why i nearly didnt make it to dubai

There is a school right next to my apartment building. And even though I am 18 floors above, every morning I wake up to the bellowing of 200 schoolkids, singing the Egyptian anthem. It's actually scary how fiercely they sing collectively. Also very annoying when you are trying to sleep in.

Fast forward to the morning of my flight to Abu Dhabi, UAE.

At 2am the night before I set my alarm for 6.15am. My flight is at 9am, so I should ideally leave the house at 6.30am, in order to get to the airport for 7am. Doing so, I fall asleep.

In the morning, I am awoken by the sound of the school kids singing down below. In my half-woken state, I wonder hazily to myself, "Goddamn....these kids get to school by 6.15am?!"......then something in me realises that something is amiss here. I open my eyes, check my mobile for the time, and promptly have a heart attack. It's 7.50am!!!!!!

I literally did a kung-fu leap out of bed.

For 20 seconds, I just stood in the middle of my room, hair all wild, my eyes wide open in shock, scanning the room for some direction. What do i do? Omg, what do I do? It would take me 40mins just to get to the airport! Something in my says, "Ah sod it, you've missed the flight...go back to sleep."

But then I quickly call my friend Omar. He picks up the phone and I totally freak out on him. He tells me to just GO. Go downstairs and get into a taxi. So i do that. Within 7minutes of waking up, I was in a taxi. I merely put on some jeans, grabbed my suitcase and ran out. I didn't shower, didn't brush my teeth, didn't change out of the shirt i fell asleep in. I was an abomination. Get into the taxi, and I make Omar tell the cabbie that if he doesnt get me to the airport ASAP somebody gonna get a hurt reaaaal bad.

Amazingly...we make it to the airport in half an hour. 8.30am, and we are there. But then we spend an extra 5 minutes driving around, trying to find my terminal!! At this point I'm hyperventilating. Finally, we find it, throwing a 50 in the taxi drivers face, I run inside, and then waste another 3minutes trying to figure out where the bloody counters are. Who puts counters AFTER the security checkpoint???!! Who?!?!?!?!

8.40am, and a random airport guy breezes me through all the checkpoints, asking me for a tip at the end of course, and finally a quarter to 9 and I am at the boarding gate.

This being the first time I have ever been so late in catching a flight, I am sooo grateful it happened in Cairo. Because only in Egypt, do they let you onto a plane 15mins before departure and not blink an eye. :D