New York, New York!

Aidan is all travelled out. In the past five weeks he has plane hopped all around - he was in New York and LA for nine days at the beginning of August, then over again to NY, London and Riyadh for ten days this month. There is some catching up to do on this blog, so here we go:

Let's start with the New York trip Aidan went on in early August... 3 nights in LA and 5 nights in the big apple and it was a rushed trip. It all started with an initial question from the lady at the Emirates Airlines counter at Dubai International Airport - "Sorry sir, Business class is full, do you mind travelling first class". I thought to myself... 'hello, hello!!!! are you crazy?? Do i mind??'; but I said to her a simple "not a problem, thanks". Boarding was a breeze!

Stepping onto the plane and just about ready for take off, I had consumed all of the olives, caviar and other wonderful condiments offered to me. I was itching to change into my Emirates first class pyjamas to really finish off the nuttiness. Looking around though there was only one other passenger who had changed into them. They looked horrid and very hugging in the downstairs compartment. Let's save that for next time (maybe).

After 14 hours and consuming breakfast, lunch, four movies and a number of campari and sodas, I touched down in NYC - knowing there was another 6 hours to go to hit LA. Mannnn......why?!

Anyhoo... after personally taking my baggage off the carousel at JFK airport and rechecking it in at the American Airlines counter, I hopped on the plane. AA Business class is a little LESS roomy than Virgin Blue ECONOMY in Australia. Yep, crappola.

6 long (very long) hours passed and after waiting at the carousel for one hour for my bag to come out at LA airport, I eventually gave up and headed to the long line of about 100 people at the lost baggage counter for AA (services by 3 people). This is now 23 hours since I left Dubai and I am tired and grumpy. Now 10PM Sunday night.

The bag had been lost, I fill in a form, they tell me there is a 90% chance it will be on one of the next two flights out of NY. I waited for those two flights. No bag. Now midnight.

Checking at the hotel I had one set of clean clothes in my onboard! The Emirates pyjamas! Woo hoo! Style plus. Now 1:30AM Monday.

After hitting the shops on Rodeo Drive the next morning to buy some clothes with my generous $50US compensation voucher, I soon moved straight on to the Beverley Centre where things were more affordable. Long story short, I wore my jeans for 3 days and had the luxury of changing shirts throughout.

Checking in to take the flight to NYC, my luggage was sitting in the unclaimed luggage section. Nice. Not one phone call telling me that. Nice. No point complaining. It would mean waiting in the line again. sheesh.

On to NY to spend the Sunday wearing fresh clothes and relaxing at Liberty Island and Ellis Island. It was a nice, long walk down from West 44th Street to the ferry. I rocked up and went through the three security check points (each with an x-ray machine...hmmm....) to get on the ferry. The two islands rocked!! Enjoy the pics. The first and second are of Gumby's wife, the third is the men and women immigration levels into the US during the time Ellis Island was working, the fourth is a pic of an entrance to a building on Wall Street (big balls, hey!). Nice day all in all! (the next five days were all work - true!)

A day in Kuwait

Looking up at the arrivals and departures screen at Dubai International Airport paints the picture of where in the world Dubai is. 90 minutes to Riyadh - KSA, 2hrs flight to Baghdad on Iraqi Airways, Tehran, Damascus, Fez, Oman, Yemen, Somalia. It's pretty surreal. I was looking up for gate info to board Al Jazeera flight AJ615 to head off on my first.

Let's face it, Al Jazeera is a dirty name in the media-exposed Western mind - not to worry though!

After a three hour delay, we eventually headed off. Customs was a breeze and I was in the express line thanks to Australia being on the list of 'preferred dealings'. People from the sub-continent weren't so lucky and had to wait literally hours for a visa to be issued.

The visit was good and there was a couple of hours to spend out on the waterfront. To think that I was only 80km away from the Iraqi border was pretty cool!

Kuwait is quite green and the people are friendly.

Enjoy the photo :)

A Little Aussie Addition To Dubai

We would like to introduce you to the new little addition to our family. It's here but not here exactly, if you know what we mean.

We are 3 months into the exciting 9 month journey. Here is a mug shot of the darling at 9 weeks - pretty photogenic even if we do say so ourselves.

