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

Dublin!

My most recent flight was to Dublin and back. The fight itself was so so busy, we literally had about 5 minutes to eat on the way there! Let’s just say the Irish like to drink… 😉
I had a really great crew, so we had a lovely time and 6 of us went out to explore the city (it might have had something to do with the fact that I forced everyone to come to Primark/Penny’s!) – the weather was nice, very very cold but lovely and sunny!

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We got back to the hotel in the evening and I climbed straight into bed and slept until the wake-up call the next morning!

How to be my favourite passenger!

So I’ve now been flying for almost 2 months and I am still absolutely loving it, and feel like I am going on holiday every time I go to work! However I have had the chance to notice a couple of things that are slightly irritating on board, and decided to write a blog post about it! So here goes…:

– Don’t bring hundreds of bags onboard! Do you really need a suitcase, laptop case, handbag, neck pillow, duty free shopping, etc etc etc? Save yourself the hassle of lugging 50 bags down the aisle and just check it in!

– Walk quickly! You have a boarding pass in your hand which has your seat number on it, so go directly to that seat and don’t take half an hour to get there! Also, you definitely do not need to stop at every single row on your way!

– Put your stuff away and sit down! The longer you take to put your bags up in the hatracks the longer boarding takes, because everybody is waiting to go past you. So put your bag up and sit down! It’s not going anywhere and whatever it is that you so urgently need, get it out after the seatbelt sign has gone off!

– Please don’t start asking me for things before we have even finished boarding! As you can see we are very busy and the aisle is still full of people, so if you are really that desperate for a drink you should have brought your own bottle of water! We do actually serve food and drinks, and they are free!

– Sit in your assigned seat. You would think this would be a given, but so many people just take a seat wherever they fancy and then I have to sort out swapping people around to make sure everyone is in the right place.

– Keep your children under control! Obviously I am not talking about crying babies, because they don’t understand what is happening and why their ears are hurting, but I mean screaming children who run up and down the aisles and get in our way!

– Last but not least, don’t ask me “How long til we get there?” or “Which country are we flying over?”….do I really look like I have any idea?! Oh yes wait a minute, I’ll just look out of the window and tell you which street we just passed!

That pretty much concludes my few rules on how to be my favourite passenger apart from one last thing….BE NICE! How hard is it to smile and say please and thank you?! 🙂

Next months roster came out a few days ago, and I’m going back to Kuala Lumpur (3 times!), I’ve got 2 London Heathrows and Beijing. And apart from that, about 18 days off!

 

Milan…Brunch…Munich!

Last week I flew to Milan. The flight itself was fine, pretty uneventful, and the hotel was nice. The only thing was that it was located literally at the airport, which meant it would have taken quite a bit of time and money to get to the city centre. So in the evening after arriving a group of about 8 of us decided to go to dinner. The hotel organised a shuttle bus to take us to a lovely family run restaurant, where we all shared some different meats and cheeses to start, and then I had a delicious pizza!
The next day I went down to have the hotel breakfast which was really good, and then I just pretty much stayed in the hotel crew lounge using the wifi all day! I managed to have a couple of hours sleep before the flight home which was good!

Once back home I had a couple of days off, so Michelle, Bianca and I went for dinner to a nice place called Warehouse. We get 40% off there which is very nice! 😀 They also serve alcohol there as it is part of a hotel, so we all shared a bottle of white wine.

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The next day I went for my very first brunch! I went to a place called Double Decker with a couple of girls from my Singapore Melbourne trip and some of their friends. There were lots of British people there as well which was lovely. It was really good and I even had roast pork with roast potatoes and gravy…and quite a few drinks! 😀 Brunch is a kind of Friday tradition in Dubai, so it was good to see what it’s like and I will definitely be going again on my next Friday off!! 😀

On Saturday I spent the day relaxing at the Meridien hotel pool with my friend Rebecca, which was great. It’s getting so much hotter now in Dubai, we had to stay in the pool to cool off most of the time!

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Sunday was back to work….I was flying to Munich! The flight itself was fine, I’m guessing 99% of the passengers were Germans so I went back to speaking German! They all drank so much but it was a good flight. When I got to the hotel in Munich guess who was in the lobby waiting for me….my parents and sister! 🙂

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They had come from Austria to visit and stayed the night as well. We went for drinks in the hotel bar in the evening and then headed to bed. In the morning we all went for the hotel breakfast and ate as much as possible without actually exploding, and then took the underground into the city. It wasn’t a very nice day, rainy and cold, but we had a nice walk around and I bought lots of cheap strawberries, blueberries and raspberries to take back to Dubai where they cost a fortune! We went and had a coffee in Starbucks to warm up and then did a bit more shopping, mum and dad bought me lots of things to take back to Dubai 🙂

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In the afternoon we walked to the train station so mum and dad could get their train home and Lizzie could get the train back to Vienna. Lizzie and I made a stop at Müller and I stocked up on tights for work and a few bits of make up that you can’t get in Dubai. After they had left I got the underground back to the hotel and had a little sleep before the flight home. I wasn’t feeling too great (woke up with a headache and cold!) and unfortunately the sleep didn’t get rid of it, so flying back was not that great. We were also over an hour late taking off so I didn’t get to bed until 9am the next morning! Not ideal when you are feeling ill! I woke up feeling worse and today it hasn’t got any better, so I’m trying to drink lots and rest. I will not be happy if I have to call in sick for my 2 day Shanghai layover! I’ve been looking forward to it all month! 😀

Singapore & Melbourne!

Early yesterday morning I got back from a 5 day trip to Singapore and Melbourne. It was amazing – I love Singapore!!

