Chapter 17: When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It

So now we come to a turning point in our European journey. You will of course recall that the ultimate reason Rachel and I were traipsing across this continent was to bide time while my company set up its new office in London. In September I was informed that these plans had been put on hold indefinitely, and could we please move to their current office in Dubai?

Rachel and I had many many discussions about this proposal, not a small number of which centered on the fact that dogs can’t fly in cabin into the UAE. Thus, the move necessitated a convoluted 24-hour odyssey, flying from Prague to Istanbul to Muscat (Oman), then being driven by an eye-wateringly expensive car service for a 7-hour trek through Oman to Dubai.

This was the tip of the iceberg, as you can’t just tote a dog into middle Eastern countries with a microchip and a smile. We’d have to acquire a special permit to import Lily into Oman, which – wouldn’t you know it – needed to be applied for and picked up in person before the dog arrives in the country, necessitating the hire of an expensive local emissary to grease the wheels. Then we needed a pet export permit from Oman, and another pet import permit to the UAE…

So, we made our arrangements, and then we made some more, and fervently hoped that the UAE border control didn’t have any problems accepting an American dog with a French pet passport and Czech health certificate, transiting through Turkey and Oman with its owners who got their PCR tests in Czechia and their EU COVID QR codes in Germany based on vaccinations from two different states in the US.

Well, I won’t leave you in suspense. I think I speak for Rachel and Lily and myself when I say that none of us ever want to make that journey again, but we made it to Dubai.

We went to the Dubai Mall on our first weekend, wearing blue jeans and threadbare t-shirts and ratty tennis shoes stained the color of a dozen European capitals. We ambled past the guarded, velvet-roped parking area near the mall’s front doors, reserved for (and stuffed with) shiny Lamborghinis, and we chuckled.

Yeah, we definitely fit in here.