Getting there

I had a very nice flight from Philidelphia to Jeddah on Lufthansa. I left home around 10:30 am on Monday, January 20 and arrived in Franfurt at about 6am local time on Tuesday. The actual flight time was only about six hours. The plane left Philly at about 5pm and flew up the coast so I got to see New York and Cape Cod. It was getting dark around this time so the city was lit up like a Christmas tree. To the west everything was dark and I got more than a little sad thinking my little boys were out there in the dark and I wouldn't be able to see them again for months. The hardest thing about this trip is leaving my family behind. The plane arrived at one end of the airport and my connecting flight was all the way on the other side of the airport (gate C15). The flight attendent directed me to C15 but she didn't tell me the gate was about a mile away from where we landed. Seriously, it was about a mile away and I wasn't able to find a shuttle from one gate to the other. I got a blister on my right foot as I walked through the deserted airport. My new sneakers and Under Armour socks didn't cooperate. Because I was flying business class I was able to use the business class lounge while I waited 5 hours for my connecting flight to Jeddah. That was very nice. Big chairs to sit in and lots of free coffee and snacks. My friends started showing up almost as soon as I sat down so I had some good company while I waited for the next flight. A few of the guys appreciated the free beer that was available next to the coffee. We had a really nice flight to Jeddah. On the way over we crossed some mountains that I assume were the Alps. We crossed the Mediteranean but it was cloudy until we go close to the coast of Egypt. The flight map showed us flying over Cairo but it was too cloudy to see the pyrimids. The sun was also setting about this time so everything below us was very dark. The sunset was spectacular, a very deep red that lit up the clouds. Even though we were in the clouds, the sunset made even them look hot and dusty. I thought this was very appropriate. The clouds disappeared for the last hour of the flight as we flew over the Nile and the Red Sea. I saw the lights of some little towns on the Nile and I thought about how long people must have been living there. Jeddah is a very big city. About 3.5 million people live here. It's lit up like New York at night except there's a lot more neon. As we began our decent over the Red Sea and started the approach to the airport, I thought the city looked very nice. I did notice an insane amount of traffic on the roads below us. It was dark (again) when the plane landed, about 7pm local time. There's no jetway in Jeddah so we walked down some stairs and got onto a bus that took us to the terminal. 10 tired Americans that don't speak Arabic on a bus in Saudi Arabia. What could go wrong?