Flying due north out of Seattle, our Emirates flight would be crossing over the north pole.  Thanks to Rocky for that information who has taken this flight to Dubai several times.   As we were saying goodbye to little Ivy yesterday before we left, we told her that we were going to be flying past the north pole.  She wanted us to keep our eyes open for Rudolph the red nosed reindeer flying next to our plane.  We looked while we were going by but sure didn’t see either Rudolph or Santa Claus.

We arrived in Dubai after a nice Looooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnngggggggg flight.  After more than 14 hours on the plane we were in little mood to explore Dubai.  We headed to the Emirates business lounge where we hung out for the next 4 hours.  We saw very few women inside the lounge.  Weird.  The lounge had free food and drinks, showers available, and even sleeping sections which we tried to take advantage of (without much success).  I would describe the Dubai airport as a series of really nice and long Quonset huts.

Before long we were on our next plane and headed to Milan where we arrived at 8:30 Saturday night.  After a 40 minute and $125 taxi ride we arrived a little before 10 pm Italy time at Hotel Galileo, our home for the next six days.

Though absolutely dog tired, we (as good little hummingbirds do) headed out to explore the culinary delights of the area.  We discovered Mozzarella Basilico Trattoria Pizzeria.

We sampled a couple of their wood fired pizzas and a couple glasses of their house red and we were ready to head back to our new temporary home for some sleep.  At this point in time Doug and Barb are winging their way towards us and will arrive in Dubai in about another 8 hours and then show up here in about 21 or 22 hours.  We can’t wait until they get here.