I leave for Dubai on Wednesday, and though I don't fear flying, I hate flying. I detest the food. I recoil at the thought of sitting in the Sbarro section of Schiphol airport waiting to make my connection. I cringe at the thought of the general discomfort. I loathe the people who sit next to me who inevitably fart or breath on my throughout the journey. One flight from Amsterdam to Seattle (non-stop) placed a born-again Christian Norwegian smack dab between a Scottish girl with dreadlocks and me. Twenty minutes into this 13 hour flight, he comes out with "So, do you believe in God?" And I don't do this guy justice in print, as he had possibly the most annoying nasal-y voice. He had been to over fifty countries on...you guessed it! Missions (side note: why can't we just feed the hungry and help them establish infrastructure to care for themselves without selling them on Christianity?) He badgered me, as I dodged the religious conversation, and at some point told me I was 'self-righteous' for not fitting into his definition of a religious and spiritual being. I think I told him that presuming to have all the answers to the afterlife sounded pretty fucking self-righteous to me. Needless to say, I enjoyed a quiet remaining 12 hours of my flight. Not so for the Scottish lass. On another long flight from London to Dubai, I sat in the lovely emergency row seats beside an Egyptian man who had lived in Greece, the U.S. and another third country, but didn't realise that those countries had laws against polygamy. Yeah. He accidentally broke the laws there. Oh, and he 'never drinks' except when he's flying (to calm his nerves) and then proceeded to knock back 6+ of those airline sized wine bottles, spilling some on my new trousers and promptly passing out on my shoulder. Snoring. Regular travel back and forth between the far corners of the earth and here make me appreciate a 6 hour flight. I will be travelling for almost 30 hours when I arrive in Dubai. I hope my friends greet me with rose petals at that point.

I don't expect to be blogging much for the next three weeks, though I may upload a few pics. In the meantime, I steer you in the direction of a blog I love reading: Peaceful Muslimah's blog "PM's World" (she's on my side bar). The woman is objective, open-minded, and she's got opinions. It's all woven together by her succint and poignant writing style. Her most recent post is about a skin-whitening soap sold in Qatar called "Touch Me Virginity Soap". Skin lightening creams are common place in the region's pharmacies, but this comes with a pinch of honour-preserving emollients. Anyway, if you've never read her blog before, I recommend you do.