My flight was scheduled for midnight, so I thought there would surely not be any issues with getting to the airport at this hour. Eh… apparently, not in Moscow. The car service company advised us to allow 2 hours for the journey from Olga's house to the airport that should really take less than 30 minutes in the ideal world of no-traffic. "Moscow was STANDING yesterday," confidentially explained the operator. – "People are talking about getting 'in-transit' homes nowadays."
Indeed, the traffic on the way to the airport was comparable to the one on Fifth Avenue in New York. I was amused by the cab driver's attitude: it looks like driving around the city has become a video game to him. All sorts of gadgets in his cozy car – a laptop, navigator, iPhone, radio – are channeling different (and sometimes conflicting) sources of traffic information, and he is navigating the road expertly browsing through this virtual traffic, while (thankfully) managing to also keep track of the actual traffic on the road. He is excited to play this game and he goes through all the moods of a video game player: сосредоточенность, frustration to lose points, excitement to get bonuses. At the end of the trip, when we made it on time for my plane, he even exclaimed (I'm not joking), "Yes! I did it!" The manager inside me appreciates seeing people excited about their job.
5th Avenue Dubai
I have been to Dubai. Twice. And still I was not ready for this. At 5.30AM the Dubai airport is like Fifth Avenue during lunch hour around the Christmas season. People's traffic is so busy it took me 40 minutes (!) to get from one gate to another for my connection (well, distances here are pretty unbelievable as well). A Starbucks approximately every 10 steps, tourists stopping как вкопанный all of a sudden to admire yet another luxury Duty Free shop, and locals frustrated by this mess preventing them from to cross the "street" make the picture complete.
5th Avenue Cape Town
Arriving to any big town in the rush hour is a big mistake, but the choice had been made for me by the Emirates Airlines. Obviously, we hit some serious traffic, and a 20-minute route took over an hour. Which gave me plenty of time to rant to the driver about my misfortune: my luggage did NOT arrive with me AGAIN! What the hell??? How often can this statistically happen to the same person in a short period of time??? In all the years I've been traveling my bags had never ever been lost before, so why all of a sudden I get into the same frustrating scenario for the second time in six months?! Argh!!! Stupid Air Emirates (now I have another reason to dislike Dubai)! Stupid airports! Stupid luggage handlers! Why me??? Why now??? Argh!!!
But even in my gloomy mood I couldn't avoid the fact that Cape Town area is GORGEOUS! Surrounded by mountains, descending into a beautiful harbor, hosting some awesome kind of pine trees bent by strong winds onto one side, the city impresses with its serenity…
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