RTA Anniversary - Free Metro and Bus Ride for Today!

Clean sheets, phone in silent mode, and silicone ear plugs are the secrets to my recipe for a long and satisfying good night sleep. You see, mosques are scattered all around Dubai and if your apartment happens to be situated right across one, you would often find your self waking up to a male singing voice radiating over a loudspeaker, which can be quite unpleasant if you don't understand why they are doing that. This is why peeps in Dubai find an effective sleeping routine to maintain a regular and normal life.

My methods are effective and this morning it was too effective that I slept through the alarm and missed our company bus.

According to Google maps, the distance from my place to the office is 6.8 km and it takes around 15 min of travel. This is probably true if you run 120 mph all the way from Muraqabat to Al Quoz but for normal cars and buses it takes at least 30 min to an hour depending on the heaviness of traffic.

Without my own means of transportation, I had to take a train and a bus ride plus a few minutes of walking so I went to the train station and loaded my NOL card with 10 Dirhams, just enough for a one way trip.

As expected, there was a huge crowd waiting on queue to board the train but what I didn't expect was to get a free ride on both the Metro and the bus. As it turns out, today is the anniversary of RTA, the Road Transportation Authority of Dubai and to celebrate another year of their existence, they are giving all NOL card holders free rides on the Metro, RTA buses and RTA boats for today only, Nov 1, 2011.

What a great coincidence to compensate for my tardiness!!! :)