Softlanding

The flight into Lahore was rather uneventful. After flying on a 380, it is amazing how small a 777 feels. What is more, I have to say that Emirates is an exceptional airlines. We flew 14 hours from JFF and then 3 hours from Dubai and both flights were more or less packed full and yet the service was quite a standard above what I am used to from American carriers, and perhaps even Europeans. The food was edible at all the meals and they actually gave you menus from which to pick from. Now, you did get foil wrapped tin plates, but you also got real metal utensils.

I tried to tweet a picture of us in Dubai, but it would not load - I am assuming bandwidth problems from my phone, but who knows - here it is...the intrepid group of us, less Michelle and Claudine who went to try to crash the lounge.  Here is us and the Brooks' and my friend Tom Looy from California.  Julie felt so much better with her coffee!  Tom was aching for a HagenDaaz (on the other side of the walkway) and the Brooks' were pining for the spruces! (behind us).

Getting off the plane in Lahore seemed to take longer than in Dubai, even though there were about 150 fewer people.  When we got out of plane and got down to Immigration, it seemed to be mostly a free for all with folk forming a soft kind of queue.  It took about half an hour for us to ooze our way to the front and get processed.  They looked over our passports and visas very carefully and no, we were not the only americans traveling in.  We met a young lady (25ish) in the queue who was Pakistani by descent, but had never been to Pakistan and was coming to find relatives.  She was wondering if we were in her hotel.  She was from New York (Brooklyn, it sounded like), wonder if we will see her again while we are in town.  Once out, Shezhad and Satwat were there with a small contingent to welcome us.  It took about an hour to find our luggage and get it scanned (not sure what for), and we were off into the cool humidity of the Pakistani night. 

On the way into the city, we passed through a military checkpoint.  A curiousity, but not really out of place.  The folks manning the check point were actually quite well armed.

Once at Shezhad's we moved our stuff upstairs and fell into bed.  But before we did, i took a picture out the window to tweet back home showing we were here.  I was a little surprised at what I saw - not so much the legos on the windowsill, but how pitch black it was out there.  It had been lighter in the street.  (btw - Shezhad did give us a little torch for the bathroom in case the power went out - they have common scheduled and unscheduled blackouts where different parts of the city has no power as there is more demand than supply.  They have battery powered UPS' that cover some of the lights, but not all.)  Here is the picture I was not able to tweet.