long a$$ day.............

Friday..............leave Columbus at 2:30, checking in Air France in Atlanta at 5:oo pm..... flight left at 8:50pm for Paris... arrive in paris at 11:oo am (5 am in GA), leave paris at 2pm and arrive in Dubai at 11pm... 2 hours later we are through passport check and customs and in a taxi headed for Sheraton Dubai Creek. ( company paying $1020 a night for each room, crazy).
watched some good movies on the plane, Stardust, and darjheeling Limited, and some French films random, and some tv episodes of Simpsons and Friends... it very surreal sleeping and waking on long flights because you can wake up and catch the end or beginning of the same movie as it repeats.
At the Paris airport, I did something new, we got off the plane to a bus, to the terminal... then to our gate.... then boarded outside to a bus again to the plane to leave. lots of stop, wait, go, stop wait, go. etc...
airport in paris took US dollars but gave euro change. dollar not worth much theses days I suggest everyone just stay home, you are only rich in America compared to spending in Europe. ha.
i caused my "director" a bit of grief in the airports, she had this thing about keeping us together at all times and getting in the same lines for everything... drove me crazy, I asked her why the first time and after that just shuup and got in line. we have terrible leadership on this "team" but I won't complain, I am ready to just arrive on base where everything is kept in order, show up to class and rock and roll in the classroom teaching English! ahh yeahh
I do have one small complaint to mention, we arrive at our hotel in Dubai, and our boss reserved the room w/ his credit card, but they have to use our directors card to charge the rooms on. He was here last night and flew out to Kabbull today. The screwed up thing is we have NO idea when our flight leaves tomorrow. so we don't know if we are sleeping in or getting up early or what!! serious lack of planning or communication somewhere, boss made the reservations we are sure but have no ideas where or when tomorrow. so the guy at the desk ( very nice and cute pakistan guy, we were just chatting in the lobby earlier...) asked her for when we were checking out and she's like, uhh i don't know, can you look at Kam Air to see if we have reservations... and he says " I'm sorry madam, perhaps YOU could check in the morning, hereis their 1-800 number, their offices are now closed... etc etc. anyway you get the picture.
i just want to be the fun guy in the cool group that has everything in control and organized, and somehow I end up in this two bit thrown together teams of yahoos. ahh well, now I've gotten that off my chest, I'll focus on the salary, and getting to base and making some friends I clique with.
right now I'm waiting for my ham and cheese sandwich from room service. it's 2:45 am Sunday morn here, but in OKC it's 4:45 pm in the afternoon Saturday.
btw my sandwich is 48 darhams, and it's 3.5 darhams to 1 dollar so you can do the math on the one... more news as it happens