I left Oman on April 25. I had to hang around in the empty villa (my latest villamate was away on a school excursion) until 2:00pm. Luckily, this time gave me the chance to catch up with an old friend and colleague who happened to be working in Oman. We chatted a bit at my villa and then later, my Arabic tutor came by to drop off a big heavy bag which I later discovered was filled with not only a huge box of dates, but also a bottle of what I think is date syrup.

Finally, 2:00 came and I got a call from Mohammed, a nice taxi driver I had met earlier in the week. In Oman, it is fairly common to get the phone numbers of taxi drivers and then call them again if you need a ride. I waited a little bit at the Muscat airport, then flew 1.5 hours to the Dubai airport. One interesting thing I learned is that they broadcast the call to prayer in airports in the middle east. I heard it in Muscat and then again in Dubai.

The Dubai airport is huge; after landing, I had to take a minibus shuttle for a 5-10 minute ride to the other side. Inside the terminal, there are three floors and lots of duty-free and souvenir shopping. I bought a neck pillow that has pictures of camels on it (and which turned out to be a good investment, since it helped me sleep on the next plane).

After considering dinner at an Irish pub recommended to me by two random people, I decided instead to eat at an international buffet at some other restaurant (the Irish pub was too smoky). The buffet was expensive but not worth it, though I at least got the chance to try a bunch of tiny desserts. If you are ever waiting in the Dubai airport, don’t bother paying the 99 dirham ($28) for the dinner buffet at the hotel restaurant. It is unremarkable at best.

After a 6 hour layover, during which we had to do a fairly thorough security check involving some kind of chemical sensor wands, I got on the plane for a 14 hour flight to Washington D.C.

In D.C., customs was kind of a hassle. The U.S. now uses computer kiosks that scan your passport and ask a few questions. I was bringing back a ton of dates, so I had to answer “Yes” to the question about whether I was bringing back fruits. I then got a printed customs receipt with a big X on it, meaning I had to go through a certain line for more discussion. The customs dude had to go through all of my bags (4) and partially unpack stuff. He swore it was not related to the dates, but was a random check. I’ve always wondered if customs will repack your stuff after messing it all up, but of course the answer is “No.” You have to awkwardly repack it in a hurry. The customs guy was nice enough, but occasionally asked hard-nosed questions like “You have a lot of souvenirs; how much did this all cost?” Way less than the $500 limit, copper! I only by cheap crap for souvenirs. Also “You have a lot of medicine in different places, what’s with that?” Uh, do you mean the over-the-counter aspirin and prescription diarrhea pills which I luckily didn’t have to use?

Anyway, my baggage was not deemed a risk to American security, so I passed through to re-check my bags. Then, I went though security again, complete with taking off shoes and removing laptops and standing, hands-up, in that weird body scanner. I gathered most of my stuff at the other end of the x-ray machine, but realized that my carry-on backpack was being held back. The security lady brought it over to me to look through it, and it was only then that I realized I had idiotically packed a souvenir khanjar in it.

I think I was so preoccupied with wondering if I could get the dates through customs that I forgot that a khanjar is a replica of a weapon. By the way, none of the other security checks (or the customs check) made any remarks about the khanjar. However, of course it couldn’t go with me in the cabin of the plane, so I had to be escorted back through the line to check it, which meant I then had to come through security again and do all the same checks I had just finished.

However, after that I only had to wait about 40 minutes to board the plane to Charlotte, which was another 1 hour flight. My parents picked me up at the airport and my journey was complete! Except for unpacking all my crap.

In total, my trip home probably took around 24 hours, including waiting, flight time, and layovers. It was nice to be back!