May 3 - Heathrow

Here we sit in another lounge, this time in London.  We had a good flight without any bumps along the way.  Al caught a few zzz's but as usual, sleep evaded me.  I really envy people who can sleep on a plane!  We're trying to figure out why wherever we fly our plane always seems to be at the most remote gate of the airport.  After a hike and a train ride we had to go through security again.  We were in the "Fast Track" lane but I think they had assigned a trainee to check the things going through the machine.  She would ponder a bag for endless minutes before letting the belt bring the next one in.  But, we made it and we're in the lounge.  They have a restaurant which is quite nice and we had breakfast there instead of on the plane.

Now here's a little information about the United Arab Emirates.  I knew virtually nothing about them before I started looking at what we could do in our days in Dubai.  While they have a couple of the biggest malls I've ever seen, we're not going to wander around them for four days.

The United Arab Emirates is a federation of seven  emirates, including three we’re visiting.  It is  a  sovereign constitutional monarchy with Abu Dhabi serving as the capital..  Each emirate is governed by a ruler and these seven serve as a Federal Supreme Council.  The country lies along the western shore of the Persian Gulf and to the east of Saudi Arabia.

The British were particularly interested in what is now the area of the UAE because they wanted to protect trade routes to India.  Hence, after a series of campaigns early in the 19^th century,  in 1820 the British signed a maritime truce with the local rulers and the area became known as the Trucial States.  As a result of the various agreements signed over the years  the region became a British Protectorate and remained that way until 1971.  In that year the British government ended its protectorate status  because it felt its military was stretched too thin to maintain its obligations.  The emirates formed the United Arab Emirates in the same year to prevent being overtaken by Saudi Arabia to the west and Iran across the Persian Gulf.  Qatar and Bahrain were part of the former protectorate, but they chose to go their separate ways.

The impetus for growth in this area was finding oil and natural gas, but as the reserves have been depleted,  several of the rulers have managed to position their states as financial and trade centers. They also serve as a big transportation hub for travelers from southeast Asia and Australia on their way to Europe.

So in a couple of hours we'll be boarding for our roughly seven hour flight to Dubai.  That flight will be on one of the Airbus 380's, those doubledecker planes that carry a gazillion people.  A few years ago we flew on one and wondered how it could get off the ground.

There's not much more to talk about today so I'll sign off.  I'm having a hard time figuring out how to get my photos taken with my iPhone to my new laptop which doesn't have a USB port.  I know I'm supposed to be able to get them from my iCloud but somehow they don't seem to be there.  I will figure this out though.

More later.  

Al in the lounge at Dulles