In Dubai

It is good to know we had another uneventful trip.  All flights were as scheduled and our time in Doha airport was much nicer.  It was less crowded and we actually had a relaxing lay over there.  It may be that the third time was easier because of being familiar with everything at the airport.  When we arrived at the Dubai airport there was a lady holding a sign for us and we followed her and it was a service set up for us that had someone else do the work through customs and immigration and also picked up our luggage.  They took us to a lounge where we had drinks and cookies while they did all the activities.  It was so nice to to have to wait at all the places.  One person took our passports to immigration and another dealt with luggage and customs.  After about 15 minutes, they came and got us and we were in our ride to the hotel in 5 minutes.  This is the kind of service we wish we had in all our travels.  I caused me to think about adding a statistic of how long we had to wait getting into a country.

We got to the hotel about 12:30 PM, had something to eat and took about a short nap.  After the nap we walked the area around the hotel looking for stores and just getting a feel for the area.  There are stores here with everything you would want or need so that was good to know.  We than went for dinner at Omar's and had a great dinner with lamb Kebab and shrimp and rice.  With the dinner came bread... I wish I could get the real name, salad, soup, and humus.  You should have seen the plate of rice... enough to feed 4 in America.

Rogers' rice with Chicken

Yesterday morning we had a very leisurely breakfast eating until 10:30 AM and then it was time to get a SD card for the aircard and start the Russian visa application.  We are working with a local travel agent who has done this before and they expect to have our visas by the middle of next week.  Just remember us as the application process proceeds as we really would like to go and visit Jamie and Lucas.  We will let you know when we know the results.  It was quite a process to find the travel agency as there was no direct address.  We had to go to a certain plaza and then proceed to a certain building and enter through a specific door to get to the agency.  Sounds clandestine but it really isn't, just the challenge of finding places without a building number.

Jan's fish dinner

Last night we went to dinner to another restaurant and I had spicy chicken and Jan had fish.  Both came with soup, salad and rice.  Again, a very large potion of rice that we could not finish.  Sorry, we forgot to carry our camera so there are no pictures accept the one attached here and this ones quality is lacking due to it being taken on my phone.  When we ordered the shrimp (Wed night) and the chicken, it arrived and you wondered where the meat is.  They actually put the meat under the rice and it is amazing how hot the meat remains as it is covered with the rice.  It was very good and we hope you appreciate the pictures.  You may not want them to be as clear as they would be with a camera.


In the afternoon