We've Arrived!

Hello all,

Well a lot of you suggested I do a blog about our adventures in Dubai, so here goes!

Shall we start with the 28 hour travel day with 3 children? Yes it takes a crazy long time to get over here. Our first 2 legs were very hectic and fast. Our seats were assigned all over the place for both flights which left us scrambling with gate agents and flight attendants to try and get us somewhat all together. For some reason Rich's reservation was made separately and not connected to our 4 reservations (me and the girls), so he was being upgraded to first class on both flights and the rest of us were all separated in coach...oh what fun! He did let me sit in first on the way to MSP..but on the way to JFK we had to give up our first class seat so one of us could sit with Emma and Lily, Rich was sitting with Ava in another row. What a lucky day for some woman who got my first class ticket for free! We finally made it to New York with only 2 outfits lost...Lily with a glass of OJ dropped smack dab in the middle of her pants, and poor Ava soaked through since our connecting time in MSP was only long enough to run across the airport, grab some milk, 3 cheeseburgers, and one mac/cheese! Thank G for Burger King since that was pretty much all we ate all day until dinner in Times Square!

We had a 6 hour layover in New York. So after getting checked in for our Emirates Airline flight, we checked our carry on luggage in their lounge and headed into the city. We took the girls to Times Square and had dinner at ESPN Zone. My cousin Kristine was in NY, so she met us for dinner, our last family member to see us before we crossed the pond! ESPN Zone was perfect for the kids, loud and lots of TV's. They even had a TV in each stall in the bathroom, Emma thought it was absolutely the coolest thing ever! We rented a stretch limo back to the airport and told the girls, "better enjoy these long seats now, lay down, relax...cause this will be the last time your body will get to be in the reclined position for about 15 hours!"

So some of you will think a 12 hour plane ride would be absolute torcher with 3 kids, but then you might not have heard of Benadryl! Only kidding...really our flight out of NY left at 11pm, so by that time the kids were exhausted. Ava was asleep during the take off roll, and Lily only made it through about 10/15 minutes of her movie before she was out...Emma was to excited about her own movie screen in front of her, so she watched a movie, played some games, had another dinner and then passed out. It really was good for about 8 hours and then they woke up! And we still had 4 hours to go! But really all and all they were good...I really think no matter how you look at it sitting in coach for that long is really just inhuman...I mean really couldn't they make those seats a little bigger, recline a little more with some sort of foot rest..not quite like business but meet somewhere in the middle. I know I would gladly pay a little more for that on such a long flight...for goodness sake our cattle car tix were around 2000, a business class seat is 8000, you'd think there would be room for something in between!

So we finally arrived, 7:45 pm Tuesday...remember we left our house in KC 8:30am Monday! Dubai is 9 hours ahead of KC/Chicago...they don't have daylight savings so once we lose an hour in the fall Dubai will be 10 hours ahead of KC! So the stoller that we gate checked is nowhere to be seen as we are exciting the airplane...in the States they usually bring them right back to the gate so you can put the little buggers in them to get to baggage claim. Well not in Dubai, you have to get them in baggage claim. (Not the children..the strollers!) I will say they do offer you complimentary strollers to use while you are waiting for yours but that will have to be a little note to self for next trip since we didn't realize that until we had already passed them and you know how the airports are these days, once you pass a certain point...no going back! And then it only took about 2 hours or so down in baggage claim for us to realize that they had lost my bag and we still didn't have a stroller. Only on our way to fill out a claim, 2 hours later, did Rich see some guy walking toward our baggage carousel with a trolley full of strollers, ours being one of them. And we werent' the only ones waiting for those things! All I can say is that someone must have been smoking a pretty strong "shesha" to make a bunch of families wait 2 hours for strollers after the kids have been on a flight for over 12 hours...either that or they just don't have kids themselves!

And did I mention that my bag finally arrived, delivered to our apartment, while I was sitting here typing. A full 48 hours late. Thank G I had put all my bathroom stuff in another suitcase along with a random pair of shorts and flip flops. I finally had to break down and learn how to use our Italian washing machine today because I couldn't stand the thought of being in those clothes another day without a wash. More on that Italian washing machine later, but all I can say is that it really made me appreciate American ingenuity...

Well I have a lot to say already on Dubai..but will write more later on that, now that I have some fresh clothes and an actual chair to sit on!

Love and miss you all,

Jen