Until Next Time.....

Day 15 - Friday, January 4th

Our last day in the UAE and I’m awake at 8:00am.  It’s a bittersweet morning and I have a few tears flowing.  I lay there thinking about my sweet, baby girl – even at 37 years old, she’s still my “Baby Girl”.  I think about what an amazing young lady that she has grown up to be. She’s beautiful; she’s brilliant; she makes her mama and daddy very proud of her.  And yes, I’m crying as I write this.

We had a quick breakfast, got dressed, loaded the car and headed out.   We made a short visit with Nicole and Ethan. Since Ethan had been sick with a virus for almost a week, we had not been able to spend any time with them. He is such a delightful baby.

This is our last trip to Dubai for a while so we made one more stop at the Burj Khalifa for some up-close and personal pictures.  The weather was perfect and we enjoyed just walking around.

There is an observation deck at the top but we were not able to get tickets to go up - tickets were sold out. Guess that will be on my bucket list for the next visit. 

There were beautiful blooming flowers everywhere!

We made one last walk through the mall for a few a little things I wanted to pick - mainly chocolates for the girls at work.  It is always very busy on Friday since people are off on Friday and Saturday.  We had dinner at Red Lobster. 

Our last picture together before we leave:

Randy is easy going and agreeable with everything so when he asks for something we always try to make sure it happens.  He has a Hard Rock pin collection and I think a T-shirt from every Hard Rock Café in every city we have ever visited. Some are faded and gone but some he still has.  So we head over to the Festival City Mall where the Hard Rock Café is. That area was very pretty – beautiful buildings, pretty trees and flowers, and lights everywhere.  Another place on my bucket list for next time.

Then the inevitable – Andrea dropped us at the airport.  It was a quick hug and kiss before the tears started flowing. Then our journey home started.

The security at the Dubai Airport is very strict and intense.  Here is a five step process before we could board our plane home.

1.     First stop – Enter airport and send all our luggage through scanner; walk through scanner

2.  Second stop – Find Delta counter for check-in; Delta personnel review our passports and ask the usual questions about who packed the luggage; has it been in your possession the entire time, etc, etc, etc; then to the ticket counter to check our luggage, answer more of the same questions and get our boarding passes

3.  Third stop – Passport Clearance counter – wait in a very long line – scan our passports and get stamped

4.  Fourth stop – Scan carry-on luggage and go through scanner; take off all jewelry, belts, wallets, phones – anything metal

5.  Fifth stop – Gate C13 – answer more questions by Delta personnel and review our passports; go through scanner again; Randy has to be “wand” and patted down; I was patted down; next security personnel open and check our carry-on luggage and we remove our shoes so they can be checked

6. Next stop - wait for boarding home to ATL

Whew, I’m tired now!!!

AND we finally board – we are 45 minutes late leaving the terminal.  We taxi and we wait and we wait and we wait.  Then the pilot announces we will be returning to the gate.  We have a sick passenger and she needs to de-board the plane and remove the luggage.  How do you find 2 pieces of luggage among all that luggage for 300++ passengers?  Delta does it efficiently and we wait some more.  Pilot comes back on and says that security has to come on the plane and check luggage again – that’s a requirement of the Dubai airport when a plane returns to the gate.  We finally leave Dubai after a 2 hour delay.

And then the flood gates of tears start – I’m leaving my baby in the UAE until July when she will be home for a 30-day visit. I tried not to let the young guy sitting next to me see that I was crying BUT then I thought, who cares?  One day he might have a “a little baby girl”!

We arrive in ATL on Saturday, January 5^th after being on the plane for 18 hours (2 hour delay and 16 hour flight).  Our dear friends, Stanley and Nancy, pick us and we head to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  After breakfast and a nice visit with them, they drop us off at home.  

Jet lag hasn’t set in – I feel good – I slept most of the way home.  Randy took a shower and a nap and I started unpacking and doing laundry – Back to reality – Vacation is over!

(This is the last post in our journey but check back often because I’ll be adding a few more posts about some other experiences and perspectives.)