Al Sultan Beach Resort

My flight was schedule for 6:30 pm on United from Chicago, USA. United has a very nice business section however the service of united tends to lack when comparing it to other airlines. I asked the ticket attendant if my flight was on time while I was checking in, my mistake...I cursed the flight by asking. They said, "Yes, your flight is on time. United international flights are 95% on time always". On time per an airline is 15 min or less. I would like to know if that time starts once we are all loaded, away from the gate or actually lift off the ground? Anyway ...I got to be part of the 5% that's not on time. The plane took off about 40 min late. The flight itself was uneventful, just as a flight should be! Troy and I did manage to find Scott one of the other people on this assignment. So it gave us an opportunity to talk to him more. I only briefly met him once before. While on the plane I got to see the movies "Catch and Release" and "Music & Lyrics". I stayed awake the whole flight because I was so excited about my new computer and my new iPod. I had to sit there and make my playlists and learn the new programs on the computer. I changed from a PC to a Macbook. For some of you how don't know what that means.... I changed from Microsoft to Apple. So I got my iPod all programmed. I would say that it was a productive flight.
Got to Frankfurt, Germany at 10 A.M. and headed for the business lounge. The lounge was huge but the snacks were on the skimpy side and you had to pay for drinks. Luckily our next flight was on time. The second part of our flight was on Lufthansa. This so far is my favorite business section. The sets lay down to almost a perfect flat bed, food is good, and staff is super friendly. On that flight I was not productive at all. I slept most of it.
Landed in Doha right on schedule. That just makes the start of a trip so much better. Getting off the plane down the stairs to the bus, I got my first "hit" of desert air. I knew it would be hot but I guess I thought since the sun was down it would be a little cooler. It really didn't make a difference. The air was hot and very humid. While getting on the bus to go to the terminal a lady sat next to me and made a comment about finally sitting next to a woman. I didn't notice until then but I was one of four women on the flight. Once I got to the terminal I was one of the first through the passport area, then once luggage started showing up, my luggage was the very first luggage off the rack! Once I had my bags I got through customs quickly and my car was waiting for me. It makes me giddy to have someone holding a sign with my name on it when you come out of the terminal. Just makes me feel special. I think the stars were in line for this trip. Never have I ever had that much ease when getting out of an airport.
The cars got Troy, Scott and myself to our hotel within an hour.
[PHOTO_ID_L=p1020081.jpg]We are staying at the Al Sultan Beach Resort in Al Khor (Al Khawr on the map). It is an OK hotel, not as nice as others in the area so my guess is we wouldn't stay here for more than 10 days. I guess we will see.[PHOTO_ID_R=p1020075.jpg]

Spijkenisse, Netherlands

We are in Rotterdam, Netherlands now. We are staying at the Carlton Oasis. right now but it may change. We are a lot closer to Amsterdam than we thought. So we may move to there and then troy would commute 45min to Rotterdam. I will keep you all updated of course. It rained all day yesterday so we didn't see much. The weather here seems to be about 50-60 degrees. And its cloudy and raining but after my snow storm in Chicago this is wonderful!

Visa Run

Today we headed out to Singapore. We flew out of the brand new Bangkok airport. It was much nicer than the old airport, of course since it is new it had its bugs-so we left an hour past schedule. We flew on Thai Airlines, which as of right now is my favorite airline. There is about one flight attendant to every 25 people. They wore beautiful silk uniforms and everything was decorated beautifully. But by having so many staff on board- I had a hot washcloth to wash my hands and face with in the first 10min after take off. Then we were feed with in the first 30 min, all you wanted to drink (alcohol, sodas, tea, etc), and there was a pillow for everyone, and blankets for all who wanted one. They also made sure you had enough to drink the whole time. We got a movie with headphones for free. Now if you have been flying lately you will know that they nickel and dime you for everything these days so it was refreshing to just get what you needed or wanted. And no this flight we did not fly business class this was the wonderful service in economy seating. Ok enough with the free advertisement for Thai Airlines.

Once we got into Singapore we got a taxi to our new hotel called the Meritus Mandarin Hotel http://www.mandarin-singapore.com/accommodation/premier_room .htm and it is amazing. It is about $400 dollars a night for just the premier room. It has a lot nicer rooms than that. I loved our room because it came with those really nicer leather reclining massage chairs. Which is good since I am not getting my Thai massage every night here.

The city its self is so clean. It does have few strict rules- (the below are 1st offenses!)

1. No chewing non-prescription gum ($500/fine)
2. Not flushing a public toilet ($750/fine)
3. Swearing ($1000/fine)
4. Vandalism (fine to fix damage and public caning)
5. Homosexual acts (life in prison-doesn't this seem a little strange that all the men who like men get put in small cells together!)-Only men as of now Singapore doesn't acknowledge girl on girl action as being a bad thing.
6. Owning/taking/selling drugs (death)
7. Murder (death)

They do one execution a week! So we were on our best behavior. It was a nice change not having to worry about carrying a purse or walking late at night. There are no bad areas of town. We were thinking this would be a good place to move once kids are almost teens some day!

And so it begins

My new life...At
least that's what it seems like. Today I officially became a world traveler. Troy
and I left on a flight from Chicago to Bangkok on Friday afternoon. The
ride was very long; we spent 20hrs in the plane. Luckily for us that
UOP puts us in business class for all flights over 12hrs. Business class
was awesome! I felt like I just laid around in bed all day. The seats
were so big I could sit cross-legged in them. It was a big recliner; I
couldn't even kick the seat in front of me. Since the recliner part
included my legs to go up it really was like being in bed all day. I
watched three movies and my first 6 episodes of House (thanks Mandy!).
It really made the time fly by. Plus we got meals every 3-4hrs and all
the snacks and drinks we wanted. They provide all the business class
with these little gift bags that have an eye pillow, booties,
toothbrush, toothpaste, Kleenex, lotion and ear plugs in them. So we
had pretty much everything we could have needed. I also brought my
computer and movies to watch, play station portable, magnetic chess,
and cards. So we just played and watched movies all day. My best bring
was my new iGO which I would recommend to anyone wanting to fly long
distances. An iGO is an adapter for all of your electronic stuff. It
has AC/DC/Empower adapters; our flight was Empower so I was able to run
my computer off of that the entire time. No worries about batteries. We
landed in Bangkok, Thailand at 12am on Sunday morning. Then we met up
with Mike, another UOP person. We all loaded up in a van and drove to
Rayong. Our hotel was very nice. It has some odd things in it. You have
to push a button in the bathroom and then wait 45 minutes for the hot
water. You can't drink water out of the faucets so we have bottled
water. And all of the door entryways are either elevated or dropped,
this prevents you from stepping on the entry way- it's a sacred thing
here. I hope to find out why sometime.