Back in the UAE

Three weeks ago, after a pleasant on-time flight from Kamloops to Vancouver on Air Canada, I went to check in at for my British Airline flight to Heathrow. I was four hours early but BA was checking in bags, so I went to the first available person who told me to go back and use the kiosk to speed up the process. I looked around and didn’t see any kiosks. When I said, “What kiosk?” a bemused check-in person took me a bunch of computers on stands. There is no way that those were kiosks. At any rate, I was supposed to scan my passport, but, since it was issued in Dubai four years ago when the Canadian government didn’t issue any machine readable passports outside of Canada, that wouldn’t work. Well then we just needed a number, which should have been on the e-ticket I printed out, but wasn’t; I went back to the line where I started and did everything the old fashioned way.

The BA flight was half an hour late, my seat was broken, the in-flight movies and the reading light didn’t work until an hour out of Heathrow. Fortunately, I usually sleep a lot on flights, so that’s what I did.

BA is the only airline that I’ve ever been on where the flight attendants (two) were actually rude to passengers. The seats in economy class were narrow and close together. I don’t think I’ve had such uncomfortable seating in years. When the person in front of me put his seat back, I had to extend my legs straight out for the whole flight. The person sitting beside me was not fat, but his elbows were in my space for the entire trip. Well done, BA.

When we got to London, we had to circle the airport for half an hour. When we landed, we were out on the tarmac, where we waited for half an hour for the stair driver to show up. Then it took another half an hour for buses to shuttle us to Terminal 5 where I had to walk for half an hour along often unmarked passages to get to a bus to take me to Terminal 4. At one point, I was told rather brusquely to go down a corridor and turn left. “You mean the corridor with the signs for other airlines, but not BA?” (which was what I was looking for). “Yes.”

At Terminal 4, I had to go through a security check, taking my shoes off and emptying my pockets. They were telling me to hurry up, so I forgot that I had my iPod hanging around my neck. I have never had anyone at an airport speak to me so rudely as the young women on the other side of the metal detector who yelled, “Go back. This is a metal detector you know.” No “Please, go back.” No “Would you mind removing that iPod?” The security checkpoint also had a big sign, saying that it was no longer necessary for laptop computers to be taken out of bags because of the advances in x-ray technology – well that didn’t happen. I had to take my laptop and everything else out of my computer bag so that my computer, mouse, external hard drive, and electric razor could be wiped with a little sniffer device. Then everything was run through the x-ray again. Clearly the advanced technology hadn’t arrived with the sign.

Heathrow is perhaps the ugliest airport I’ve been in in the developed world. I think the designer was an old Soviet era architect. It is also the only major airport that I’ve been in – ever – that didn’t have small baggage carts for people who had carry-on baggage. In the seven hours that I was at Heathrow, not one person working in a shop or restaurant smiled or said please or thank you. If this is typical of jolly old England, I think I’ll give England a miss, and BA is not going to be my first, second, or even third choice of airlines. Overall, this was a disappointing experience. Give me Singapore Airlines any time.

Dubai was a pleasant end to my trip. They scarcely glanced at my passport and didn’t need to check my bags.

I am now safely ensconced in a small but comfortable apartment on campus. The weather is hot – about 35-38C – not not incredibly uncomfortable. I remember temperatures of 48C ten years ago when I first arrived in Dubai.

The campus is quite green and the bird life is amazing. When the weather cools a little bit more, I’ll take my camera out and get some pictures. I have seen an Indian roller with vibrant blue feathers, a whole bunch of hoopoe, lots of doves and pigeons, and flocks of green parkeets.

I’ve been really jetlagged. This is coming on to the end of my third week, and, this week, I’ve finally been feeling better. For the first two weeks, I ran out of energy around 11am every day (11pm Vancouver time). Getting moved into my apartment has been tiring. The moving company made a real mess of everything. The container had gotten wet and had been dropped. Three Ikea bookshelves and two CD/DVD racks had been soaked and then dropped, so they were no good. The glass tv stand that should have held my tv was shattered. A folding Korean dining table was broken. I’ve had damp books piled on the floor and in corners. It has been difficult to get everything set up. All of the broken stuff was not insured. My big screen tv and one of my stereos were damaged (those are insured). I’m still waiting to see how long it takes to get that resolved. Needless to say, this has made settling in more tiring than necessary.

My classes are okay. The students are pretty good. The university is interesting because we have students from more than 80 different countries. The student dress ranges from shorts and T-shirts to traditional kandura and abaya. The students are pretty relaxed.

It’s now Ramadan and there are restrictions on eating and drinking in public. But, there are dining rooms and places for non-Muslims to have lunch.

Before Ramadan, the gym was almost deserted in the evening, but, now that most of the students can’t eat during the day, the gym gets packed from about 8:30 on. Our university seems to win a lot of sports competitions – both men and women’s.

As I sit here, a tiny gecko is running across my wall. I don’t recall seeing them before, but I have at least three small geckos in my apartment.

I will start taking pictures soon. The campus is quite green and the buildings are beautiful. University City is huge.