Things I learnt from My trip to Saudi Arabia & Dubai

I was thinking about writing a detailed, emotive piece upon my return, but seeing that I don't have any time (I am being forced to fly to Minnesotta on Monday ... what!?) I will resort to bullet point form:

- Emirates Airlines is the worst possible airline ever. Maybe it was good some years back. Maybe it will be good again. But I will never fly Emirates again.

- Dubai is overrated. The only thing I see good in it for me, is its proximity to Pakistan.

- Saudis are still the laziest bunch of ... saudis. No other word can describe them.

- My dad can still go miles with his Arabic skills, and he totally saved the day on numerous occassions including at the airport. Without him it would have taken us 4 hours to get out of the airport. With him, it took us 3 and a half.

- Emirates Airlines has the worst customer service ever. At one point an old passenger asked one of the hostesses when they will be serving food (it had been 5 hours), and the response was exactly this: "We don't know sir! We are not robots!"

- Apparently I got some good friends that I hadn't met in 12 years or kept in touch with. My friend Iftikhar came not only to pick us up, but on the way back to Jeddah we practically lived at his place. He majorly skipped work to be with us, and was helpful in every way. Arsalan was another friend I hadn't met in a long time and was totally there for us the whole time. Like he said, "No matter after how many years you meet your old friends. You pick up where you left off".

- The food in Saudi Arabia has totally gone south. I was totally looking forward to the food and man it was horrible. Yes, people, even Al-Baik! I had it once, and I didn't want to have it again. Seriously. Very disappointed. Very sad. Imagine this. Near Haram in Makkah, the only "Shawarma" you can find is made with dry chicken and cabbage only. Cabbage!? Seriously!?

- Emirates Airlines has the worst customer service ever. One of the hosts dropped dirty stacked food trays on my mother while walking by her (she was sitting in the isle seat), stopped, apologized, said he'd be back with napkins, and never came back.

- I like living in Canada. And being away from Canada to a country other than Pakistan, made me realize: if not Pakistan, then Canada. If not Canada, then Pakistan. Nothing else.

- Emirates Airlines is just fucked up bad. They gave my dad's No Sodium meal to some other passenger by mistake.