30th April - We had an early morning flight from Dar Es Salaam to Nairobi. Despite the flight being nearly empty we were seated next to an elderly gentleman. He was quite a chatty fellow... but he couldn't hear too well. So he spend the 1.5 hours talking at us rather than having a conversation. He was an 81yo Danish man who used to be a sailor and had visited 150 countries. He basically listed cities and countries then asked about Australia's Prime Minister. I wrote down Julia Gillard and he was so excited we had a female leader. He then listed countries with female leaders. Ella hated it and pretended to sleep through the flight.

At Nairobi we upset the ground staff as we didn't go to the transfer desk. We had our tickets and our bags were marked to go to Abu Dhabi, the staff in Dar Es Salaam told us we were good to go. When we tried to get on the plane to Abu Dhabi the staff gave us a scolding. We had to wait to the side of the line while they radioed the ground crew that they found the owners of the lost bags.

We did make it safely to Abu Dhabi, and our bags, where we were surprised by the customs procedure. There was no cards to fill, no scans just stamp the passport and enter.

1st May - In the morning we took a taxi to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Taxis are cheap, easy and the best way to get around Abu Dhabi. Sheikh Zayed commisioned the Mosque construction while he was in charge of the UAE. Thus the name, it is also his resting place with a small building to the side made as his grave. As with much of Abu Dhabi the money and engineering skill required to build it is almost beyond belief. We generally think we do things pretty well in Australia but the quality of construction is just on another level.

Everything about this Mosque is impressive, the four minarets are over 100m tall, during Eid the worship areas are big enough to hold 40,000 people, the main hall has the largest carpet in the world and the chandeliers are the 3rd biggest in the world. We were told it was the biggest chandelier but wikipedia says otherwise. Neither of us is religious and we didn't find the place spiritual... I don't know if anyone gets that feeling visiting but it certainly is a monument to what man can construct.

After the mosque we visited a souk nearby, although it wasn't really traditional and really just a mall. It didn't have anything we wanted to purchase. Instead we went to a much larger mall and did some cheap shopping.

We went back to our hotel for a shower and to prepare for the long flight back to Australia ending our holiday. Our 14hour flight turned into something like 17hours on the plane. Everyone boarded on time and waited to leave. And waited. Finally the captain announced that we were waiting on a connection from Beirut and wouldn't be much longer. In this hour so wait a baby not far infront of us wouldn't stop crying, the mother was trying to comfort it with no effect. The baby did shut up at some stage, we just assumed it fell asleep. Some new passengers joined the plane and still we waited. The captain then announced there was a medical emergency, the mom and baby had to leave the plane. This means paper work and ground staff unloading cargo until they find the right baggage. More waiting and the captain announced two further passengers had decided to leave the plane. More paper work and baggage searching. We left Abu Dhabi well over two maybe three hours late, to top it off we had an aborted landing coming into Sydney. Thankfully he landed on second attempt and we didn't end up in Melbourne or Brisbane. Lucky it was night time on our arrival and we could go straight to bed.