An Adventure........

ad·ven·ture
adˈven(t)SHər,ədˈven(t)SHər/
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1: an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks; the encountering of risks
2: an exciting or remarkable experience
3: an enterprise involving financial risk

My visit to Abu Dhabi, New Delhi and Dubai has come to an end, and not only am I left with jet lag...but also memories that I will literally cherish for a lifetime. Thinking back, I would say that we definitely had more than a vacation... We had a trip, better yet an adventure.

It felt good to see all those months of planning, worrying, preparing, relinquishing control and finally execution come into fruition. The events that led up to our trip, definitely set the tone for the scene. It took a lot to get us there, and our week falls short of nothing but pure grace.

Act I

By the time last Wednesday rolled around, my nerves were pretty much shot. I was so worried that something would go wrong that I could barely sleep the night before. I had packed days before so I knew I was not forgetting anything, but still... I just felt nervous. This trip was my first international flight overseas. I have left the country before (Mexico, Jamaica, The Bahamas) but never have I went anywhere that required a total flying time of more than six hours. To reach our final destination we had to fly out of Houston, to JFK in New York, then take a direct 12.5/13 hour flight into Abu Dhabi. That puts us at about 16 hours in the sky to reach the United Arab Emirates...

Two of my friends have flight benefits, so they were flying standby to New York and meeting my other friend and I there prior to departure. Simple enough, right? Of course.

By the time my flight out of Houston started to board, the friend who was heading to JFK with me was no where in sight. She had gotten stuck in traffic due to a wreck on the freeway and was greatly delayed. I told the gate agent to expect her late arrival as I walked through and found my seat on the plane. As my anxiety levels reached the boiling point, she finally texted me that she had made it through the security line and was about to get on the plane. Crisis diverted...

Our flight to JFK went smooth, and we roamed around JFK for a while then finally stored our luggage so we could frolic about the city until our flight that night. We took a taxi to the Green Acres Mall in Queens, and en route there got a text saying that only one of our friends was able to get on a standby flight to NYC from Houston. The other was still waiting....

As we window shopped the sales, text after text kept rolling through updating us of our friends travel status. She made it on one flight, but that flight was delayed and by the time we had walked the ENTIRE mall, she was still sitting on the runway in Houston. At this point in time, the sinking feeling started to set in that she was not going to make it in time. By this time our other friend had landed, and was battling LaGuardia Airport who was now refusing to turn over her luggage (which happened to beat her to New York) to him. Okay, so if she makes it, she just won't have luggage.... As our thoughts went into the abyss, we remembered that she always leaves a copy of her passport at home with her family when she is abroad... A few Facebook messages later with her little brother, and her luggage was finally on the way to JFK with our other friend.... But where was she?

By the time 9'o clock that night had rolled around, we still had not heard from our friend until finally a text that she had landed and was en route to JFK. We proceeded to check into our Ethiad flight only to find out that they had upped our boarding time and would be locking the gates in the next thirty minutes....

Insert explicits

As we all had our mini-melt downs, the realization that she was not going to make the flight began to sink in even further.... We prayed. We stalled the line. Prayed some more. Gawked at Donatella Versace. Prayed again. Then, finally just said it was out of our control. My friend went ahead and did the ceremonial tagging us in at the airport and included our missing in action friend in the check-in... Putting it out in the universe. She had to make it! As we made it to our seats, we could barely contain our anxiety. We discussed other flight options for her, maybe she can just get on the Friday flight and meet us there...we already have her luggage.... We just needed her. As the crowds began to thin, finally we could breathe. She had made it. We don't know how, we didn't care why, but she had made it....

Literally.minutes.before.takeoff.

The energy and endorphin's kept us up the first few hours of the flight...
Then, I was drugged...
I slept 8 hours,
then woke up and read the remaining couple of hours before we landed.
Until finally we had made it.

Welcome to Abu Dhabi International Airport.... The stifling heat hit us at the door. We breezed through customs, survived a bus ride to Dubai, checked into our hotel and finally set off to experience our first night in the city...

Needless to say, we were exhausted and just wanted food... We had a taxi drop us off not too far from our hotel & we agreed upon a restaurant called Chic-Sea in the Satwa Roundabout. Pretty much everything on the menu reminded us of chinese or thai food that we would've ate in the US.

We devoured our food, tipped the waitress to her surprise & delight, made our way back to our hotel and stayed up entirely too late mapping out our plans for the next day.

This would be the beginning of many delays that turned into deliverance, and sleepless nights that turned into mornings filled with tired laughter and stories that will live far beyond our 5 days in town.

-End Scene