Having materialized into a human punch bag recently with my teaching career giving me a sore black right eye while Mr. Bluff gave me a sore black left eye, it was clear that a break from the boxing ring was well needed (especially now that I was going to have to put this face back on the market – waaaaah).
And, as fate would have it, Mr. Bluff had been considerate enough to end things with me just before the October break; my hero. However, despite the sarcastic tone about my heartbreak that had caused there to become a serious shortage of Kleenex tissues in Dubai, it actually was a silver lining.
You see, for any female, it is only natural that when emotional disaster strikes that we follow one of the three sacred girl rules for moving on. Rule Number One: the best way to get over somebody is to get under somebody. Rule Number Two: catch flights not feelings. Rule Number Three: turn up to that bastards house and burn all his shit, burn it real good.
While option three did sound appealing with my Motherwell background naturally labelling me as a pyromaniac, I decided that option two would suffice – for now…And also because I had already booked flights to go away for the October break meaning I couldn’t also afford the desired amount of petrol I would need to be able to burn him, sorry, I mean his possessions.
Anyway, with flights booked and bags packed, it was time to partake in another right of Dubai passage; which was to go away to the same destination as everyone else in Dubai; to then bump into them many times at that destination; to then talk about the place we were trying to get a break from – Dubai! Yip, the longer you live out here, the sooner you’ll realise you just can’t escape the fucking place…
However, despite this, I was really looking forward to finally starting my life as a traveler, to finally ticking off one of the biggest reasons why I had moved out here and to finally visiting some of the fantastic destinations that the Golden City offered ease of access to.
Where was my first travel destination, I hear you ask?
Well, if you are illiterate to Geography like myself – I thought the Sahara desert was in the UAE – then my punny title would have done nothing in giving you a clue as to my whereabouts. So, for ease, I shall break it down for you. Giza is a reference to the pyramids of Giza, which means that one of the places I was going to was Egypt and Amman is one of the main cities in the beautiful country of Jordan, where I dreamed of finding the Holy Grail and staying youthful forever – take that Mr. Bluff!
And, like any good crusade, I was not travelling alone.
No, no, no. You see, one of the luxuries of living in an expat community is that there will always be someone who shares the same travel interests as you. Someone who can be easily convinced that your travel plans are better than anybody else’s travel plans. And that someone was Mr. Car Crash (a name given to him for both its literal and metaphorical references).
Known for his playboy ways, lack of fucks and making a big splash wherever he went – again, both a literal and metaphorical comment – Mr. Car Crash was the perfect light hearted travel companion that was needed to make sure this trip was a glad wan and not a sad wan. And no, it did not also allow me to embark on rule number one of getting over someone as that would be like shagging my brother – not uncommon in Motherwell – but a solid no from me.
Anyway, with PCR tests coming up negative, so me and Mr. Car Crash boarded the flight to our first stop: Cairo. A destination that had been on my travel bucket list for a long, long time.
Was it all I had imagined it to be? Well, lets just say there are cleaner toilets on Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night than on the streets of Cairo…But, the pyramids were impressive and made the feeling that you could be kidnapped at any moment worthwhile.
However, as quickly as we landed, so we took off again to our next stop: Jordan. A country that I had never really thought about visiting before but couldn’t wait to explore. With tourist spots such as the Dead Sea, Petra, Jerash and Wadi Rum, Jordan soon proved to be one of my favourite countries to have ever visited (even if the 30,000 steps at Petra nearly took me and Mr. Car Crash out).
And just like that, the trip was over. But my appetite for travel had been renewed and growled ravenously within me leaving only one question on my mind as I boarded the plane to return back to Dubai: where next?
