After 3 days in Malta, back to Dubai at 48ºC (officially)!!!

Today the temperatures have reached 50ºC in Dubai!!! Officially it never gets hotter than 48ºC because if it is any warmer all workers are not allowed to be outside and they have to give a free day so everybody can stay in. As there is nobody to contradict the government over here we pretend we believe on the official temperatures while our thermometres at home and in the cars go well above that!!!

So walking to the bank this morning, with my sunglasses all fogged by humidity and sand blowing from all sides, I cursed Dubai two million times and felt like a roast piglet (am as fat as a piglet). The only thing missing was the red apple on my mouth!

I was in Malta for the past 4 days on a very nice trip. Believe it or not, it was for work. In Malta I rented a car with two friends, a South African guy, Andrew and a Dutch girl, Hester and we drove all over Malta and Gozo! The place is quite beautiful. I really liked Valletta, the capital, which is a Unesco World Heritage site. There were some amazing cliffs and blue water to swim. Our car had no air conditioning so we roasted. But at least we got tanned and had fun. I even ate rabbit, which is Malta’s speciality.

Everything was great. Malta has an amazing culture and it was all too good to be true until we had to fly back. Well, instead of flying direct to Dubai, the plane makes a stop in Tripoli, Libya. The flight from Malta to Tripoli lasts only 40 minutes from take off to touch down, so we have about 20 minutes to do service. And guess what??? Dear Emirates have carts with trays, sandwiches, fruit salad and juice. It takes a normal person around 12 minutes to eat the whole thing but we had to give out the trays in a rush, the plane still climbing and come back to collect them in 5 minutes. Of course everybody was still eating and we had to take the trays in a rush, asking them to hold on to their sandwiches for landing! Awful service!!!

Than in Tripoli the ground staff managed to double seat 48 passengers on an already full aircraft. So think on how to seat two people on seat 23A??? So it got really messy in the cabin with people waiting for a seat, getting upset, bags up, bags down, bags not fitting anywhere. We were late, of course. Than there was a problem with the cargo. We were even later. Than all passengers started asking for drinks. Than we had to get more fuel to be able to fly faster to Dubai and the guy who puts the fuel had gone home. In summary, a mess. Got back home feeling drained and in need of two more days in Malta!!!

Tomorrow I go to London and on Friday to Edinburgh! At least I am away from the horrendous heat in Dubai!

By the way, the other day I was so fed up of such heat that I closed all curtains in the living room, put the ac at full blast, got pillows and a blanket into the couch and had a nice hot chocolate pretending it was cold and rainny outside! Things you do to remain sane in a place like this!!!!