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It was not hard to choose Dubai as destination for Elma’s and mine honeymoon. Most citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are very limited when it comes to travelling due to visa regime and not so deep pockets. At the time of writing this article only twenty-three countries: Montenegro, Croatia, Former Yugoslav Republic Macedonia, Serbia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, North Korea, Cuba, Malaysia, Mali, Maldives, Russia, Turkey, Singapore, Tunis, Samoa, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Swaziland, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Grenadine Islands and Trinidad and Tobago do not require visa for citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Elma and I wanted not so expensive exotic location where we could enjoy beach and water. Soon, we started to look which tourist agency was giving best deal for Dubai. As we were checking out offers in Tuzla, Sarajevo and web we added another condition: we want to fly out of Sarajevo! See, many agencies are bureaus of companies out of Serbia and Croatia which would mean additional lost time to travel to Belgrade or Zagreb…plus let’s spend domestic if it is possible! After all checks and balances we decided to go with Atlas tours agency who was offering what we considered the best deal.
Departure day came soon. We met Hiba, lady from agency that led the trip, and rest of people that took same deal (I will refer to them as group from now on) around noon. Then we got our tickets, visas and some mini explanation of trip, gave luggage to Turkish Airlines and went for a coffee.
As we were seating in café-bar I saw a person with familiar face. Person looked like Haris, somebody I saw last time in Chicago at least twelve-thirteen years ago. I approached him and asked: "Excuse me; were you in Chicago some time ago?". I received positive nod with little smile that gave away fact that he also recognized me. I introduced him to Elma and then we started conversation that reached many aspects of our lives in last ten or so years. Hour or so later, to Elma’s luck, we got last call for passengers flying to Istanbul.
That flight, Sarajevo-Istanbul, was Elma’s first flight ever. As plane was taking off I started thinking how my friend Lejla had something that could be called panic attack (Lejla is afraid of flying). Elma did not have these problems…she, while enjoying in moments, just curiously looked around and made lovely comments. Once we arrived in Istanbul we had couple of hours before flying to Dubai. We used that time for looking around and Starbucks coffee. If you take into account that in Bosnia and Herzegovina you can’t find Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, KFC, Dunkin Donuts...then even Starbucks coffee can be memorable experience.
Few hours later, after taking Istanbul-Dubai flight, we found ourselves in Dubai. Immediately on airport I learned two things about Emirates and Dubai…rather negative things! First is segregation, racism of sort, and second is sexism. I, idiot, have decided to go with Bosnia and Herzegovina passport so I would not get separated from Elma who only has that passport. It did not take long, or genius, to realize that I made biiiig mistake because European Union and U.S nationals (and small number of others who did not need visa) do not need to go through retina scan. I was explained that retina scan is for "safety reasons". Of course, I got separated from Elma because there was "women only" waiting line. I got into one of the waiting lines and saw sea of people with working visas who came to look for their luck on construction sites in Dubai. I looked toward Elma and saw that "women only" line was much shorter. At that moment I saw one of the people that performs scanning approaching "women only" line and telling last lady in line to follow him. Couple of woman went after him forming another "women only" line. I called Elma and told her to go to newly formed line. Soon after, Elma was joined by rest of ladies from our group. Two officers started to perform retina scan on ladies in newly formed line which made huge disproportion. See, there were three officers on some fifty ladies and four on some two hundred fifty gentlemen!! In addition to that U.S, French, English nationals passed directly to the passport control as they were obviously less of a safety threat. I felt like the last hole on trumpet, like last man on planet, like shit…I damned myself for not bringing U.S passport.
I looked at Elma and she was already sitting in chair ready to be scanned while there were at least fifty people in a front of me. One good thing at that time was that most guys from group were in same line so time was going by rather fast with a lot of dark humor.
I looked toward Elma again and noticed that she is still sitting…then I realized that I will spend whole night on freaking airport because if they need twenty minutes to process Elma and in a front me was fifty people…
To my luck Elma finished shortly after my dark thoughts and brought me information that system was down and it is going decently fast. We agreed that she will wait for me before passport control.
Some hour and fifteen minutes later I got scanned too. As I approached passport control I noticed that Elma is not there…one of the guys from group said that ladies probably went through, picked up luggage and were waiting for us. We went toward passport control and shortly after I found myself in a front of passport control customs officer. I gave him passport, visa and few answers to questions he was asking me. I knew he will drill me when he started looking at my passport under some magnifiers and diverse lights.
Read: Honeymoon in Dubai II
Amela 
Pa rodak , sta ima, nisam ni znala da si se ozenio. I ja sam se vezala lancima u oktobru na moj rodendan i evo cekamo malog Tarika u avgustu ako Bog da. Neka vam je sa srecom i tebi i Elmi. Puno pozdrava.
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