Hahaha. On my flight back to NYC from Abu Dhabi I sat next a restless, grumpy older man from somewhere in Africa. He couldn't seem to get to sleep and opted to eschew the airline-provided sleepmask in favor of dramatically re-throwing a huge blanket over his head and sighing EVERY TWENTY MINUTES FOR THE ENTIRE FOURTEEN-HOUR FLIGHT. Hahaha. Here's me giving him very worst stinkeye after he elbow-jostled me awake for the TENTH TIME!
Less than 30 minutes after taking off, I was deplaned in Sharm el-Sheikh and looking for a taxi to take me 50 miles northeast to Dahab! Check out the desert mountains in the background!
I also saw a couple of things that looked like ancient ruins from the air! Anyone have any idea what this is? Looks like some kind of gateway that has a modern road running through it.
The view of the Red Sea from the air was gorgeous. There were so many islands and sandbars and the water was so many different shades of blue around them.
We had an uneventful landing. As we taxied towards the jetway, I saw a bunch of these planes on the tarmac! Talk about an unfortunate name for an airline! They totally did it on purpose to discourage English-speakers from flying! Their slogan (in Arabic, of course) "TNT AIRLINES: NO HEATHENS ONBOARD, GUARANTEED."
..and here's the view from the plane! It's crazy when you look out an airplane window and you're like "Oh yeah, I recognize that from looking at THE GLOBE."
I love when you're high enough in a plane that you can see the curvature of the earth on the horizon.
View Abu Dhabi --> Cairo in a larger map
We flew northwest from Abu Dubai to Cairo. A couple hours in, I looked out my window and recognized the Suez Canal from the airplane. Here's the map version...
Check out the reeeediculous accommodations in Etihad's coach cabin! Here's the back story on why this shit is so pimp:
Abu Dhabi and Dubai are two of the Emirates (in the United Arab Emirates) and there's a competitive streak between them. The rich peeps in Abu Dhabi got tired of Dubai getting recognized worldwide for being so blinging all of the time...because they're like "BUT WE'RE RICHER THAN THEM!"
So one day some of the rich people in Abu Dhabi were lazing around one of their palaces, scheming on how to make the world realize that Dubai is a bunch of greasy bitches and then someone was like "Yo, I don't wanna front - so I'm just gonna say it. I flew back home on Emirates Airlines (the airline that Dubai started) and I gotta admit, that shit was pretty fly."
There must've been all sorts of resigned head-nodding as the rest of the crew reluctantly acknowledged Dubai's flyness. And then outta nowhere, somebody, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, if I'm not mistaken, was like "YO! I HAVE TOTALLY FUCKING GOT IT! We should start our OWN airline and spend way more money than they did. You know, let's just get silly and totally try to make Dubai's airplanes look like TRASH! Then Abu Dhabi will be the new MEGAPORT in the UAE and people will realize that Dubai is basically like Insane Clown Posse and we are totally Death Row in its Suge Night hey-day." (Ok, I'm paraphrasing here at this point, but these dudes placed an order for $8 Billion dollars worth of airplanes when they started, so you get the idea)
Any way, after the two airlines finished with their "who's got doper planes" war, they apparently proceeded to get into a price war. Which I'm guessing is the only way I was able to spend 36 hours in the air with a big seat and a personal TV with unlimited movies and tons of meals for less than $1,000.
Air travel makes no sense. When I first had my "Aha!" moment to go to Egypt, I looked up direct flights from NYC to Cairo and was like "Oh no, it's like $2,000" (which was way more than I wanted to spend). So then I was like, "Well, for shit's and giggles, let me see if there are any cheaper indirect fares." The first search result said I could fly to Egypt from NYC roundtrip for under $1,000 as long as I was willing to go an extra EIGHT HOURS out of the way through Abu Dhabi BOTH TIMES
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!
