I got to the airport plenty early for my flight. The check in area was a little confusing, but I found the right counter eventually. Check-in itself happened in under 1 minute, and I remembered to ask for a window seat.

The KWI airport is much better than the Riyadh airport to kill some time in, though still not spectacular. There are a few restaurants, including a McD's and a PizzaHut combo. Duty free shops are generous, too, and I thought about getting some Arab-style oil-based colognes but didn't know enough about what I was looking at. I bought a few cigars.

We had to wait outside the actual boarding area until well past the boarding time, which presented a crowded situation. When the flight was ready to board we went through security, then instead of being able to wait in the gate area proceeded to board. Boarding was generally well-organized.

The flight back was in the dark, so I couldn't see much, and I dozed on and off.

Arrival at Sharjah was fine. We took a bus a very short distance to the terminal, then proceeded to the same immigration station that I dealt with last night. There was the same problem of many young 25-year old locals socializing more than they were dealing with visitors. Luckily I was in a fast lane and only waited 10 minutes.

Once through immigration I tried to get money out of two ATMs but my card was rejected for some reason. This had happened to me several times in the mideast in general even though my account had plenty of money in it; not sure if these ATMs were on a separate network or what.

As a favor to my host in Dubai (in al Safa) I stopped by duty free and picked up some beer and wine, again surprised that the dry emirate of Sharjah has alcohol at all.

The wait for a taxi was nearly 10 minutes in the midst of a poorly organized, amorphous body of fellow waiters. Once in, we sped off into the night.