- hot towels again before landing at Dubai appx 5am local time (11am Sydney). Noticed the landing this time but only just. Still dark outside.
- 30 degrees outside apparently but airport is not too bad. Busy for 5am. Huge place. Lots of indians.Arabic translations to English were everywhere which was nice.
- Had Forgotten how different Arabic language was to ours. Very guttural. Havent been in a non English speaking population for a while.
- No need to collect bags
- through security gates, Sam’s bra got checked
- we were in the wrong building, so had catch the tube train to next one
- lots of walking through retail area to find Fly Dubai gate. Lady said lounge will be open at 6.30am. It was 6, so we waited with plebs.
- 6.30 we were allowed in first and asked lady where is business class lounge and she said through glass doors, but couldn’t find anything only very average dirty sitting area plastic seats, no aircon
- According to another bus class passengers, there is no business class lounge. Worried we had paid for dud flight.
- eventually we were told by another lady to wait in plastic seats while economy class is taken downstairs to buses.
- waited for 15mins and not sure what to do as no staff in the area. So headed down escalators where others had gone.
- they were being loaded into buses, we were again told to wait in seats on this level
- finally got ushered into business class bus (normal bus really) which they loaded a lot of people in.
- waited on bus until some of the people were ushered off and only business class ppl left.?? This company doesnt know what its doing.
- The only reason I can think why business is put on after economy is that the flight is so bad they want business class to experience as little of it as possible. Now I’m just being jaded.
- bus had extremely cold air con
- finally got moving and drove onto tarmac. Wow this airport is humongous
- must have driven passed 100 parked planes, on a 4 lane road running between them.
- boarded front of place via steps, bloody hot outside
- friendly staff, and nice seats up front, feeling better about this now.
- flight time 6.5 hours but comfortable and watched movies and listened to new book, nice meal of omelette with chorizo and chicken again.
- No booze offered, probably a UAE thing.
- got to Catania airport at appx 12pm local time. Quite warm but also, around 27 degrees with harsh sun.
- got dodgyest trolley ever (but funny to watch) and collected bags.
- customs got through no issues
- then got stopped by italian security outside (without uniforms on, so was a bit suspicious) but they had all the machinery to check baggage so seemed ok. Did notice afterwards they had lanyards on.
- went to Hertz rentals booth and got car sorted with directions outside where to go. Lively ladies who informed us that Tiramisu means to “pick up” so I said we’re here to Tiramisu our car.
- Apparently at this time, but we didnt know it, our VISA card got compromised (they didnt let us use our Travel card)
- got Ford Focus outside from the car park area and Sam noticed scratches so she went back to outside booth to get the guy
- no vodafone outlet for SIMs at the airport so decided to drive to local shopping centre
- freaked me out driving on wrong side of the car, wrong side of the road, wrong side of the world. Got navigation working in car from Italian to English thank goodness
- shopping centre about 15mins drive. Only went down a road the wrong way once
- got slice of pizza then SIM cards from Vodafone outlet. Loving the language barrier. It works!
- punched in casa adele into nav and off we went on the freeway! Big arrows on the right lane apparently dont mean right turn from that lane but the next right lane that is created so got a lot of angry beeps whilst sitting sheepishly in the left lane. Ita drivers completely ignore all road rules and speed limits and are not afraid to root and yell and wave their arms at you, I got used to it.
- got to Taormina and the nightmare of tiny streets, one way lanes, pedestrians in the middle of the road, crazy scooter and motorbike riders and angry taxis and buses began
- had panic attack almost threw up
- could not get to destination so parked in tiny reserved spot and walked to the hotel where manager greeted and gave us a map and tried to explain the route to take. Omg! (Map photo taken on Thursday 12th)
- so back to car again and after getting lost twice more and both of us suffering breakdowns finally found the road and pulled into their garage which they had unlocked chain for us. Was seriously thinking of not driving anywhere again until we leave
- checked in to hotel (Casa Adele), gorgeous place, nice room except aircon barely worked and fridge wasn’t too cold. Nice cool shower and nap.
- dinner booked across road 7pm, cooler now,
- Tiramisu and sons. Very nice with chilled white wine , but exe.
- walked around old town lanes through arches and sam got gelato
- home for early night, boonses called
Sorry guys. Trav needs to refresh the Google token again. Please contact him.