At Abu Dhabi.

We boarded the Etihad flight EY284 around 4 and reached Abu Dhabi by a quarter past 6 local time(about 11/2 hours behind IST). After the checking out formalities were over, we walked into our accommodation at the Premiere Inn Abu Dhabi International Hotel.

The walk was a pretty long one through the duty free shops and other services.

We spent time in our room 309. Lunch was on the dot at 1230 hrs followed by siesta. Got up at a half past 4, had coffee made by me and the six of us - Anil-Radha, Vijayakumar-Anitha and Lekha and I went on a drive towards the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and took in quite a few breathtaking sights and covered it through photography.

A pow wow in Anil-Radha’s room followed by dinner and a short rest. At a half past 11, after checking out from the hotel we took a fairly long trudge to our boarding point. At the immigration counter there were erratic electronic readers and brusque, unsmiling security guys who were unhelpful.

Anyways, we were waiting at Gate 58 for our turn to board as the day passed to the new.