Ethiopian food and the Emperor

Look who is home, but boy was it a process getting him here!

Nero was picked up by the shipper in Rockford at 1pm US time last Tuesday, he then was taken on a two hour car ride to the vet in Palos Heights to get microchipped (a UAE requirement) and his vet exam which he has to have prior to shipping. He spent the night at the vet's and then on Wednesday afternoon had to be examined by the USDA (also a requirement) to get his exit certificate for the US.  Then, Wednesday night he was taken to O'Hare and was on the evening KLM flight to Amsterdam in the special pressurized, temperature controlled animal hold. Thursday morning he arrived in Amsterdam for a two hour layover at the fancy pet hotel that KLM has there which allows him to come out of his crate for a few hours to relax and to break up the long flight. Then mid-morning was the six hour flight to Abu Dhabi arriving here at 8:05pm. Our agent from the vet clinic here met the plane and cleared him through customs which took forever as they couldn't get a UAE vet to come out as it was a holiday here, so we eventually picked him up around 11:30pm. Quite a journey for our poor Nero but after being home for a few days, he seems none the worse for wear. But, wow was he understandably not happy when we picked him up.

 

As we knew ahead of time that it was going to be a very late night, we set the boys up with a pizza and movie, and Matthew and I rented a car. Since we had some time to kill, we decided to make a date of it and do a few things in both Dubai  and Abu Dhabi that have been on our list. We first went to Dubai as (if you can believe it) it is the only place I have found in the UAE to get good kitchen knives sharpened. We were in dire need of getting it done, as anyone who has used dull kitchen knives knows, they can be really dangerous. Several times in the last few weeks it has almost been Knife 5, Fingers 0. More on Dubai in another post, but the short version is neither of us were impressed.

Once in Abu Dhabi, our first stop was some food. We were on the hunt for one of our favourites, Ethiopian food, which you can't get in Al Ain. Matthew and I had one of our first dates at the fantastic Ethiopian place, Ras Dashen, in Uptown in Chicago (anyone who lives there, you must, must go), so we are a little spoilt in the quality department. We had heard about this place, Bonna Anne, on-line and were anxious to try it and they didn't disappoint. It was a little tricky finding the place, but we've got it fixed on our map for future visits of which they will be many as the boys love Ethiopian food as well.

Next stop was the three floor fabric store, Cairo, which I had seen when we were staying in Abu Dhabi when we first arrived in the UAE but didn't get a chance to go to. There aren't really any decent fabric stores in Al Ain and we need to keep supplying the tailor with more things to make for us! We found some great suit materials for Matthew and I found a number of lovely fabrics for skirts and dresses for me.

We still had some time to kill before picking up Nero as the vet hadn't called us yet to say he was cleared, so we were going to head to a few other places that we like to mooch around. But, as December 1st is UAE National Day (more on this later) every street was gridlock and we couldn't get anywhere. It seemed easiest just to head to the airport and wait there and anyway we were too excited about getting our fat friend home to really think about anything else.

 An hour or so later of waiting at the cargo section at the airport, we finally were allowed to get Nero and we let him out of his cage in the car. I sat in the back with him and he decided to sit on my feet for most of the time. He was pretty skittish until Matthew started singing to him which seemed to calm him down (Our silly cat loves the high lonesome sound and they would duet back in Chicago) and it was 1:30am by the time we got back to Al Ain. Yawn. But all of the emailing and arranging and driving was worth it to have our Emperor home.