Our trip to the Persian Gulf starts on a Thursday morning at Amsterdam's train station. Backed by hurricane-force winds, our high-speed ICE international train takes us to Düsseldorf, Germany in only two comfortable hours. There, we proceed to the gleaming airport and check in for AIDA's non-stop charter flight to Dubai.  

As my four friends and I have a couple of hours to spare, we take a taxi to Düsseldorf's city center where we enjoy a wet and windy shopping spree. The fact that most shops seem to close at 5.00 PM surprises us, but it is not until we reach the train station that we find out that hurricane Kyrill is coming our way. With all train traffic in the whole of Germany coming to a complete standstill, it takes forever to find a taxi to bring us back to a seemingly deserted airport. With a delay of more than three hours and hardly any inflight catering, the fully loaded LTU Airways Airbus A330 takes off around midnight. One sandwich, one Coke and a few sleepless hours later, the sun rises sensationally over the mountains of Iran and Dubai is on the horizon.