The flight from Dubai to Singapore was great – not even 2/3 full and lovely passengers. When we got there it was the evening, so a load of us went out to grab a bite to eat at a kind of food court/ street restaurant place. I had some sweet and sour chicken and fried noodles, so good! They also brought us some type of vegetables in sauce, it was so spicy that I had tears in my eyes and was sweating from one bite! Can’t deal with the heat 😀
The next day 2 of the guys and I decided to do some sightseeing, as no-one else was up to doing much. We had the hotel breakfast and headed out to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, which was about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. It’s an amazing hotel which has become one of Singapore’s landmarks because of the huge pool on the roof! 
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There is so much green everywhere in Singapore – it made me realise how much I miss it living in the desert! We went up to the top of the roof and looked down over Singapore. What an amazing view!!

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We then decided to go to the Gardens by the Bay, which are the dome shaped buildings plus a lot more outside. They were so lovely and we had a nice walk around, all feeling very hot and sweaty by the end! We then hopped in a cab to Chinatown, had a look around the Indian Temple there, and walked along looking at all the stalls. I bought a fridge magnet to add to my growing collection! 🙂
We then walked back to the hotel and I managed to get a few hours sleep before the flight to Melbourne! Once again we got lucky and the plane was only about half full, which was very nice. 
After arriving in Melbourne I called my cousin Sarah and arranged to meet her. Quick shower and change of clothes later I was off to meet her – first time seeing her since August! She showed me her new university accommodation and we went out to get some lunch. By this time I was feeling very tired as I had had about 4 hours of sleep in roughly 30 hours so I was in need of a very strong coffee! 
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We then went to Melbourne Central to do a bit of shopping and I stayed there while Sarah went to uni for a couple of hours. Afterwards we went back to hers and I had a little nap whilst she did some studying. So good to finally sleep! 😀 In the evening we were going to go out clubbing but ended up just getting nachos and frozen margaritas with her friend Lucy, which were very tasty! 

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The next morning we slept in and had a walk around Melbourne, then got some breakfast (although it was more like lunch by the time we actually decided on where to go! :D) and I had to head back to the hotel to get a few more hours of sleep before the flight.
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Back in Singapore we arrived a lot later than the last time (around 1am!) so a few of us decided to go out clubbing! 😀 Rebecca, one of the crew, is from Singapore, so she and some of her friends took us to a club called Avalon which was pretty awesome, as it was just by the Marina Bay Sands and looked out over the water. We may or may not have ended the night with a stop at McDonalds…oops! 😀

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The next day I met up with my friend Matic from Slovenia, who I met back at the open day. He got put on hold, and then got offered a different job in Singapore, so we decided to meet up! We went to the botanical gardens which were lovely and it was so nice to see so much green! Dubai really needs to get a few more plants, ha ha! 
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It was then time for the final flight back home to Dubai! It was a completely full flight and so many difficult passengers! They all brought about 3 huge suitcases with them on board and expected us to find space to put them, and were just generally being difficult! Luckily the crew were all great so we had fun! We were all glad to be going back home though!
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Today I met up with Rebecca, we wanted to go to the beach but it was too cloudy, so we got lunch at the Dubai Mall and went and saw Oz the Great and Powerful at the cinema. Her flatmate came along as well, the film wasn’t too bad but I did almost fall asleep halfway through! 😀

Now I’ve got to pack for tomorrow’s flight to Milan! Should probably unpack from the last trip first though… 😛

Jordan, Malaysia, India, Switzerland…

So these are some of the places that have been put on my roster ….. yes, my very first flight is happening in 5 days time!! I’ll be flying a turnaround to Amman, Jordan, which is about a 4 hour flight from Dubai. I’m guessing it will be pretty tiring as we about 2 hours or so there, then come straight back the same day. After that I have a week of “can use” – basically where I will be sitting at home waiting to hear whether or not I have a flight!
And after that…some exciting destinations! I have a layover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which I am so excited about, as well as a turnaround to Chennai, India, and another layover in Zurich at the end of the month!

I can’t believe how quickly time flies; in only 2 days I will have finally finished my training. Sometimes it feels like I have been in training college forever, and then I realise I have only actually been here for almost 8 weeks! Luckily I am still absolutely loving it and am so glad I made the decision to come!

During service training so far we have had 2 mock-up flights, one to London Heathrow and one to Ahmedabad (India), and tomorrow we have our final one to Sydney. We are split into 2 groups and take it in turns to either be crew or customers. The first time I was doing the bar cart, so I had to serve drinks to our customers, and then on the Ahmedabad I was doing pre-flight checks, boarding, welcome services, and also tea and coffee service after the meal. On our Sydney mock-up tomorrow I’ll be in the first group, serving lunch. As there are 8 of us and 8 customers, not everyone can do every part of the service, so I’m hoping I will get to do the actual meal cart to give me some practice before my first flights! After we have done our service, the crew and customers swap round, so we will be having a snack served to us and then breakfast as well! 😀

Last Thursday my dad had a quick overnight stopover in Dubai, so he came to visit my apartment for some lunch before training college which was very nice! He also brought me a bottle of wine which was consumed very quickly the next evening 😉 (Not by myself, my friends Michelle and Sally helped!). As usual we all went out at the weekend, Thursday night to Crystal and Friday night to Mahiki! Sally and I also had a quick trip to Dubai Mall on Friday, as the weather wasn’t great (windy and even a bit of rain!) so we couldn’t spend all day at the pool like we usually do. Saturday I managed to stay in bed feeling a little bit (a lot!) worse for wear and only got out to go to the door when the pizza I ordered was delivered! Ultimate lazy day, but then again these weekends where everyone is home at the same time will not be happening much once we start flying!

I’ll try and get a few pictures up soon, right now it is almost 2am and I have just had a really nice long skype session with my best friend Lucy back in England and so I am feeling very tired and ready for bed!