Abu Dhabi Airport - October 31st

Although our Western Balkans (as defined by the Lonely Planet) adventure ended on Wednesday, today is the real change as we go to Istanbul Airport to get our flight to India.  The trip begins on a very crowded tram line with a metro interchange to the airport.  Istanbul airport is quite large, and has a lot of facilities, however these may be at a cost, 3 Euro for a can of Diet Coke.  Actually this appears just to be a cartel around the food court as we eventually find a guy selling it for almost half that price.  We buy it to use up the last of our Turkish Lira.  Other coins we give to the Turkish earthquake relief fund.

Our flight today is with Ethiad, purely because they are the cheapest for this date.  I was considering cancelling them after Man City beat Man United 6-1, but they would have kept our money and it would have gone to make them even more of a football monster, so we took the flight anyway.

Considering our first flight was with Ryanair, even economy class with Ethiad is the height of luxury.  We get menus for dinner (although they were out of the nicest sounding meal by the time they got to us) and we get personal entertainment, meaning Dorota can watch some meaningful drama, and I can watch some rubbish sci fi.

We make possibly the best landing ever at Abu Dhabi airport, we couldn’t feel a bump at all at touchdown, and go to the airport.  Having been to Dubai for a transfer with Emirates 10 years ago, my expectations of this airport were high, but my hopes were dashed as the shopping and eating facilities at this airport were little better than an average UK airport, and the flight information was woeful.  There aren’t that many flights out, but the board could only hold 10 minutes’ worth of flights (from 9.40 to 9.50) and ours was boarding for a 10.25 flight yet we didn’t know from which gate.  Overall the airport was not up to the standards of the flight.  Our next flight was up to the same standard as before, although worryingly, perhaps as a portent of things to come, there were delays as the staff failed to understand the requirements of the Indian passengers.