I have become complacent with my travel. Despite good advice to the contrary I schedule 2 4 am flights in a row to get me here. It is now midnight and pretty much 48 hours since I have been in a bed and I still have the second of my 4 am flights to come. I arrive at the airport in Dubai just after 10pm and preset my phone alarm for 1 am. I settle into the uncomfortable seat wrap the back pack straps firmly around 1 arm and the other around 1 leg and drift off to sleep. I jolt upright and awake initially disorientated and then recognise a familiar scene before me. It is midnight now and where there was empty space is filled with the usual check in queue for any Ethiopian Airlines flights. Lots of Ethioipian “big mamas” with masses of bags and consumer item boxes that they are taking home. I have travelled lot but the Ethiopian checkins are always enough to sink a Hercules aircraft! Luckily I have checked in on line and move to another,completely empty queue. The guy checking me in gives me the third degree about what I am going to Somalia for but eventually I get in and the marathon sequence of unsociable international flights and hours in airports seem almost at an end. I scheduled in a trip back to the 148th floor of the Burj Khalifi, formerly the tallest building in the world. This time over sunset and was stymied by hazy skies concealing the sunset. I did, though, get some nice pictures of Dubai at night but I have come away with the sense that there is nothing more here that would draw me back.
