Greetings from Abu Dhabi!

Hello!

I am in Abu Dhabi and I want to write this down before I forget. Sadly, my camera was not very reachable as I landed and thanks to being close to the equator, the sun set super quickly and now it is too dark for photos.

Firstly, I am flying with Etihad, the airline of the Unite Arab Emirates. It has (so far) been AWESOME. I felt like I was on first class. Everything is new, so the chairs are not 90 degree torture devices, they are ergonomic, jazzily striped, and glorious. The head pillows are ADJUSTABLE. The flight attendants were lovely (and spoke about 8 languages between them from Swahili to Dutch to Arabic) and they just kept on FEEDING ME. I had ordered a veggie meal, so I got an Indian dish for lunch, then a grilled veggie sandwich for second lunch, but then they also gave me the regular second lunch meal (which happened to be cheese and mushroom pizza ). Endless refills of water, coffee, juice, etc. AND a personal TV screen unlike my flight to London. AND the TV screens have little remotes you can use since the touchscreens are super annoying AND on the reverse of said remotes is a gaming control to play games. Not to mention an incredibly luxurious blanky! I am impressed.

Now let me paint the scene of our landing. We landed around 6:40pm as the sun was setting. I have never seen a desert before and it was amazing. So strange to look down and see a whole world glowing yellows and oranges instead of greens, blues and browns. The houses matched the sand and were also beigy white, so they also took on the colours of the sunset. The sun itself looked like something out of Star Wars: incredibly orange, huge, perfectly round and not surrounded by any colourful clouds (probably due to the lack of clouds/water). Sparse desert vegetation speckled the ground with a few palm trees lining the highway. As I said, the sun set almost instantly and my view then became a world of magical blue (you know what I mean, Achkar) dotted with glittering lights. Even the airplane tower is beautiful; it is built in an elegant crescent shape. All in all, still very impressed.

Next, I will paint a picture of what I look like. I am a minority here, which is pretty interesting. Not only in race, but I also seem to be the only person travelling in rain boots. Are they not popular here? I am wearing leggings and a tshirt for comfort, and then rainboots, a pashmina and a blazer because they were heavy for my luggage (which I again made weight with!). To complete my look, I am carrying a giant travel back pack, and a laptop case with bright red writing that says "Birth" with a somewhat creepy photo of a baby in a belly (I know you think it's beautiful mom, but fetuses are creepy!). I don't think Abu Dhabi is as impressed, but what can you do.

So in conclusion, my travels are going very well and I board for Seoul in less than an hour. Strange thought to think I will be arriving there tomorrow morning.

Speaking of boarding, that reminds me of one other awesome thing about Etihad: we actually boarded on time. I promise they are not endorsing this blog post.

Thanks again to my wonderful friend Lauren for allowing me to stay with her in glorious London. I had a spectacular time!