DUBAI: 5.30am

Actually it's 8.30am in Dubai and everyone seems remarkably awake! I, on the other hand feel like I'm on a night shift and am desperate to take my glasses off and put my contact lenses back in!! Its already exceedingly hot...I don't know how people work in this country - getting out of the plane I was hit by a wall of heat...but then was ushered into an airconditioned bus and into an airconditioned building!

Incidentally I think this is the only building I have been in where you can walk in an absolutely straight line for about 20mins without having to go round any corners! The internet station is about as far from my gate as it could be, but I have so much time to kill that it wasn't so bad coming to find it.

So, what have I got to tell you? - so far, so good. I have learnt that a) people have a strange propensity to queue in lines when they could be sitting waiting to just walk straight onto the plane b) Emirates gluten-free food is absolutely fantastic c) If I don't speak for 6 hours I begin to be concerned that I can't do it any more! You'll be relieved to know that I can in fact still speak...I tested it on a random woman on the bus!

I had a phone call from Pam the day before yesterday to tell me the rainy season has just started in Rwanda...so a bit of re-packing went on to include sincere waterproofs...only to speak to her yesterday to discover that in fact it was sunny again! Perhaps it was a random shower...she says hopefully. I also remembered that in fact waterproofs, however sincere, were utterly pointless and one would get less wet if one just didn't wear anything. When Tracy and I got caught in a downpour (on several occasions) we were wet through to our underwear...there was little a raincoat could do!

Ooh, Whitney Houston is now playing in the airport...how appropriate since we listened to a lot of Whitney last time we were in Rwanda!!!

OK, that's enough random yabble from Dubai in the middle of the night. I'm going to start the ten mile hike back to gate 223...I'm tempted to hide in a cleaning trolley I can see and hope he's going in the right direction...