Chapter 21: Du-Bye

On January 17, a drone attack killed three people and wounded six at the Abu Dhabi International airport, about 70 miles south of our apartment in downtown Dubai. The attack was claimed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels based in Yemen; the UAE has troops based in Yemen and backs a Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis.

The coalition responded the next day by bombing camps in the Houthi-occupied Yemen city of Sanaa, killing 12.

On the following Monday, the UAE, aided by US Patriot interceptor missiles, destroyed two ballistic missiles flying towards Abu Dhabi, fired from Yemen. Houthis again claimed responsibility, and said they targeted Abu Dhabi’s Dhafra airbase as well as “vital and important” locations in the Dubai area. (No attacks on Dubai were reported by the UAE).

“We are ready to expand the operation during the next phase and confront escalation with escalation,” said Iran-aligned Brigadier General Yahya Saree.

Rachel and I visited the mosque in Abu Dhabi on Saturday the 29th.

The next Monday, the UAE again used Patriot missiles to intercept and destroy a ballistic missile fired from Yemen as Israeli president Isaac Herzog visited Abu Dhabi. It is unknown whether the missile was targeting Abu Dhabi or Dubai. Saree claimed, without evidence, “We hit specific and important targets in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi with a number of ballistic missiles, as well as sensitive targets in the Emirate of Dubai…the UAE enemy state will remain unsafe as long as the tools of the Israeli enemy remain in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, launching aggression against our dear country.”

Two days later, the UAE intercepted three hostile drones over UAE airspace. The attack was claimed by an Iraqi group named Awliya al-Waad al-Haq, in retaliation for the Emirates’ policies in Iraq and Yemen, raising the possibility of the UAE now being targeted by Iraq to the north and Yemen to the south. (Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr condemned the attack.)

Nobody in Dubai appeared to be worried about this incipient regional tension, although Rachel and I agreed that living in the literal shadow of the tallest building in the world maybe wasn’t ideal – the Burj Khalifa and attached world-famous Dubai Mall would appear to make a tempting target.

Rachel and I weren’t particularly happy living in Dubai anyway, paying $15 for a pint of beer at a restaurant while elbowing through Gucci-clad tourists and botoxed, augmented Instagrammers, and had quickly realized that it wasn’t for us long-term. In January I had a talk with my boss about returning to working remotely, and he agreed to allow us to work from Europe, where we would be just a short flight away. We definitely wanted to leave before the 115-degree summer days set in, and were now becoming worried about airport disruption in the event of future missile attacks, so in mid-February we prepared to leave.

We decided to go to Ireland for three months, chiefly because it’s not a member of the Schengen area. Schengen is a jurisdiction of 26 European countries which share border controls, the upshot being that non-EU tourists can only spend 90 total days out of every 180 within its aggregate borders. The bloc includes such tourist hotspots as France, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands, so Schengen time is carefully parceled out and rationed among long-term travelers, even down to the night. While part of the EU, Ireland has opted out of Schengen in favor of its own 90-day tourist visa, meaning we would get three blissful months just to discover an island the size of Indiana, with no impact on any future continental travel days.

Furthermore, while we’d never been to the “Emerald Isle”, it seemed the most welcome respite possible for us at this point. Four months spent in arid, dusty, brown Dubai, where hoteliers watered their outdoor gardens with bottled water, had caused us to gaze longingly at every lake, ocean, waterfall, and rainforest that flickered across our TV screen. Johnny Cash wrote 40 Shades of Green while enchanted with Ireland on a trip in 1959, and we wanted to see every one of those 40 shades. Good enough for Johnny, good enough for me.

So, once again, we prepared ourselves for an intercontinental trip during COVID with a dog – no small task. Airline tickets, AirBnbs, transportation research, heartworm treatment, pet airline travel rules, pet passport validation, pet export documentation, pet import documentation, airport pet relief areas, PCR tests, CDC card acceptance rules, vaccine expiration rules (Rachel wasn’t boosted), mask rules, EU country COVID entry regulations, EU country COVID transit regulations, SIM cards, baggage weighing, clothing donation, more baggage weighing, currency exchange kiosks, cleaning.

In the end it was Lily’s weight which almost derailed us. The maximum weight for a pet flying in-cabin is 8 kilograms, about 17 pounds. She weighs about one pound over that, but she can’t fly in the cargo hold due to her short-nosed breed, so we usually just chance it. We’ve never had a gate attendant weigh her, but they did leaving Dubai, asking us to place her on the luggage conveyor belt and causing us to hold our breath. The young Air France attendant consulted with his superior for a tense back-and-forth exchange until she finally gave us the thumbs-up. Whew.

A brief stopover in Amsterdam, then we walked out of the Dublin airport, breathing the cool wet air.

And the country is so green.