Flying During Corona
From what we understood, there was no public transportation available to the airport, so we took a cab (Meir thought we were just splurging because I was running the trip).
When we arrived at the airport, we had to show our health declarations before entering. Turns out if you don't do it in advance you can just do it on your phone but it was nice we had it done. I had told Meir we only needed to print the email and not the attachment but thankfully he printed both since I was wrong.
The airport was much more crowded than I'd expected, and people weren't as distanced as I would have hoped. Lots of Israelis also wear their masks not covering their noses... I was not super comfortable. These two guys ahead of us for check in had some sort of problem with their Corona tests (we weren't positive what the problem was) and were yelling and this and that... to be honest it made me hope they wouldn't be allowed on the flight, they felt like trouble, but they got it sorted somehow.
Everything else was as normal (I don't remember when we had to show our Covid tests...) just with masks on the whole time. I had forgotten that would happen, and in the cab on the way to the airport I pointed out to Meir that we were going to have our masks on from then until our hotel! Crazy.
When we boarded the plane the flight attendant asked me how far along I was and I told him 27 weeks and he started looking unsure but I told him that I'd checked the airline's website and was allowed to still fly without a doctor's note (which was true - before buying the flight I made sure since I knew we were likely on the cusp).
Our tickets were one behind the other at the very back of the plane. I took the second to last row so I'd be able to at least lean my seat back if I wanted. The flight attendant at the back told us that there were only 7 free seats on the plane, but if one was in Meir's row I could move (there were already 2 other people with me). And then, just our luck, the two guys from check in ended up across from Meir. Soon someone else came to sit with them and the bigger guy started going and claiming random seats including saying he was going to have Meir move to the window and he'd take the aisle... it was a mess. At some point he walked forward and the flight attendant told me to move quickly to sit with Meir so that guy wouldn't take the spot. I did but wow that did not go over well. The guy started yelling and was just crazy. I tried telling him that's my husband and Meir tried telling him I'm pregnant but he would not be calmed. It was all so ridiculous. (they also watched videos on their phones out loud during the flight) I was so grateful when we landed and got off the plane.
At the airport we were brought to an area to get another coronavirus test. One side had a line but we ended up on the overflow side where they told us to just sit and wait and eventually we realized there was no order to our side and if we actually just sat then we'd be last (we ended up close to last... good thing we weren't in a rush).
And then we were free! We didn't have anything checked so we just went out, changed a bit of money so we'd have cash if we needed, and decided we didn't need a SIM card (it worked out fine for us. We just bought tickets we needed the night before things and we were mostly taking the metro or buses so we didn't need data for Uber and when we needed we always managed to find a cab). We had asked the agent who helped us book our hotel the best way to get there and she had said cab (we later learned we could have just taken the metro), so we got in and were on our way!
The buildings were amazing, the cab driver pointed out some interesting places along the way, and we learned that their National day had just happened, December 2. There were flags up and decorating most buildings.
Our driver was from Bangladesh, and most people we interacted with who lived in Dubai were from other countries, as my boss had told me before we left. It seems a lot of people come to Dubai to work (from India, Philippines and more). You also notice it in the food - we still have no clue what local food is, but there are amazing restaurants from around the world - Greek, Lebanese, Mediterranean, Turkish, Indian and more.
We got to the hotel early, around 8 am (Dubai is 2 hours ahead of Israel) (I forgot that flying short distances - it's only a 3 hour flight - taking night flights means you just miss a night of sleep...). We anyway figured we needed to wait the day in the hotel until we got our COVID test results, and I had thought we'd be able to wait by the pool, but in the end they were able to check us in early (good thing, since the bell boy had taken our luggage from the cab so we didn't have our snacks or bathing suits - I'm not sure we've ever been to a hotel where they do that before)! It was also great since I was exhausted, so we got in nice naps and started planning what we might do over our time.
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