Areviderci Roma

Today we sadly bid farewell to Italy and indeed to Europe. Up and packed we breakfasted and arranged our shuttle to the station for 10am. We finished our packing somehow managing to fit everything into our bags and were ready to go at the appointed time. 10 minutes saw us at the station, we duly purchased our tickets and after a lovely time sitting in the sun we were on the train to Rome. 30 minutes later we were transferring to the Leonardo Express.. zip 32 minutes later we were at the airport. Having completed the online check in we could skip the line and drop our bags in a matter of minutes. We then had over 3 hours until boarding... no matter.. there was plenty to do.
We browsed the duty free (I bought some squidink pasta and make up and Kirstin a few last minute gifts). We sampled perfumes and beauty products, I had my make up done and drank wine, Kirstin ate some dumplings and then we enjoyed one last gelati. Finally it was time to board... finding our way to tailgate involved a trip on a people mover and by the time we got there it was pretty much straight on board.
Settling into our seats (68F & G... boy the Airbus 380's are whopping great planes) we were soon enjoying a selection from the 534 movies on offer (plus TV, music and podcasts), wine and then a meal, more wine, hot beverages.... etc etc there are benefits of flying Emirates!!!
It was about 1130pm local time when we landed in Dubai after a really quite tolerable 6 hour flight. Dubai airport is insane, massive, high tech and totally OTT. we somehow missed our pick up having made our way rather quickly through all the disembarkation processes. Non-the-less with some assistance, found our way to the appropriate office and we're soon heading to the car. Walking out of the airport after midnight and into a humming city and 36 degrees was a bit of a shock, as we're the bright lights and interesting driving (Kirstin was wondering if there was something wrong with the cars accelerator!!!!).
We were soon at the hotel, much to our exhausted relief... it had seemed a very long day! And what a lovely place it seems to be.. apparently it is the tallest hotel in the world, it certainly seems to have all the bells and whistles, but really at this point all we cared about were that the beds were amazingly soft and comfortable..... sigh!Read more