Dubai to Bangkok

20 June 2017

Had a very good flight to Dubai! Emirates is great! Dinner was lamb and very good. Note the METAL utensils with a knife!

Civilized people! The ceiling had “stars” when they turned off the lights!! The hotel is very nice and <$40. BTW, it’s HOTTTTT outside! The best part of my stop in Dubai was meeting up with John Pagnotti, my former 5th grade student from nearly 30 years ago and his family! John’s Mom, Michelle, and I are former colleagues and she mentioned a few months ago that John and his wife and kids had moved to Dubai last summer to teach there. A few days before I left, John touched base with me and we ended up up spending a few hours together. It was so great to catch up. I haven’t seen him since he was about 12 and he is now 40! I’m so proud of him…  he has his Ph.D. now and a beautiful family.

 

 

21 June 2017

? i actually wrote the following about 10 hrs ago and then the wifi went belly up for me! I’m in Bangkok now and ready for bed at 12:30am Wednesday night…

 

? I’m in Bangkok now and ready for bed at 12:30am Wednesday night. but I wrote the following when I first got on the plane leaving Dubai. ——- I’m in Emirates Airbus 380; beautiful plane. I’m on the upper deck. In the air somewhere over the Indian Ocean… I think! LOL I’ll be in Bangkok in about five hours.The beautiful plane was Nice! Lots of babies and toddlers but so far so good! I don’t think I’ll need to eject any. I’m in Emirates Airbus 380; beautiful plane. I’m on the upper deck. In the air somewhere over the Indian Ocean… I think! LOL I’ll be in Bangkok in about five hours. Yea!!!! It’s 11:23am local time heading toward far NW tip of India then head SE to BKK. Slept well last night so this may be a three movie flight. ? I nearly had to use the eject button on a couple kids but I managed to restrain myself. It was very evident that toddlers are much less well-behaved than babies!! There were six kids between 9 months and 3 years. The 9 month old was the best!

These pix show the upper deck of the A380. I was one of the first to board so it’s empty. It ended up being about two-thirds full. I was in the front row on the left with another guy beside me. The bulkhead was in front of us. Walking through the opening there was a center stairwell with lavatories on each side of the stairs. The one on the right side was HUGE… that’s the pic below.

 

 

Bangkok arrival… 7:15pm

The line for immigration took about 15 minutes and went very easily.

 I met the sweetest Thai kid when we were waiting for our luggage in Bangkok. He had just completed a year as a high school foreign exchange student in Connecticut and is just a really nice kid. It broke my heart though when he told me that his friend of more than five years had also been on exchange in the states this last year and had drowned in North Carolina trying to save another kid two weeks ago. ?

I had not heard about it in the news. This boy and I were both adoring a 9 month old that had been on our flight who was such an angel. Tae told me of his exchange and then the tragic loss of his friend. The other boy’s US host family were arriving tonight for the funeral services. I can not imagine the pain that the parents and surrogates are all feeling. Article about drowning.

Debbie Williams Towell commented: He was a brave young man, trying to save a friend he thought was in trouble. He was an only child, so tragic for that family esp. having it happen in a different country, I live in Charleston, surrounded by water, so drowning incidents travel quickly and are taken to heart.

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Moments after we landed a huge thunderstorm came and our baggage was delayed more than an hour. I finally got my bags about 8:45 and met up with my good friend Wat who was waiting for me. We drove to the condo I had booked and got settled in then a quick visit to 7-11 down the block to get some food, snacks, and water. I hadn’t eaten since about eight hours earlier on the flight and was starving. Even 7-11 food tastes good when you’re that hungry. We sat up and talked till almost 2:00. I didn’t have any trouble falling asleep even though I’m now eleven hours ahead of Eastern Time. i.e. It’s 2:43 Thursday afternoon here as I write this paragraph which makes it 3:43am Thursday in Orlando.