Lost in DXB

The girls and I arrived in Dubai in the middle of last night. I had booked a hotel room close to the airport so we could get at least a couple of hours of sleep and spare our friends the indignity of welcoming us at 4am. The hotel is super close to the airport - not even two kilometers. It has 'airport' in the name, even. And yet I drove away from the Dubai Airport, took one, at most TWO wrong turns, and readers: we did not get to the hotel until 45 minutes later. Forty-five minutes to go two kilometers! We were so, so lost without Lady Edith the GPS. I should have printed out old-school directions ahead of time, but I thought nah, I lived here for five years! How hard could it be?

But oh, I had forgotten what driving was like in this place! The stakes! They are so high! The roads! They are so confusing! The other drivers! They follow so close! Roads signposted as East-West actually run North-South. Roads extremely commonly bank left until just out of turn-decision-making sight and then turn sharply right. There are no left turns. That bridge you need to take? Yeah, it's closed. That wrong turn you took? Yeah, it leads directly to a toll gate. OF COURSE.

So after forty minutes of you-can't-get-there-from-here, I flagged down a taxi and paid him 15 dirhams (about €3.50) to lead me the rest of the way to the hotel. It was at least satisfying to realize, after he took us to the hotel through a very unintuitive route, that I never, ever would have found it on my own.

Welcome back to us!