HALF WAY AROUND THE PLANET, NON-STOP

For all the times that I travel, I never cease to be amazed by the ultra-long distances a modern plane can travel. Today, I went from Los Angeles to Dubai, nearly 16 hours in the air, giant double decker A380 aircraft. If you have a globe at home, put your finger on each place and you will see that it is ½ way around the earth. I remember a 1970’s 747 flight from London to Delhi (8 hours) that had to refuel in Tehran. How things have changed…..

Save up those airline points, they can lead to a great experience that you would surely never actually pay for, such as a first class Emirates flight. Knowing what flying is like in the states it is hard to imagine a 16 hour flight that you wish would have been longer. Besides the great service and all, a special highlight on this flight was seeing the northern lights traveling at night over the artic part of Canada.

This begins the current series of my blogs. I will attempt to discover Dubai, a city that is very much on any list of places to see. After a few days, I am then off to South Africa to once again see the great animals and that amazingly beautiful country. One highlight will be the famous “Blue Train,” that travels from Pretoria down to Cape Town. This is another of the famous train trips that I want to do. And, it had better be good, as the evening dinner is a formal affair and I am required to wear a coat and tie. (Which I did not own any more!)  But now I have one and it is travelling along with me the entire trip for this one night. I will probably need the porter to help me tie my tie, ridiculous as that seems.

Wish me luck on seeing a big range of wildlife and on getting the shots right so that you can see them as well. I purchased a new 600mm lens of which I will probably be fuddling with while the great shot appears and disappears.

Preparing for departure. I sure hope they loaded enough fuel for over 15 hours of flying!  First class is at the front of the upper deck. Business take the balance of the upper deck with a full bar at the rear.

My home for the next 16 hours.  mini-bar by window, nice decorative table lamp just past it.  The slightly open drawer contains writing stuff, letter sheets, envelopes. Rather quaint I thought.  Under my glasses is a pop up make up mirror with various toiletries inside the compartment.

Below are two shots of the shower room that Emirates gets much publicity about.  It was about 5′ x 15′ in size, serving as the toilet for most of the flight.  For the shower experience, you reserve a 20 minute time slot and get 5 minutes worth of water to shower with.  All sort of toiletries, hair dryer, and such are there to be used.  Two staff people on hand just to clean up after each use.