Sunday, 3rd August - Abu Dhabi

Sunday, 3rd August - Abu Dhabi

Almost the first thing we see off the plane is a smoking booth. It’s packed. It makes me wonder why our society doesn’t similarly cater to its addicts.

The hotel demands an extra half day of rent to take a shower. This becomes annoying when the lights in the bathroom don’t work - I don’t care so much but Adeline’s night vision is famously poor and she can’t get anything done in the near-darkness. The repairman goes to an anonymous-looking plate on the wall, reveals that it flips up, and resets the circuit breaker. I’m not sure how I was supposed to figure that out but I still feel like an idiot. I thought that plate looked screwed down.

The room itself, though, looks quite pleasant.

For the duration of our stay in the United Arab Emirates Adeline is following local custom by pretending to be my obedient muslim wife. She’s walking two paces behind, deferring to me, not arguing and being meek. She can manage this for about thirty seconds at a time before she breaks character and gets bossy again. Her wedding ring threatens to get stuck and doom me to matrimony for real, or at least an eternal version of fake matrimony, if it can’t be removed.

Having everyone talk to me and ignore Adeline is weird and upsetting. If it was my call I might ignore the social norms and push the locals out of their comfort zone, but Adeline’s determined to blend in. I’m not convinced anyone’s fooled.