over saudi airspace

I've just woken up near baggage carousel #1 in the Dubai International Airport. My journey to Dubai went as follows: taking off from Cairo at approximately 14:30 local time, I landed in Amman, Jordan an hour later at 16:30 local time. Egypt and Jordan are usually in the same time zone, but Egypt falls back for Ramadan where Jordan does not. Confusing, but manageable. I bided my time at the airport, annoyed that none of the restaurants took credit cards, but also determined not to withdraw Jordanian dinar for a three hour layover. My flight finally boarded at around 19:30, and thankfully there was a rather impressive meal service complete with a surprisingly good Lebanese white wine. I spent most of the flight watching a rather sappy movie aimed at the wannabe princess pre-teen girl market ("Moonacre" I think it was called, which is doubly offensive as it sounds so similar to the 1979 Roger Moore Bond film "Moonraker") before switching gears to watch the beginning of "Night At the Museum 2". I cannot objectively judge "Night at the Museum 2", as I was only about 40 minutes in (Pharaoh Kahmunrah's just recruited Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon, and Al Capone to kill Ben Stiller for those "in the know") but I feel like it's not the kind of movie I'll be rushing home to buy.

Nevertheless our pilot was excellent, and I touched down in the United Arab Emirates almost without feeling it. Leaving the airplane, I made my way through the glittering Dubai International Airport, passed the currency exchange, through the deserted passport control, and toward the luggage carousel.

All the red velvet rope in the world, and no one to organize into well regulated lines.

I collected my bags, then decided to scope out the Duty Free. Duty Free shops are, in my opinion, usually a rip off. Any savings consumers benefit from by avoiding the tax is usually offset by the ridiculously high base prices that the store charges. I mean, what does it matter if there's no tax on them when a bag of M&M's costs $12? Anyway, I still enjoy looking at the dazzling display of luxury goods, especially the cigars. The Duty Free shop in the Dubai International Airport as a decent walk-in humidor, where the various samplings from repressed Central American countries can be viewed. As is my habit, I always go straight for the Cohibas, though I know that there would be no way of getting them around the rest of the world in anywhere near an enjoyable condition.

Instead, while inspecting the scotch, I came across something I thought I'd never find in a Duty Free shop. Cheap scotch. A one liter bottle of King Robert II Scotch cost only $8.43. Now you may be telling yourself: "Patrick, at that price, this scotch is probably better applied to antiseptic purposes, or de-greasing car engines - anything other than human consumption!" Oh ye of little, though seemingly well-founded, faith. In fact, after leaving the Duty Free, cracking open the scotch, and sampling a small bit in my camper's cup, I found it to be of an admirable quality, and woefully underpriced at $8.43. From my many years of scotch-drinking experience, I can assure you that this one liter bottle of scotch could easily sell in excess of $9.43 in the United States.

Truly, it is not the world's best scotch. But it's not bottom of the shelf stuff either, and having spent the last month in a dry country (a term with two valid interpretations) I was pleased to find a small bit of liquor. I don't actually know why I bought an entire liter of the stuff though, and I'm starting to question the merit of its purchase, but I figure that I'll bring it to Nepal as celebration spirit for Devin and I, assuming that we make it to the top of any of those massive mountains. For now, I'm more interested in finding breakfast, having spent the last five hours asleep at the airport, and then I'll be making my way into town.