My first week in Dubai!

Sorry it’s taken me so long to finally write a new blog post, I’ve been so busy with induction week and getting everything sorted out, and at the moment I don’t have wifi in my apartment so I’m in an internet cafe around the corner from our apartment block!

I’ll start off with what happened after my last blog post at Vienna airport. I boarded the plane and once we had taken off one of the stewards came and brought me a glass of champagne! It was such a lovely touch and made me feel so welcome! After the meal they also came and got me and showed me around the plane, even taking me up to business and first class, which is just absolutely amazing! I definitely need to find a man who can afford to buy first class tickets, haha!
Once we had arrived in DXB I was met by the Marhaba meet and greet service and met up with all the other people who were waiting to go through together. I got chatting to some of the other girls and also found my flatmate Naomi, who is really lovely! After going through immigration and getting everything sorted out, we were taken to our apartments. Ours is huge! We have a nice kitchen, huge hall, and a really big living/dining room area with two big sofas and a big table and chairs. We both have our own bedrooms (massive comfy beds!) and a shared bathroom and another toilet, so plenty of space!

On Saturday we spent the day unpacking and getting some food shopping done. We were provided with a “starter pack” which had some food in but we needed to get some staples as well. We have a “small” mall about 10 minutes walk away called the Sahara Mall (which we have now found out is actually in Sharjah, one of the other emirates!) where we bought a few things like an iron, kettle, coat hangers and that kind of thing.

Sunday was our first day of induction. 6:30am pick up, which meant getting up at 5 to get our full face of make-up on, hair all done up in a bun and down outside the apartment at 6:15 to make sure we get on the bus. We are the first stop though so even if gets really full we can get on. We had lots of introduction talks, filling out forms and that kind of thing, and were finally home sometime around 5 or 6pm!

Monday and Tuesday were still both induction days spent in the Headquartes, and we also got our medicals done. All sorts of things like blood tests, height and weight, eye tests, etc. We still had the 6:30am pick-ups, but were finished aournd 3 or 3:30.

Wednesday was our first day in the training college (as opposed to Headquarters), and when we got there and saw the airplane shaped building it finally felt real! I still can’t believe that I’m actualy living the dream and being paid to travel the world!

We finished early on Wednesday so another girl who is in our group called Michelle, who is so lovely and I get on really well with, and I decided to go to the Dubai Mall!! As we had been quite busy we hadn’t really had a chance to actually go into the centre of Dubai yet, and so this was pretty exciting for us! Once we were there we just couldn’t stop staring at the skyscrapers and amazing buildings, and inside the mall we were not dissapointed! The aquarium is so huge, we can’t wait to come back and walk through the tunnel. We shopped around  bit and got some candles for our apartments, and had some dinner. In the evening we then went just outside the mall to the Dubai Fountain, and watched the amazing light and water show! It was so good and we both felt quite emotional watching it!

Thursday was another full day at training college, and as Friday and Saturday is the weekend here we all (literally pretty much the whole group, about 90 pepople) decided to go out. We went to a place called Barasti, which is a beach club/bus/restaurant. It was so much fun and we had such a good night!

Today has been spent catching up on sleep (yes, I slept til 4pm and feel no shame) and getting something to eat!

Sorry about the long post, but I am having an amazing time so far and not regretting coming here at all! Best decision of my life!