United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi and Dubai)

Thursday June 16 2011,
11:30pm at Abu Dhabi International Airport

  Bit of a bumpy landing, the lady beside Corey was a little jumpy. We couldn't taxi to the terminal for some reason so we had to make our way down the stairs onto the shuttle bus which would take us to the terminal. When leaving the aircraft you instanly felt the heat and could smell dust, we were in the middle of the desert. We now knew that we had to bite our tounges, pull our pants up and behave ourselves, none of which, neither of us knew how to do.
  We were processed at border control by an Emirati in traditional clothing, and made it through to the United Arab Emirates. As we walked through the doors we were quickly approached asking if we wanted a taxi. After a 14 hour flight we were tired and wanted to sleep in a comfy bed so we agreeably said yes.
  He seemed to be a alright guy, he carried most of our bags, but we still felt a bit un-easy around him. When we got to his car we asked the driver if he knew where Le Royal Meridien was, his response was "get in, get in". Feeling a bit nervous we got into the car, Luke re-arranged the rings on his fingers and Corey positioned himself behind the driver ready to head lock him so Luke would be able to king hit him...if it had to come to that (better safe than kidnapped, aye?).
  During the ride which was 30 mins, we tried to talk to the driver to see what we should do in Abu Dhabi, but found it hard to understand him with his broken English and heavy Arabic accent. He started to show us photos of white foreign girls that he personally drove around, presumably to give us confidence in his ability to drive us around as well. What a creeper! At this stage we were feeling quite uncomforatble as the airport was far outside the city, so all we could see was more and more desert.
  Finally made it to our hotel (thank-you Jesus!) and he asked for 200 Dirhams (approx $50). Quickly calculated the exchange rate and suspected it was too much. Although, how much a half hour taxi should cost we had no idea, so we counter-offered with 150 but he seemed to feel a bit shortered, so we settled on 170.
  We checked in at reception, and were told we'd be living in room 326 for the next three days. We then walked to the closest lift and went up to level 3. As we were going up we could hear loud thumping music. The doors opened and we found ourselves at an entrance to the night club. Carrying five large bags and in no way dressed for this occasion we were quickly approached and re-directed to another lift. Finally made it to our room, and checked it out, then we crashed at 1am.

Good night!

P.S. Just looked at the map and realized how close to Iran we were, no wonder both our mums were so worried.

Sydney International Airport

Thursday June 16th 2011,
12:00pm at VAustralia Terminal
  As we are standing in line the lady at the business class check-in calls us over (cause we are obviously flying business class), so we walk over show her our boarding passes and her remark "this is the business class counter". We then acknowledged that she was correct, however we also told her that she was the one who had called us over from the economy class line. The lady then checked our passes and passports, and noticed we didn't have a return ticket, which without she wasn't going to allow us to board the plane. Corey then showed the lady his UK passport (as the little bugger has dual-citizenship), and I could only try and explain that we would be travelling and unsure of what country we would be departing from, and at what time. After a ten minute chat with her supervisors, she decided that I would be allowed to fly, as long as I realized that without a return ticket I could be denied entry into our Irish destination.
  She then proceeded to weigh our bags, of which Corey's were fine, and Luke's were about 2 times to heavy. Our solution? We both began putting on clothes and heavy items into our pockets (I also may have slipped some of our books into my pillow, facing away from the desk of course). As we are dressing/re-weighing bags, the attendant informed us we were taking too long, as she believed she had other customers to serve. Upon this statement Corey looked for "other customers", seeing none we ignored her and continued re-packing. Finally the lady got impatient enough with us that she finally let it slide. We then said goodbye to Corey's mum, and waved one last time.
  At this point we believed we had made it through Sydney's airport, and then we saw the same desk attendant checking us in at the gate, Corey's edited response " 'frick' my life". However she was already sick of us and we made it through with little more difficulty.

Goodbye Australia