The Ade Syria Tour - Day 1 – The Road to Damascus

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Well the xmas trip Syria didn’t start brilliantly. The limousine from Emirates arrived at 4:45am! That seemed frightfully early at the time. Because I was flying Emirates I got to go to the new terminal 3. However my small hitch in the joy of this new terminal was that my brilliant little bright pink beneton carry on bag, that has gone so many places with me, broke its handle…… again. This it the extendable handle that allows you to wheel it through airports etc and is also the handle that I broke in Boston and that Dave had spent an hour fixing for me a couple of nights ago so I could use the little pink bag for this trip. And then the very first time that I go to use the handle, I manage to break the little push button again. I could actually hear it snap. Then I could hear myself scream in annoyance as I didn’t have time to unpack and use another bag instead before the limo came to take me to the airport. Which meant that I was doomed to arrive at the lovely new terminal 3, which is huge and airy and BIG, with a wheely bag that wouldn’t wheel. This meant that I had to half crouch, half lean and shuffle a bit like the hunchback of notra dame to do a strange sort of yoga wheelie walk with the bag through the airport terminal.

The new business class lounge at the terminal was colossal with nobody in it which was such a pleasant change from the old lounge where you could never find a seat. However it seems that it is actually not all that big after all, as when I was going to leave the lounge the place was totally full, with people having to share tables to eat food. You would think that after spending all that time building a new lounge that they would have actually built the thin large enough to cope with all the people that use the lounge in Dubai! But no, it doesn’t seem to be that way.


Then the plane was late taking off. Apparently, according to the co pilot, 9 people decided that they didn’t actually feel like flying to Damascus today…..after they have checked in and there bags are in the hold. So of course the entire plane has to wait until their bags are taken off the plane. I was a little staggered by that. I could easily understand one or two people deciding not to fly, but 9! Unless of course they were all from a miniature soccer team or something. But still.

Then the entertainment system on the plane didn’t work! So they had to turn it off and then didn’t tell us when it had been turning on again. And it wasn’t on demand either. I have not had the joy of the ICE system for such a long time it seems. I miss it.

The airport in Damascus was an interesting experience as well. It seems that it is still being built in places and because of this there were very few signs at immigration. This meant that I didn’t have a clue about what queue was what. So in the end I just sent to the closest queue, which was probably for locals, but they took my passport anyway and after a little while decided that I wasn’t george bush in drag and let me in the country.

I was met at the arrivals area by our lovely guide for the trip, Abdul. It was hilarious coming out of the arrivals gates and there where literally a gazillion people waiting there and Abdul was the only person holding up a little name sign. I felt like a bit of a rock star, like all of these other people were waiting there to cheer me! Little old me. I considered giving a bit of a wave an;d bow, I mean they were all staring at me anyway as I was the first person out of the gates and I was doing my awkward limp, hunchback shuffle trying to wheel my bright pink bag whilst clutching pugsy. Reason prevailed however and I decided to just walk over to Abdul instead and introduce myself.

We were to be staying at the Four Seasons hotel and Abdul told me that it was newly opened. And boy is it nice! It gorgeous. It has the most amazing xmas trees in the reception area as well as a gingerbread house. It looks so yummy that I just want to eat it all up. The rooms are gorgeous and so is the spa.

Yes that is correct. I went to the spa. Because I got to Damascus at 9am and mum and dad were only going to get there at 11:45pm I had the whole day to myself. I didn’t want to go out and look around as we were meant to be doing a city tour the next day so I contented myself in the luxurious hotel instead. Hence my day consisted of lollaping on the large hotel bed reading my book, having a bath in the massive tab, having a facial in the spa, ordering room service for dinner, and then going to bed at the princely time of 4:30pm local time to catch up on the missed sleep of the night before.

To make sure that I would be ready for the big day tomorrow.

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