dxb, still weird

Not as many people in exotic outfits -- flowing robes and headdresses on one side, borderline-strippers on the other -- this time around. My flight over from Dulles was delayed but that's alright, just means a shorter layover here. It's just after 10PM local time and I've got a couple of hours before I can check in for my flight to Kabul. The flight over was uneventful. After flying on Qatar, United seems pretty terrible, and I guess it is. Dad and I had eaten a good dinner before we left for the airport, so I didn't even bother with the first meal offering. The second was a turkey sandwich on a white roll of some kind, with an unidentifiable cheese melted in there and nothing else. Oof. Didn't even turn the little TV on except to look at the map periodically. On the plus side, I did manage to sleep for a significant chunk of the time. Fitfully, maybe, but probably 7 or 8 hours altogether (!). Didn't even have to take my benadryl.

Anyway, DXB is really dim. I don't think I processed that last time, but the lights are very low in the main part of the terminal. The duty-free megastore is brighter but up here it's like twilight.

The national uniforms are funny. A pack of Southeast Asian guys in nearly matching skinny jeans, fashionable casual sneakers, baseball caps and tight-fitting button-down shirts just trotted by. I wonder where they're going. To my immediate right are a few young Arab guys in that not-quite-American style of dress where you can't quite put a finger on what's different and then you realize one of them isn't wearing shoes and another's shirt has a pair of words on it that make no sense. Some American guys just sat down nearby. They're wearing short-sleeved button-down plaid shirts and jeans (just like me). A woman in a Sari is being pushed down the terminal in a wheelchair.

Anyway, really not much else to report at the moment so I'm going to end it here. More once I get to Kabul.

EDIT: I always forget something when I come on trips. It's some kind of physical law. Usually it's something relatively unimportant, like sweat pants. This time, however, I left behind my iPod. Damn it.