The Fact That Life Turns on a Dime
I don’t really have a “bucket list” in the traditional sense. I basically want to go to all the places and do all the things. Within reason, of course. I’m not jumping out of planes. Yet. I don’t usually check the box after visiting a place, either, because I am always happy to go back and explore even more. We travel quite a bit and it always feels like a gift. I learn so much each time, about myself, about the kindness of strangers, about the beauty of different cultures and traditions. I’m open to experiences. That said, I really never thought I would find myself in a war zone.
We planned the trip to Oman and UAE months in advance, excited to visit friends stationed in Oman with the Foreign Service. These are safe, beautiful countries and we couldn’t wait for this completely new experience. With a State Department threat assessment of only Level 2 on our date of departure (the same as France!), we felt fine with our decision to board the fantastic Emirates flight from Dulles airport in Washington, DC to Dubai.
The next week was pure bliss. In Oman we visited the beautiful grand mosque, shopped the souks in Mutrah, ate amazing food, hiked and swam at Wadi Shab, visited the charming fort and castle in Nizwah, and enjoyed the rich hospitality of everyone we met. After our return to Dubai, we took a day tour to Abu Dhabi to experience the extraordinary mosque, palace, Etihad Tower, Louvre, and more. What a lovely place. This picture of us awkwardly not touching each other (you have to avoid public displays of affection here) is a testament to the grandness of the sites.
When February 28 rolled around we enjoyed a little pool time in the morning of the Conrad Dubai (they will be getting a stellar review from me!) and prepped ourselves for our desert tour leaving in the afternoon. Five minutes before we hopped into the SUV of our guide, Jason checked the phone and then reached out and grabbed my arm. “The US has attacked Iran and we are being told to shelter in place.”
We asked the hotel front desk what to do. “Oh go enjoy your tour. You are in the UAE, you are safe.” I texted my embassy friend. “Go enjoy your tour. You are in the UAE, you are probably safe.” (I did note the added “probably” there.)
So we went. We picked up two other women who became part of our little family for the evening. We inflated the tires in the desert and went dune bashing over the hilly dunes. We got out and went sand boarding (my only note on that one is a desire for a pulley system to get you back up the sandy hill once you’ve flown down; that’s a tough climb). We then ventured to an oasis of a camp where we got to ride camels (ours was named Sheila and I admired her fabulous long eyelashes), enjoy watching some arabian horses, engage in a little falconry, and eat an incredible meal under the stars while watching traditional musicians and a fire show. Sounds great, right? And it was! Except…
The missiles and drones had already started coming. We could hear, but not see, loud fighter jets. Everyone started looking at their phones. The Supreme Leader was confirmed dead. Iran was retaliating and the barrage had started in full. As I went to the only real building on the site to use the ladies room (the rest of the place consisted of open structures with billowing fabric), I witnessed my first interception. In the dark desert sky, I saw a streak across the sky, heard a loud pop, and watched what looked like a little burst of fire. Then it all disappeared. At that point, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. We were totally exposed, had no real idea of what was happening, and were wondering why it was happening over our skies to begin with. The UAE hadn’t attacked Iran!
The program finally finished and I was sad that I really hadn’t been able to focus on all of the fun stuff towards the end. But I wanted out. NOW. Our wonderful guide transported us safely back into the city to drop us at our hotels. We had heard that the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world, and one we were ticketed to ascend the next day) had been evacuated. As we drove into the city it was sparkling and full of razzle dazzle as it went through its nightly light show. Missiles or not, that building would shine.
Once back, we went up to our room, a beautiful suite on the 44th floor and WAY too many windows. As much as I had appreciated the upgrade, the popping from the missiles and drones being intercepted was too much. Our messages were telling us to shelter in place and stay away from windows. At this point, I started to crave maybe a nice broom closet.
Jason told me to try to get some sleep but I could not. At 2:00 am, the phones started shrieking with an alert to immediately find an interior wall due to imminent missile attacks. Jason was groggy, but I got him to wake up quickly and understand that we needed to get downstairs and fast. The hotel lobby was full of all the guests and we took a spot on the floor (away from all windows) for the next few hours. Some people had brought their suitcases down. I’m not sure where they thought they were going. But it got us thinking that we needed to put together a small “Go Bag” to carry with essentials, just in case something like this happened again and we needed to get out fast.
While we waited for any semblance of an “all clear” that never really came, I asked the front desk for a room change to a lower floor. “We are all sold out, unfortunately,” they said.
“Of all rooms?”
“Of all rooms like yours. The suites.”
“Oh no, that’s fine, we will take a smaller room on a lower floor. Smaller windows. No windows? We’ll take whatever.”
The staff was so sad for us. They wanted so badly for us to have the nice room and I don’t think anyone had ever asked for a lesser room before. Their hospitality brains had no idea how to react. But they moved us anyway. And the smaller room was still lovely, just lower down the building and no wraparound windows. It was exactly what we needed.
Then we settled in for five long days of Groundhog Day. We would not go outside due to the shelter in place orders, and the damage being caused by debris. The UAE has an amazing defense system and managed to shoot down almost every missile and drone. But the debris still caused damage, smoke, fires, and some injuries. It wasn’t worth the risk. Multiple times of day the missile barrage would come for thirty minutes to an hour at a time. I would start to shake, and need to get under the covers, like a dog in a storm, in need of a thunder shirt.
