The Dubai Diaries
My life as a flight attendant in the Middle East!

July Roster

After an absolutely delightfully easy roster this month, it’s back to regular flying in July. I’m at the bottom of the seniority rotation, and should have been on reserve, but somehow managed to get a pretty normal roster.

On an exciting note, I’ve been put on the inaugural A380 flight to Vienna on the 1st of July! If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you may remember that I used to live in Austria before moving to Dubai (for 6 years, although not in Vienna) so I am excited to be heading back! I get rostered plenty of flights to Germany and Switzerland being a German Speaker, but very rarely to Vienna!

Other than that I’ll be heading off to:

  • VIE (Vienna, Austria, the inaugural A380 flight, I’m hoping for a water canon salute when we land!)
  • SIN (Singapore)
  • DEL (Dehli, India, a shortish turnaround)
  • ZRH (Zurich, Switzerland)
  • DOH (Doha, Qatar, one of the shortest turnaround flights we have – about 45 minutes each way!)
  • ZRH (Zurich, Switzerland)
  • BHX (Birmingham, UK)
  • JFK (New York, USA)

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Only 2 turnarounds this month, and relatively short ones which is not too bad. I even have one new destination, Birmingham, which I was rostered to fly to a while back but never ended up going (I can’t remember why, I think I swapped it or must have been off sick!). Any suggestions for what to do there are most welcome, as I’m fairly sure most of the crew just go shopping!

My JFK flight is one of the tougher ones, as it’s around a 13-14 hour flight each way, and only a 24 hour layover! I’ll still try and get out and do as much as I can, especially as it should hopefully be nice and warm there.

I’m looking forward to another month of flying, and of course I’ll keep you updated in case of any swaps!

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

Sunshine & Aperol in Bologna, Italy

It was an early start for my flight to Bologna, and we left Dubai on time at 9am. The cabin was less than half full in business class, which made for a nice and easy flight, and we landed into sunny Bologna in the early afternoon, ready to explore!

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It was the first time for all of us, since it’s a relatively new destination for Emirates, so a big group of us set out to see what the city has to offer.

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On Safari in Nairobi National Park

Sometimes I have to pinch myself and remember just how lucky I am to have not only a job I love, but also get paid to travel the world at the same time. When I got my roster last month and got sent a swap for Nairobi, there was little doubt in my mind about accepting it.

Africa is a continent that I’ve explored so little of, and it’s been a dream of mine for a long time now to be able to go on a safari. I was really hoping that there would a be a few more crew on the flight who were also up for it, as I was a little apprehensive about potentially exploring Nairobi alone.

Luckily for me, I wasn’t the only one who wanted to see some animals!

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After a nice flight that was just under 5 hours, we arrived in the capital of Kenya. A few of us arranged with the concierge what time our safari driver would pick us up in the morning, and headed up to the bar for a drink before calling it a night.

The next morning we were up at sunrise. The drive to Nairobi National Park was a short one, as it’s only located around 7km from the city centre. The park itself covers an area of 117km2, which is actually relatively small in comparison to most of Africa’s national parks.

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A stroll through Notting Hill

I’m not a London girl, but I don’t complain (much) when I get a flight to Heathrow as it usually means a trip home to see my parents. This time around however, they were on holiday, so I decided to make the most of the spring weather and head into London town.

Myself and one of the other girls from the flight, Kamila, jumped on the tube and since she used to live in London, I let her do the navigating!

We got out at Bayswater, which is just one stop along the tube line from Notting Hill Gate, and had a lovely stroll through the streets, enjoying the beautiful sunny weather and fresh air.

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Exploring Belém

After our fantastic day out to Sintra, it was time to explore a little more of Lisbon. When doing research about Portugal before our holiday, I’d read so much about the famous egg tarts, and there was one place in particular that kept popping up – Pastéis de Belém.

The delicious custardy tarts were originally created by 18th century monks at the Jerónimos Monstery (which we also visited), as at the time large quantities of egg-whites were used for starching the clothes in the monastery. This led to a lot of leftover egg yolks, which were then made into cakes and pastries. The monks started to sell the “pastéis de nata” to secure a small income, and when the monastery was later closed, the recipe was sold to the nearby sugar refinery, whose owners opened the Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém in 1837.

So it was decided – a trip to Belém was in order. Luckily the Pastéis de Belém shop is not the only attraction there, we also set out to visit the incredible Jerónimos Monastery, as well as the Torre de Belém.

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After a quick ride on the tram, we (along with seemingly every other tourist in Lisbon) arrived in Belém. Our first stop was to visit the monastery, which with all of the incredible turrets and architecture, is very easy to spot.

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