tagged together in 16 photos
airplane + airport
But since Faisal lives in Abu Dhabi, I figured it was like Etihad Airlines PAYING me $1,000 to visit a friend! So thanks for that Etihad! Woooo!
So we found a security desk and they called the gate and the woman at the gate said she'd go on the plane and look for it so we should just sit tight. Ten minutes later, she calls back and says "Well, I just went through the whole area you were sitting in and it's not there. Sorry." DOH!
We spent the next several hours trying to find someone with enough authority to let us reboard the plane and search ourselves - but we had no luck. Three hours had passed at this point and we'd just learned that our plane had been refueled and would soon be headed back to JFK. If we couldn't figure out a way to get the passport, we would end up spending the next two nights in the airport until the US Embassy opened back up, and even then, there's a chance that they'd make us fly back to NYC. Ugh.
Every time we found a new person willing to hear us out, they'd call down to the gate and they'd end up reaching the same woman and she'd just be like "I searched the plane. I'ts not there. I'm not looking again."
With the plane's departure growing ever closer, I finally figured it was time to stop dicking around with the airline and try to get in touch with Bernadette. I called her cell and she was worried sick about us because she knew that our plane had landed four hours ago (and that we were on the flight). She was worried that something had happened and we'd been arrested. (Dubai is notorious for its draconian drug laws - they sentenced a British man to FOUR YEARS IN JAIL because they found an amount of marijuana that weighed less than a single grain of sugar stuck in the sole of his shoe!).
We explained the situation to Bernadette and she was immediately like "My boss is a very powerful man in this country. I'm on the way to the airport now...I'll see what I can do."
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