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.