Another Emirates flight for us just 26 hours after we landed in Dubai. We woke up at 3:30 for our 4 AM ride to the airport. The first class lounge is pretty quiet at that time in the morning. We sat at tables and ordered breakfast like we were at a real restaurant. No lines of food warmers in this lounge. I got the full English breakfast and Leslie got two medium boiled eggs and avocado toast. Before we knew it, it was time to hike to the gate. It took almost 20 minutes to make it all the way to the other end of the airport. We boarded right after the wheel chairs and were in our seats pronto. We told our story a few times over and the crew chief was so impressed that she took over our service. We had a great time talking with her and she made sure that we got everything we wanted. We flew up along the Persian Gulf and crossed over into the dessert at Kuwait. We flew over Iraq and I could see the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Then we passed very near the corner of Syria where it meets Turkey and Iraq. This is where the recent earthquakes were. We flew over more and more snow capped mountains in Turkey until we reached a plateau that was entirely covered in snow. More mountains in Greece but fewer and smaller mountains. Crossing the Adriatic Sea was foggy and we only saw a brief section of Italy. Sardinia was the last land until we saw Spain. We flew over Barcelona and on to Madrid. The Madrid airport is a large behemoth of a building and we found ourselves in a very long immigration line. EU citizens were able to breeze through electronic kiosks. The rest of us had to go through the rat maze of partitioned paths to get to the few immigration officers. People with connecting flights could go through a much smaller line. Those of us who had Madrid as our final destination had a very long line. Soon this line was stretching back into the terminal so the agents let families with kids into the "connecting flights" line. We were going nowhere so I feigned injury on my knee and we were shunted into the connecting flight line too! As we were almost to the immigration officer we saw a man, who was muttering to himself, walk right past the immigration officers without any processing. Out he went with out anyone stopping him. After that we took a 10 minute train ride to get out luggage. Then we met the chauffer. We were soon at the hotel and unloaded. We walked a 15 minutes to a restaurant and had a lovely dinner. We were dome by 5PM and were very sleepy at 6 PM. We made it to sundown at 7 PM when the jet lag was just too much.
Yes we would like to be pampered
Very modern
This area was homey like a study
This was Arabic
Obviously the Japanese area
Long hallway with comfy chairs
In the restaurant
We think the next level up was a hotel
We could look down at the regular folks and we saw six air mattresses spread out and used as beds for an entire family
The A380 holds 517 people but we get on first!
The sun is rising
The fog is lifting
We taxi out to the runway
Takeoff!
The canal that we walked along
Those pesky cruise boats
In honor of my whisky drinking camping buddies, I ordered a fancy whiskey. This was a Chivas Regal Royal Salute 21 at almost $200 per bottle
The amuse bouche was a foie gras lolly
I just had to eat the caviar again
And a veal chop cooked perfectly!
And another whiskey, this one was distilled on an island off the coast of Scotland, Jura Journey
We reached Kuwait
A series of canals
A very long bridge
A long cloud or smoke from a fire
A high bank along a river, probably the Euphrates
Clearly this topography was carved out bu the rivers
A long eroded mountain
River canyons
Snow starting to show itself
What looked like a cloud
Turned out to be a big mountain
Mountain ranges as far as the eye can see
Some big lakes in amongst the peaks
Snow and ice
Staring to run low on mountains
Greece
Approaching the Adriatic sea
The plateaus and farms of Spain
A very modern building with Leips reflected
Here we are!
They choose to build it nice here
A big statue on our walk
A good pour!
Another new gin
Gin and Tonic and anchovy stuffed olives, Leslie's definition of heaven
Our restaurant was open and airy
It was busy because the food was soo good
