Dubai Airport

 Dubai airport was amazing.  First of all it's huge.  Then, it's the biggest, fanciest shopping mall I've ever seen and it's open 24/7!

You read a lot about Dubai being in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and a Muslim country where drinking alcohol is not allowed. Apparently it's not completely true. We were pleasantly surprised to find a Hard Rock Cafe in the airport with a full bar. 

We had tried to reserve a "Sleeping Pod" for the night because we had a 15 hour layover. After paying $120 to arrive on April 7 and depart on April 8, I got the notice that my reservation was from 1pm to 11pm on the 7th. No - that won't help. I tried to get it changed to 11pm to 7am without success, so I just cancelled. There is also an airport hotel, but Jim and I talked it over and decided $250 wasn't worth it, we could wander around the airport, maybe find a lounge chair to shut our eyes for a bit. We could live thru a one-night-in-the-airport - it would be an experience! And so it was ..

I took this photo at 4am! Lots of people and all the stores were open - the close end of the photo is an Apple Store!

Here is one of the "lounge" chair areas we found. They weren't as comfortable as they looked. 

When we left the next morning, we had to take a bus out to the tarmac and climb stairs to the airplane. No biggy - it gave us a few new views of the place.

When we got off the ground, we finally got a glimpse of the Burj Khalifa - the tallest building in the world. Our original plan was to stay in Dubai for a couple of days and get a ticket to see it up close, but then we would need to take a Covid test and we didn't want to risk that this time. So this is it ...