this is insane - they won't let me take my cologne on a plane because its not in a ziplock bag, but scorpions are okay?
Posts Tagged ‘travel’
scorpion on a plane?
Wednesday, January 10th, 2007qatar…
Thursday, December 21st, 2006yes, yes, i said a continent per day... but alas, i got busy and there is only so much time and so many continents... (i am not *really* visiting all the continents, i'd just like to think so :)) i am currently writing this from qatar. i was in uae earlier (both in sharjah (al-shariqa) and dubai). sharjah reminds me of egypt a lot except for the number of desis and the traffic laws/driving patterns. dubai on the other hand could very well be a city in the us. the cost of living there seems to be very expensive - the price that you pay in the us is the price you pay in dubai, despite the fact that 1 dollar is ~3.6 dirhams. some places are even more expensive - a cup of coffee at starbucks, for example, was 12 dirhams, or roughly $3.33.
qatar is similar to dubai - there's a *lot* of building and construction happening there. the building architecture in both qatar and dubai is quite amazing actually. some amazing looking buildings! anyway, so yeah, qatar is pretty cool too... very much like dubai (like a city in the us as well). cost of living is roughly the same as that in dubai, as a matter of fact, most places take the dubai dirhams as well as the qatar riyals. the exchange rate is almost 1:1, maybe one being 0.98 or 0.99 to the other.
one last interesting fact - getting into dubai, with a us passport, cost me nothing. getting into qatar, on the other hand, cost me around $27 for the visa.
london…
Monday, December 18th, 2006surprisingly, it seems quite a bit more liberal than the us... but then again, i feel the same way when i go to the airport in germany or france. with respect to absurd security measures, the airport here only allows one carryon bag - unlike in the us where we can carry a carry on and a "personal item" - they said if you're a lady and have a purse, you have to put it in your bag or check it in... ludicrous.
was able to get internet access for $9 for a whole day here at the airport... not too bad for 24 hours of wireless access when you have to wait in the airport for several hours for your flight.
speaking of prices, cost of living must be insane in the uk - basically, 1 pound is like $2 or close enough to $2. so like the starbucks here in the airport costs the same as starbucks in the us, except that its really double the price because of the conversion factor. i guess though that the person who lives here would be making their salary in pounds so its kind of the same as when i go to egypt for example and things are the same price but in egyptian pounds, so i have a the conversion factor as an advantage (poor people who come from places like egypt to the uk!).
anyway... haha so now i can say i've updated my blog from 2 continents 
lets see if i can add to that number in the upcoming days...
ludicrous airport policies
Wednesday, November 29th, 2006so i went to visit my parents over this past break... while leaving, i had 2 small bottles of cologne and a stick of deodorant in my bag. at the airport, they of course saw these in my bag, and the man took them out. he said, "you can only have these with you if you have them in a transparent ziplock bag." i am like, "uh.. i don't have one." he's like "sorry, then you can't take them unless you check your bag in." so i asked him, "do you have any bags?" - and he replied, "sorry, we don't provide bags." so i lost 2 very nice small bottles of cologne (the alternative was to miss my flight because i was already running late)...
but the thing is - i don't get it... what difference does it make whether they are in a transparent ziplock bag or not? if the fear is the liquid spilling over stuff, can't someone just as easily take them out of the ziplock bag and spill the contents all over their stuff? and, if the case is that they examine these liquids separately anyway (which they do), what does the ziplock bag enable that is not enabled without it? and if its so important, why not provide people with it (some airports do this as i found out while i was coming back at the end of the trip, but that did me no good...) i fail to see the wisdom behind these policies... maybe someone can enlighten me?
مصر
Friday, January 6th, 2006my flight to مصر is in 4 hours insha'Allah. i'll be back friday insha'Allah. its short, but on the bright side, i get a few days off of work and i get to celebrate eid there insha'Allah. eid mubarak to all in advance.
el road trip
Tuesday, June 1st, 2004peace and greetings all. so over the break, mansoor and i went on a road trip up north. we stopped in the suberbs of penn, dc, and virginia. here is a list of interesting things we came across...
a short movie of our trip
i got a canon powershot digital camera about a month back, and i was finally able to use it. i made a short movie of us driving at night. note the effect that the street lights have on the movie. (and yes, i realized (after the fact), that there is no way you could have a flash running while taking a movie clip, but i mean some kind of lighting is nice... then again, its a camera, not a camcorder..)
you can get the movie here (~5 mb).
the highway system
what we came to find pretty quickly is that the highway system in georgia is surprisingly good - all the exits are numbered and labeled. in other states, its just like, "exit" - there is no concept of exit numbers. oh and it doesn't help that every other exit has the same name...
interesting signs
we came across some of the most random signs. "speed limit enforced by aircraft" was one of the random ones. another was one describing fines, and the fine for a criminal offense was $200, but the fine for a traffic offense was $500. its nice to know that speeding is a worse crime than any criminal offense...
the wawa
so many wawa and sunaco gas stations up north, especially in philly. and within the wawa stations are like delis and stuff, its pretty neat.
the gas prices
... remain outrageous.
uber desi
we came across a really fancy halal desi resteraunt that does catering even. they even had their own van. and their prices were pretty expensive relative to the desi resteraunts in atlanta.
an islamic center in penn
we went to check out one of the islamic centers in penn. it was around 3:00 in the afternoon and it was... well, closed.
washington d.c.
its amazing how you go through a few side streets and you find yourself in another state. we visited bubba in d.c and went and ate at the food factory in virginia. we also got to see bilal ahmed too.
the "roundabout"
some weird alternative to the 4 way traffic light. in bubba's words, "devastating."
the day after tomorrow
awesome movie. critics don't know anything about movies, they should be banned from rating them. excellent movie. if you haven't seen it, go see it!
i guess that's all for now. peace!