If he takes after Aidan then we won't be suprised if there's any monkey business going on in Quyen's tummy.

The little darling makes its grand entrance around the first week if February 2008.

Fish Cannon!

This fish got more than he bargained for when he decided to sleep in the pump. It switched it in and WHOOSHKA!!!

OK, Aidan switched it on and filmed it. There was no 'we' involved. Quyen had nothing to do with it and after veiwing this video Aidan taped, she stresses she does not endorse any shenanigans he gets up to when bored!

oh!

Are You In The Market For A Little Bling-Bling?

People told me (Quyen) to enjoy the break from working while I was searching for a job in Dubai. Easier said then done when you’ve always studied or worked, used to having something to do to occupy your time!

At first I was enjoying the time at home while looking for a job but then after a few weeks I was running out of things to do around the house. I was making tasks out menial little chores to try to keep the brain ticking over and run down time, but it was sure getting harder.

At last I Have found a job which is very interesting and challenging. I am now a "KP Evaluator". Have you heard of or seen the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "Blood Diamonds"? It’s about rebels in Africa using mined rough diamonds as payment to buy arms and cause riots to over rum legitimate African governments which is halting Africa's opportunities for development and advancement. The KP (Kimberly Process) was developed only recently in 2002 in the town of Kimberley, South Africa, by countries from around the world to stop the trade of conflict/bloody diamonds from entering legitimate international diamond market.

My job is to process the import/export paperwork for shipments of rough diamonds from around the world into and out of the Middle East region as well as trade between local companies. Only allowing companies from countries who are KP members to trade with each other.

They have trained me to process the import/export paperwork and now they are training me to evaluate/assess the actual diamonds shipments. Which involves describing the colour, shape, clarity, weighing it and evaluating the wholesale profit margin.......YEAH BRING ON THE DIAMONDS! And sorry but I can’t get you any freebies,I would probably get stoned to death in this part of the world if they caught me!!

Its pretty cool job and I was lucky to get it without any admin experience really - I just talked up my limited admin experience. Luckily they provide full training for the position – thank god! I work in the

Kimberley Process Office for the Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE) which is a department of the government organisation Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC). Take a look at the website:

http://www.dmcc.ae/ - I work under diamonds.

Like everyone else we have made fun of public servants back home but now I am a public servant in Dubai. I'm a public servant for another country before my own country!

Welcome To Dubai Carmen!

We forgot to give mention to our first honorary visitor from Australia was another fellow Strandbagger, Jed. We had a great catch up over a beautiful dinner with him. He gladly granted us our Australian fix, after arriving in Dubai and not seeing a familiar face for four months!

Our second visitor from Australia, Carmen! Aidan and Carmen became good friends after working at Strandbags head office together. It was as if we were having our regular Newtown coffee catch up, except we were doing in it half way around the world.We took Carmen to the Emirates Towers to satisfy her handbag addiction at Juicy Couture, but don't tell Johnny! Then stuffed as much desert into our little tum-tums as we could at the desert buffet.

On the one day Carmen had off, we had big things planned for her. We had decided to take her to Hatta but lost our sense of direction and ended up in Al Ain, which is beautiful none the less. Before we headed off, we made a stop at the Dubai Land site office for Carmen to the site office to see the massive model for the project – but it was closed, instead we settled for spying on the beautiful sleepy tiger on the site.

Al Ain in a beautiful palm oasis town in the middle of the desert. When we went for a walk in the palm plantation, it was at least 5 degrees cooler but it felt so much cooler because of the greenery and hearing birds cheep everywhere.As like most tourists we covered more ground in one day then the locals. We visited:

- The Hili Gardens and Archaeological sight. The attraction was a round structure which is thought to be a temple, dating back to 2000 BC. It has relief decorations and carvings of animals and people.

- Giant teapots and tea cups to be found on almost every round about!

- Our final stop was at the live stock markets to see some very cute goats kept not in barns but on old utes that are used at permanent make shift as barns.

- The funniest thing was the local men who were tending the goats wanted to have their photos taken with Carmen for good luck!.....hehehe…..damn that girl is always popular no matter where is goes!