Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

To Dubai - 20th April

As you can tell from the photo above we haven’t quite made it to France so the countdown of our 69 cheese obsession experiences hasn’t yet begun.  However my obsession with airport and in-flight food has.

Nelson to Auckland: We can’t understand why airlines feel the need to serve a snack and two drinks for short domestic flight. But hey it’s on offer so why not consume the biscuit, fudge and sweets.

Auckland Airport: Empty stomach (fudge worn off walking to the International Terminal), so large monetary outlay made for small hot chips and 2 drinks, still hungry.

Auckland to Dubai: this is my first time flying Emirates and I was impressed; any airline that can serve perfect salmon fillets that were probably prepared hours before reaching my tray table is amazing. Roger however had a slightly different experience. While researching Emirates 15 plus meal options he may have inadvertently clicked on diabetes diet. This had its advantages in that he got served before everybody else; however the down side is he got less food and what he did get had the goodness sucked from it. I wondered if the flight attendant noticed his beverages weren’t low sugar.
I was highly amused that most of the food packaging was seniors’ proof.  The not so young couple sitting next to me, one had arthritic hands andthe other forgot his glasses, tried several methods to open the pressurised plastic bags containing cakes. The most successful way was stabbing it in mid air with a fork, resulting in an explosion of the contents onto the rest of the meal splattering them and me.
2 bags per meal x 2 people x 2 meals per flight = 8 Piñata food episodes. [Ed:Click here if you're confused...]

Dubai:  My food critique comes from our venture into the old part of Al Seef. We were brought here on a geocache mission, the cache itself was a fail, but yet again geocaching helped us to discover places we may never have known about. We found out the next day that the cache wasn't there as it had been apprehended by security.
People normally associate Dubai with the prestigious $1,200+ a night beachfront luxury hotels, however for us it’s the back streets of old Dubai where you can explore places by the river on foot or in a boat.
We caught a ferry across the river, turn left off the boat you get new Al Seef, turn right you get old Al Seef (see picture at the top of the page).
Old Al Seef is known for its alleys of tourist markets of cashmere, caftans and cuddly camels, dining nightlife and river promenades. Nearing the end of Ramadan the Kiwi tourists could still get some limited food options, blessed by the nearby prayer rooms in session.
Photos below show my mint drink and Roger’s Turkish coffee and three cheeses flat bread with potato crisp topping, either he is in training for France or making up for his diabetic plane meals. 

21st April Lyon
Dubai to Lyon:  Pre flight we had breakfast at the airport as it was 6.30am. A can of sprite cost AED 20 = NZD $8.80. An AED in NZ is an automated external defibrillator, definitely needed one as in town the same can cost AED 2.50 = NZD$1.10. That’s airport charges for you. Fanta in town costs 25 cents extra as it carries an additional 10% tax. On researching why Fanta costs more I found out that Dubai has a sugar tax on sweetened drinks, something NZ keeps debating.
Roger managed to change his in-flight food to full fat and Emirates didn’t fail to deliver check out my profiteroles.