover and I viewed it as a place we could go, take off our masks and relax. They supposedly had satellite TV (but it was out when we were there) but it was comfortable and directly across from the Admirals Club where they were sorting out our cancelled flight issue.

We arrived at our boarding gate for Heathrow about an hour prior to departure. We didn’t check in – we had boarding passes. Then we hear the dreaded..”If you haven’t checked with the desk, please come up as you need to complete the UK COVID entry form, available by QR scan”. I say dreaded because there were a number of people trying to do this. It was a bit of a cluster. Jim doesn’t have a QR scanner app on his phone – so I was doing both. There were people arguing they didn’t have to do it, others trying to do it for large families, just a mess. In the middle of it all I tripped over one of our carry ons and have a huge swollen knot on my knee…but I kept on typing!! The goal of completing the forms was to receive a form with your name containing a PDF bar code. I got mine – Jim had yet to receive his and we were waiting for it when some American Airlines supervisor came to the gate to see what the hell was happening with the flight only to find all these people trying to get this done. She looked at us and told us to board. No one ever looked at this form. You can imagine the words I wanted to say.

The flight to London was great. Plane was maybe 35-40% full? Great service, slept well. Landed in London early and made it to the British Airways desk where we were able to get our boarding passes for the later flight and then had to go through immigration to get our bags. At immigration we were the only two people there. The only two people. In all of immigration. As we cleared immigration (touchless – all electronic now, that was new to me!) I asked the two Immigration Officers I saw if we could leave the airport to go to the Sofitel at Terminal 5 and get a Day Room to sleep. They said it would be oK. We had put in our UK Government form we weren’t leaving the airport so I didn’t want to get picked up for lying – there was a big fine involved. Got our bags rechecked, a room at the Sofitel and passed out.

The Sofitel at Terminal 5 is great! If you ever need a place to crash between flights this is a wonderful option. We both needed showers and for the 12 hours we were there it was fabulous.

Our next challenge was getting checked in for our Dubai flight. Heathrow was empty. In all my years of traveling through Heathrow I’ve never seen it like this. Very eerie and disquieting. On a good day it could take you at least 25 minutes to get through check-in. It took us 5. Off to the BA Lounge and then boarded the flight. This flight was full, likely because they combined our earlier flight and this flight. Once dinner was over I was asleep and we woke in Dubai!

My first impressions of Dubai are I feel like I am in a very clean, modern, large city. We are getting to know our own little corner of the world here. We have found our little corner convenience store (5 minute walk), the grocery story (8 minute walk), and the pharmacy (across the street). The local Marks and Spencer Food Hall is across the Marina so I’m thinking that might be about 15-20 minutes? That’s my plan for today, to check that out.

Our apartment is great. We are on the 31st floor and overlook the Marina (pictures soon!). Directly across the street is a large mosque, and the call to prayer occurs about 6 times a day. It’s actually quite pretty and keeps me on my toes about the time. The people who run the building are very friendly and couldn’t be nicer. Everything runs on an app. If you need anything you just request it on the app. Microwave oven? Punch it on the app. Hangers? Punch it on the app. It is here in minutes.

As our hours are still off and we are sleeping in odd cycles, we’ve ordered dinner in the last two nights. Again – call “1234” and the food is delivered in about 35-40 minutes. First night – pizza. Last night, grilled chicken breast, hummus and some fries. Really yummy. We have a full kitchen and I need to make use of it!

We are happy to be here and start this adventure! Let’s see where this journey takes us.