We developed a routine. Downstairs for a gorgeous breakfast buffet that I couldn’t eat. I forced down some food but I didn’t want anything. At lunch time we headed to the executive lounge for an afternoon tea with food. For dinner, we headed to the executive lounge for drinks and light food. And repeat. Seeing the same people at all occasions, we made friends. Occasionally we added the gym for something new to look at. Our motivation was nil. I couldn’t focus on reading, work, or anything. I tried to watch whatever was on the hotel TV. The movie “Inception” came on and that was a nice 3-hour diversion, as I had more questions from even the last time I saw it. A confusing movie has its benefits! The Harry Potter films also aired, which created a nice reprieve until the story line started to feel too stressful for the moment. On the comedy channel there always seemed to be an episode of “Friends.” It’s amazing how calming that is.
The five days felt like five months but I could not tell you much about them except an overwhelming feeling of uncertainty, helplessness, hopefulness followed quickly by hopelessness, and fear. Would the UAE run out of defenses before Iran ran out of missiles and drones? Would the whole thing continue to escalate? Everyone at the hotel acted like life was normal. I appreciated that effort to stay calm. It definitely made all the difference. But we had no idea how this would end for us.
Monday night we were supposed to go to the airport for a 2:30 am flight Tuesday morning. Cancelled, of course. We spent a couple of hours trying to get through to Emirates, then on hold, to finally get a rebook the next day. And so it went for the next 3 days. Same routine. Flights started opening but they were repatriation flights to get to other countries in Europe and India. Nothing to the US. We tried to get on a flight to Europe. Nothing to be had. This went on for days of flights leaving for everywhere but nothing for US citizens. People organized convoys to drive to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, or Muscat in Oman to get flights, but their air space wasn’t always reliably open, either. Flights were hard to get everywhere, and I didn’t love the idea of that much exposure on the open road.
The message every day was the same from the State Department. Do not rely on the US to help you at this time. Shelter in place. Get out now. Not really useful, since we had no way to get out. We called our congresswoman and senator. They were appalled by the message we were receiving from our own government. I was on the news. CBS Evenings and CBS Mornings. I Zoomed my interview from our room; a surreal experience of trying to prep myself and find a decent place away from the window where it didn’t just look like I was sitting in bed.
After enough of those types of interviews aired, the government changed the outgoing message to start with “We care about the safety of US citizens…” It took six days and media attention for that to happen. Then they said they would start chartering flights to help.
By some miracle, after our DC flight was cancelled again, and continually asking to be put on a flight to anywhere, Emirates said they had two seats to New York City and it was still scheduled to depart on Thursday. We held our breath and checked the airline and airport sites every 15 minutes. When it was time to leave for the airport, it was still scheduled. We didn’t want to get our hopes up. We held our breath in the car, we held our breath inside the airport, where they checked to make sure we were actually ticketed and not just trying to work something out at the airport, and we held our breath as we checked in our bags. We received boarding passes. We still didn’t want to hope too much. It could be cancelled any second.
My skin tingled from anxiety and I can only imagine what my blood pressure was as we sat and waited for hours for our departure time to roll around. The Dubai airport had already been hit by debris. We hoped we were not sitting ducks as we waited. A delay. Now the flight would be 3:30 am. Another delay. Now 4:00 am. We heard them call for boarding for all the flights but ours. We held our breath. Finally, they called for us to line up. As we were moving forward to board, my cousin texted, “Flight Radar says it’s cancelled!” I told Jason but he told me not to panic yet. We were still moving forward. Would they keep boarding this huge double-decker plane if they already knew it would be cancelled?
The scene onboard felt more chaotic than normal but I didn’t care. We were on a plane. We sat for a while and the pilot came on and apologized for the further delay due to some issues on the ground they were dealing with. What were those? I’ll never know. More incoming missile threats, probably.
We held our breath some more. The plane took off. Fighter jets had to escort us safely out of the airspace. We were the first flight out of Dubai to the US since the war started. I don’t think I started to breathe normally until we were approaching Greece, which was many hours into the flight. Our flight, which was supposed to be around 14.5 hours ended up clocking in at 16 hours due to a new flight path to keep us safe.
Sometimes people clap goofily when a plane lands on a normal day. But as soon as the wheels touched the ground at JFK, that entire plane burst into loud cheers and clapping. I think we all had been collectively holding our breaths this whole time. Not just the plane ride, but from February 28 to this moment. So many of us on that plane then had to figure out our next leg to get all the way home but at least we were out of the war zone. Our total travel time from leaving the hotel in Dubai to stepping foot in our house was over 32 hours.
I know my situation could have been much worse. We were fortunate to be sheltering in a really nice hotel. I had used points for this trip but they treated us like we had spent a million bucks. We are safe, we are healthy. But as for war zones, I’m good. I can safely check that box and say that I don’t need to revisit an experience like that if I don’t have to.
As for Oman and UAE, 10/10. I would highly recommend them. You won’t find better hospitality and care.