holy cow, how terribly embarassing. thanks for all your very helpful info. i don't know how but i got the doha and dubai airports mixed up, and then everything went downhill from there. perhaps we will just stay home and watch it from the tv, altho i was pretty excited to watch rossi and spies go at it in person. we haven't made any reservations yet, my bf works for the airlines so we get discounted tickets and have to go stand-by. maybe we'll do this next year.

thank you again everyone for your help. :)

ps - marais, awesome bike pic!