pit stop

Right now, I am sitting in an area labeled as the “Quiet Lounge” in Dubai International Airport. And no I am not online, I am writing my blog entry on MS Word, to be copied and pasted once I get to my final destination.

This is my first time out of the country and it feels surreal. Like going to a new high class mall… with no money hehehe. I had to change $10 of my per diem to the local currency Dirhams (or DRH). The exchange rate? 3.6 DRH per 1 USD. And so far, three and a half hours into this place, I have spent 1 DRH hahaha. Well, I do plan to eat lunch here as my connecting flight is scheduled at 1:15 pm local time. Time difference is – 3 hrs from Manila.

I dunno if I feel the effects of jetlag given the short time difference and the numerous hours of sleep I had before leaving and on the 8 hour trip getting here. I still haven’t figured out how many hours I will be losing (or gaining).

Took some photos upon arrival. Not much, I was still sleepy and kind of disoriented before the battery gave up on me. Can’t find a socket to charge it, I don’t even know if the sockets are standard here. Maybe I can buy a spare battery here, or even a spare SD card as I only brought two 16MB cards.

I’ve been walking along the length of the airport back and forth looking at the sights and thinking of what to do. I’m not sure if I’m ready to do some shopping given that this is just the beginning of my business trip. Oh well I can easily change the local currency back to US dollars or whatever currency I may need later on (I think). One thing I’m sure of, this damn laptop bag is heavy!

Seen a lot of nationalities, well at least I think so. Not surprising as this is an airport (and an international one at that!). Exchanged a few words with fellow “travelers” and some staff, one was even a Filipina!

I’ll go back to reading my book before I go on and see if I can check in to my flight and maybe grab something to eat. There is a Dunkin’ Donuts stall in my immediate vicinity, and I think I saw a McDonald’s somewhere down the building….