Email Update 7

Things have been going well for Levi and me. I just had a week break for the end of Ramadan, so we went to Dubai for a few days to relax and see some sights. Since our visas were about to expire we also decided to make a run to Oman and have our passports re-stamped.

Dubai was very busy this last week since most everyone had a few days off for Eid. Levi and I went to visit a brand new hotel (The Atlantis) that was opened last weekend. The hotel is located at the top of one of the island palms (Jumeirah Palm) and everyone wanted to be there so traffic was a nightmare. We took a taxi in because we saw that there was no parking anywhere. After half an hour of waiting in traffic we finally made it to the door. We went inside and took a tour of the aquarium. The hotel also has a huge water park and shopping mall so we walked around a little bit to check it all out. Once we decided to leave we headed out the door and found a huge line of people waiting for taxis – we thought “this can’t be good,” but we got in line. After almost 3 hours of waiting we finally hopped on a van that took us to the mall – we knew that it would be easy to catch a taxi from there. It was the Mall of the Emirates that contains the ski slope, so we thought we would eat in one of the restaurants overlooking the slopes. It was strange especially since we had just spend the entire afternoon baking in the heat and we were wearing shorts, but it was really fun watching people ski while we ate yummy Lebanese food. Outside the mall there was a huge line of people waiting for taxis (again!) so we jumped at the end. This line only took 1 hour and we were entertained by rich people coming in and out of the mall with their fancy cars. We saw Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Porches, and more! Everyone was stepping out of line to have their pictures taken in front of all the awesome cars! Most of our time in Dubai was spent just relaxing and swimming, it made for a great vacation and break away from work.

Our visa run is a whole other story. What a mess! We had read that doing a visa run during holidays was a bad idea, but we had no other choice as our visas were about to expire. From Dubai it only takes an hour to reach the Oman border, so we headed out around mid-morning (thinking we would only be gone a few hours). When we reached the border of UAE we stopped and stood in line for only 20 minutes or so to receive an exit stamp. We drove up the road another mile or so and had our car checked by the Omani police. The guy wanted to look in our trunk, but we couldn’t figure out how to pop it open and he stood banging on the trunk while we were scrambling to find the button. Finally, Levi was going to get out of the car and pop it for him, but the policeman came back around the side of the car, gave us a piece of paper and said, “just go.” We were relieved, the last thing we needed was trouble with the police, but we were just holding up the line so he told us to leave! A few more miles down the road we reached the Omani passport station. It was a huge building and we had trouble finding parking, but we improvised (as everyone else does) and went inside. There were hundreds of people crammed into the building so we found a line and began to wait. The lines were moving very slowly and after an hour of sweating and standing Levi went to the car to retrieve our bottles of water. About a minute after he walked away from me I began to feel dizzy. I knew that it was lack of water and I hoped that he would return fast. I squatted down to help with the dizziness and the lady behind me told me to take a seat and that she would save my spot. I told her I was fine and that my husband would be back soon. I stood back up, but I was starting to feel worse. I finally decided that if I didn’t sit down I would pass out, so I told the lady that I would take her up on her offer and sit down until my husband returned. I sat down but my condition started to worsen. I started breathing hard, I was nauseous, I was losing feeling in my hands, and I was very, very dizzy. I felt that at any moment I would just fall over onto the floor and black out, but just at that moment Levi showed up with the water and I downed it. Any later and I would have had a souvenir from Oman in the form of a bump on my head. He told me that I looked pale and told me to stay sitting. He stood by me for a few minutes until I insisted that he find us more water – I really needed it, my hands were still numb, but my head was starting to clear up. He found us some water and he got back into line to wait while I continued to sit. Once he reached the window I went up to join him, but he waited in line for another 2 hours after buying us water. The lady was great, we told her we were just doing a visa change and she gave us an entry and an exit stamp right away! That saved us a lot of time and we were finally back on our way to Dubai. We had to stop one more time at the border of UAE to get a new entry stamp and that took and hour, but it was a relief to finally be legal again.

There is a small town located just on the border of Oman and UAE called Hatta. They have one hotel and it is basically a resort, they are not on the beach, but they have a lot of activities. We were only interested in eating since we had spent all day standing in line and hadn’t eaten in 6 hours or so. It was dark on our way back to Dubai and we were exhausted! We have learned our lesson the hard way, even though we read about not going on a visa run during a holiday we still did it, so now we know and we will plan ahead if we ever need to do that again!