Spent the early morning watching the Twins lose the series to the Yankees. So sad. I didn't actually watch - I found a feed that would give me the pitch-by-pitch play-by-play after the batter was finished. Better than nothing. There were several other Twins fans in the house, none quite as dedicated as I in following the tortuous ins and outs of the game.
After breakfast, I got my packing done, turned in my borrowed laptop, called our friends up north to say goodbye and see you in March! A group of four men came in from the states on the early Safi flight so we spent some time briefing them about the various Morningstar projects. Brian had suggested someone as a mentor for me when I come back, so he stopped by and we had a good discussion. And Ghafar from the University stopped by with a CD of rebab music for me to take to Emel.
Lunch included an interesting spinach soup with sliced boiled egg in it. Reza puts an interesting spice in his soups, along with vinegar, I think. Also rice, spinach, cauliflower, baked chicken, and of course naan and fruit, including persimmons.
Settling up my bill, turning in the phone, getting the luggage downstairs - Aziza insisted on carrying mine out to the van (I think she is sad to see me go even though we talked very little). The Brian and I left with Zamir for the final burst of shopping. We went to an area we had avoided before because of reports of slashed tires on westerners' vehicles, but Zamir was confident we would be fine. And we were. Lots of police around so even when he and Brian left me alone in the van for a few minutes to buy a pashkul and scarf for his Afghan outfit I felt pretty safe. We went into a mall and I found a couple more dresses for Masooda - Zamir is the best bargainer there is and he's getting quite used to dress shopping with me! Then we drove a bit farther on looking for CDs of new rebab music. Finally found a store with tapes only - they offered to transfer to a CD but we didn't have enough time. Then it was off to the airport.
Fortunately the traffic wasn't too heavy yet and we made it in good time. It's quite a process. First Brian had to get out to go through a security check. Then a bit further on, I had to get out to walk through a special door where a woman patted me down cursorily. She had a small daughter with her and seemed more concerned about her toothache than whether I was carrying anything concealed on my body. When I emerged from there, Brian and Zamir were putting our luggage through a scanner. We loaded back on the van, went to a parking lot where a fee was required for the van to enter just to park and unload. Then we said our goodbyes and walked through a building with various shops, out the other side and changed some Afghanis back to US dollars. Next was the "green gate" where passports are checked. We were rather forced onto a bus, which fortunately left right away (Brian says they sometimes wait for quite awhile so he prefers walking) and two gentleman who had loaded our suitcases, then unloaded them wanted to take them in for us. We refused, Brian gave them 100Afs and we went inside to have another pat-down (more complete this time) and send our bags through another screener at which time they put these horrible "screened" stickers on them which are so sticky they are almost impossible to remove. Additionally they are sort of scored so they only come off in bits. Pesky. The rest of check-in is more of the same. More screeners, more pat-downs - in some ways it was nice being a woman because our lines were always shorter and the pat-downs were in curtained compartments with very nice women doing the work.
Our flight to Dubai was uneventful but left 20 minutes early, we were served a generous meal, the PAC TEC pilot who had flown us north and back was on the same flight. We arrived in Dubai about 9:00 pm to 93 degree temperature and what felt like the same humidity level. Such a shock to the system. The guest house driver was busy somewhere else so we grabbed a cab. I am so glad Brian has an idea where the guest house is because every driver seemed to need some help which I would have been completely incapable of providing. Brian also knew where the key for the front gate was hidden, so we let ourselves in and were greeted like old friends. I was given a bedroom on the main floor, again with a private bath. It took about 20 minutes of just lying on the bed before I was ready to face taking a shower, but oh, it felt so good - and then I crashed.
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