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

The Dubai Diaries at home: Miracle Garden

I’m currently on tourist duty in Dubai as my boyfriend’s family are over for a couple of weeks. Although his parents have visited before, we decided to head out to visit the Dubai Miracle Garden.

It was my second time visiting this desert flower garden, which is made up of over 109 million flowers, and spread over 72,000 square metres. I visited with my sister Lizzie, her boyfriend Jarett, and my friend Kirsty’s husband Dan, who was visiting Dubai at the time. You can read about that trip here!

This time we headed out to the Miracle Gardens just after lunchtime, and despite the weather not being great (it’s been grey and cloudy, with temperatures barely reaching the 20’s for the past few weeks!) and it being a weekday, the tourists were out in full force!

Since the gardens are only open from October – April due to the high temperatures in summer, now is the perfect time to visit. The whole layout has actually been changed completely since the last time I visited, and I have to be honest, I preferred it last year! The whole area just seemed too spread out, and not as many interesting sculptures this time.
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48 Hours in Athens

I was very happy when I saw Athens on my roster last month – it is usually a turnaround flight (and a fairly long one at that, around 4 hours each way), and I was rostered it as a 48 hour layover!

The flight left Dubai around 7am, so an early start, as we have to be in briefing 2 hours before departure. The flight was actually 2 sectors, first to Larnaca, and then on to Athens. We only had 1 passenger in first class on the way there, and he closed the doors to his suite and instructed us to let him sleep as much as possible – a very easy first sector!

After landing in Larnaca, most passengers got off, and after a quick job by the cleaners we were ready to board the next set of passengers. Only 38 in total – on the whole plane! As you can imagine that sector went by in a flash, and it’s only just over an hour to Athens.

We are usually 15 crew on the 777, and usually a pretty good mix of nationalities. However on this flight the Greeks were out in full force, and there were only 4 of us who didn’t speak Greek! Once we arrived into Athens, it was a fairly long drive to the hotel, but on the plus side we were staying in the city rather than by the airport.

After a quick nap a few of us (non-Greeks!) met up for some dinner. One of the crew had given us a huge list of all sorts of restaurants and bars to try out during the layover. We headed to one of them for some delicious dinner, and called it a night ready for some sightseeing the next day.

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Freezing in Oslo

My roster this month took me back to the beautiful city of Oslo, Norway. I visited last year in April, and you can read about that trip here. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to bid for Oslo in January, possibly the coldest month of the year, and as well as that the sun sets at around 3:30 – 4pm!

The flight there was just over 6,5 hours, and at the last minute changed to a 2-class aircraft, which meant no first class! Myself and the other first class crew had to work in economy, which certainly made for an interesting change from first class!

We spotted some beautiful snowy scenes out of the window, which got me excited to land in Norway.

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February Roster

Our rosters came quite a few days early this month, which was a pleasantly unexpected surprise!

After having been very lucky and getting quite a few flights that I asked for this month, I should have been on reserve, or “bottom bid” for February. However I was lucky enough to receive a fairly normal roster, with (almost) no nasty surprises! I asked for 5 days off at the end of the month, to try and keep up with my 2017 resolutions of travelling more, and I actually got them, which I’m quite surprised about.

I’ll also be flying off to:

  • ZRH – Zurich, Switzerland
  • DOH – Doha, Qatar (turnaround)
  • DUB – Dublin, Ireland
  • ZRH – Zurich, Switzerland
  • COK -Cochin, India (turnaround)
  • IAH – Houston, USA

As you can see, two trips to Zurich, which always pop up on my roster. No complaints there as it’s a shortish flight, usually not too busy, and a great allowance.

It’s been a couple of years since I went to Dublin so I’m looking forward to that one, any tips or recommendations are much appreciated!

Houston is now back on the 777, and that’ll be my first long-haul flight since working in first class.

Only two turnarounds, a quick Doha (around 40-45 minutes each way!) and a Cochin, not a particularly desired flight as it leaves around 2am and gets back around 12pm the next day. Horrible timings and a long flight, but let’s hope for the best!

As for my 5 days off at the end of the month, a little getaway is in the works with my friend Kirsty, fingers crossed everything works out…stay tuned to see where we end up!

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

Snowy Annecy, France

So it turns out Annecy is actually closer to Geneva, which I visited twice last month, and not Lyon! I had my heart set on visiting during my last trip to Lyon, but didn’t want to go alone, but if only I had known (or done my research better!) I could have popped over from Geneva.

Never mind, this trip I found 3 others who were also up for a road trip, and after a few small complications (i.e. there being no cars available in any of the car hire places at the main train station!) and a quick metro ride a few stops along, we managed to hire a car.

Our captain Christian, from Mexico, along with Jenny from Scotland, Waleed from Egypt, and myself, were all ready to go and finally on our way.

The drive out of the city took a while as there was a fair bit of traffic, but once we were on the motorway it was smooth sailing.

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