Friday, April 13, 2007

Going home .. blogging from Dubai Airport.


March was a total madness , out of 31 days I spent a little over two weeks traveling between more than 5 cities and three continents.

Went to Cairo , Beirut , Damascus , Dubai , Lahore and Islamabad .
Being on the road is really tiring , despite the fun of seeing things from a different angle , and trying different life styles and atmospheres , getting to know people of different cultures , but still , its very unstable .

We arrived to UAE two days ago , had a meeting in Abu Dhabi , stayed in it for the whole two days . the city is nice , a lot of towers , wide streets , many of you are probably familiar with that city style , yet it misses the coziness I simply love in Amman.
Anyway , for the past two nights , after finishing with our business meetings , we went on walks in the city , and visited two of the pronounced malls , however each time , I reach when its almost the closing time , so I did not get to do any shopping , which is somehow better for my pockets !

Right now I’m in the Dubai’s airport , thinking to check the duty free after finishing this post .
I have not blogged for a while , neither checked any of my favorite blogs , its just that one becomes anti-laptop when you connect the laptop to work all the time. So usually , the free hours you get are spent somewhere away from the work tools .. anyone can get my idea here ?

Anyhow , I guess I’ll finish here and call it a post . gotta run and check the duty free before the take off :).

Blogging from .. Lahore Airport

I wrote this post about two weeks ago , did not have the chance to blog it earlier though .. here you go :).

"I am not kidding , I am actually sitting here at Lahore’s Airport , its 07:44 A.M. Lahore local time . we are flying back to Amman with a stop over in Dubai on Emirates Airlines , we still have slightly over an hour for our flight to take off. We just had some local cappuccinos along with two chunky kitkat bars as our breakfast .
I am thinking how boring my life would’ve been at this moment without technology, having my mp3 playing songs in my ears , while I am typing those words.

So , the question I’ll be faced with once I am back to Amman ( which by the way I miss SO MUCH, an overwhelming feeling of missing has been dominating me all through this trip , as if I am light years away from my family and the surroundings I am familiar with. This was not the case with other trips , but maybe , since I am way far from home , I just cannot seem to come over this feeling.

My trip started about a week ago , flying from Amman , to Dubai , where I spent few hours in it , headed to one mall (City center) , then back to the airport to continue flying to Lahore-Pakistan . I had this anxiety which is a part of my traveling routine every time I go somewhere new , but this time . It was even more , since it was to a totally different type of country . I was full of worries and expectations during my way to there, which took me almost a whole day of traveling.

We arrived at Lahore that day , early morning , around 03:00 a.m. , city was calm , yet not totally a sleep , you could see cars . bikes and motor cycles in the streets. The next days we spent in business meetings , extensive ones , we did not get to make any site seeing. I was only able to see the city from behind the car windows. A city that is heavily populated , streets are dirty and chaotic , polluted heavy weather , many shacks, lots of Reksha cars and trash is everywhere . yet , despite all of that , the city is full of trees – which I think it would died without, with all of this pollution in the air - and they has nice looking houses , also some nicely shaped neighborhoods .

As I said the air is heavy and still , shaded in white , its partly humidity , but most of it goes back to the fact that their main fuel for cars and vehicles is gas and diesel instead petrol. Which trashes the air with this white nasty shadow, along with that killer odder it vents along.

The Pakistani people are nice , modest , and very simple. Every time we went to a meeting , someone would jump and ask “ is this your first time in Pakistan , I’d go ; YES ! then they’d ask , how do you find Pakistan so far ? and I’d go , its .. ummm… well .. interesting ! “ the truth is , I did not like it here, its a bit rough living for me , but , I was surprised with few things over here . one of them is the motor way between Lahore and Islamabad , very modern , nice rests along the way , and green is everywhere.
To conclude , I’d say it was quite an adventure to go there , I still have many quirks that I think I should write about one day . but lets leave that for another time.
"