Amsterdam in the sunshine

If you read my August roster post, you would have seen that I was rostered to fly to LHR this month. Since I went home for 5 days at the end of June, and the timings of the Heathrow flight weren’t ideal to go home, when I was sent a swap for Amsterdam, I decided to accept it! It also meant I could have a lie-in before the flight… 😉

We landed into Amsterdam early evening, and were greeted by the most beautiful sunset. I felt like we deserved it after a very hectic full flight!

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Once we got to the hotel a group of us met downstairs in the restaurant for dinner, and discussed plans for the next day. I’ve been to Amsterdam plenty of times (including before working for Emirates) so I wasn’t particularly fussed about doing much. However the weather forecast looked great and it’s a shame not to enjoy European summer whilst it lasts, so we made plans to head to the city in the morning.

6 of us took the train into the city, and after a short ride were ready to do some exploring! Out of all of the others, I think there was only 1 other person who’d been before, so as you can imagine everyone was stopping to take pictures every few metres. Myself and one of the lovely girls from economy, Sarah (who also reads my blog – yay!) split off and made our way through the windy streets.

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I loved passing by all of the cute cafés (as well as some slightly dodgier “coffeeshops” – we are in Amsterdam after all!) and little boutiques.

We made our way towards the canals, which was what Sarah wanted to see. I’m always happy to get some more pictures along the rows of bikes and boats!

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The weather was so beautiful, sunshine and blue skies with barely a cloud in sight.

We strolled across the bridges over the canals, stopping to look in every pretty homeware shop or boutique we saw.

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I think I found my favourite shop ever tucked away here – full of plants, gorgeous glass vases, ornaments and all sorts of trinkets just perfect to add some more clutter to my apartment! Somehow I walked away empty-handed, although that was purely because I didn’t want to take the risk of transporting beautiful glass vases back in my suitcase. (Although bottles of wine seem to usually manage just fine wrapped in some clothes!)

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We strolled some more through the pretty streets, trying to decide on a café to stop at for coffee and cake.

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Finally after a lot of walking back and forth, we decided on a cute little café. Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be a free table outside anywhere in the city (obviously everyone else had the same idea as us!) so we sat inside.

Sarah went for a delicious apple pie, while I chose a carrot cake. Since we both wanted to try and get a bit of sleep before our night flight home, we opted for tea rather than coffee. Very British! 😉

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Slowly we made our way back towards the train station, stopping for a few postcards along the way.

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It’s a shame we didn’t have longer as I could have spent hours exploring all of the cute little shops along the canals!

A quick train ride later and we were back in the hotel, ready for a nap before the flight home. Once again we got to witness a beautiful sunset at the airport, just before our passengers boarded.

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Thankfully the flight was a bit quieter than the day before as we were flying through the night, so most of our passengers went to sleep straight after the dinner service.

We landed back into Dubai safe and sound, just in time for the weekend!

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P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! 🙂

P.p.s Hi to Sarah’s mum if you’re reading this!

6 Comments

  1. Cláudia
    August 25, 2016 / 2:02 pm

    Hi Rachel! I found your blog and I’m in love! Thank you for spending time on it!

    I’m Portuguese and I’m 20 years old. I know that they only want 21 and above, but since I have experience in customer service (working as a sales assistant at Timberland, among other places), do you think they can consider me? I turn 21 in July 2017.

    Hug from Portugal,
    Cláudia Lima da Silva

    • thedubaidiaries
      Author
      August 25, 2016 / 7:58 pm

      Hi Claudia! So glad you enjoy reading my blog 🙂 I would suggest waiting until shortly before your 21st birthday (or after depending when there is an open day) to apply. They will definitely not make any exceptions so it’s not worth it to apply before that! Good luck and let me know if you need any tips nearer the time 🙂 xx

  2. Nellie
    August 22, 2016 / 8:42 pm

    Hi Rachel!

    I’ve read your blog for about 6 months and I follow you on Instagram. Working for Emirates seems fantastic. I work as a flight attendant in Sweden, I love everything about the job. I love chatting with the passengers, making the children happy and having fun with my crew onboard. When I started this job 2-3 months ago I didn’t have high expectations, mainly because I know that it’s a harder job these days than 10-20 years ago. We almost only have turn around a except for a few layovers within Scandinavia and London. But it doesn’t matter to me, because I love what I’m doing even though it’s very busy with 5-6 legs per day. I could start to fly long haul for my company within a year, we have 24-26h-stops on our destinations in Asia and the U.S. That would of course be very exciting, we fly Boeing 737 within Europe and Airbus 330 on long haul flights.

    Since I applied for my company I’ve always had Emirates in the back of my mind. I even dream that I work for Emirates. It’s seems so much fun with crew from all over the world. And not to mention all the cultures! Wow!!!

    Do you think it’s a bigger chance for to get a job for Emirates if I fly long haul for my company first? After reading your blog I understand that you most often fly long flights and just have a few turnarounds every month?

    Thank you!!!
    Xxx Nellie

    • thedubaidiaries
      Author
      August 23, 2016 / 12:48 pm

      Hi Nellie! Thanks so much for reading, I’m so happy to hear you like my blog! I honestly don’t think it would make much difference if you fly long haul or not when it comes to applying for Emirates, I think any experience is better than none and they won’t really take into account the type/length of flights you do! However just from personal choice I would say definitely go for long haul as it’s so much more fun having layovers in new cities! Good luck and let me know if you have any questions when you apply 🙂 xx

  3. Lars
    August 22, 2016 / 1:02 pm

    I hope you enjoyed Amsterdam!! You have a nice blog!

    • thedubaidiaries
      Author
      August 23, 2016 / 12:43 pm

      Thanks Lars, glad you like it! 🙂

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