Last week I had the flight which I had been looking forward to most all month…Vienna! All of my family live in Austria (spread out in different cities, but still in the same country!) so they had all arranged to come and meet me on my layover.
The flight was really quick and easy, only just over 5 hours and we landed early afternoon which was great. Once all the family arrived at my hotel, we decided to go out and have a walk around the city. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, lovely and sunny and warm, not boiling like Dubai!
We walked all through the city centre, past the cathedral and lots of beautiful, typical European buildings, and found an outside cafe/ice-cream parlour to sit at. We all ordered a big ice cream sundae and sat outside enjoying the sunshine.
All feeling rather full, we wandered down to the “Museumsquartier”, a beautiful part of Vienna where a lot of the museums and parks are located.
Being back in Austria made me realise that however much I love Dubai and all the perks of my job, I still miss Europe. Being able to go for long walks through the city and parks and sitting outside in a cafe people-watching just isn’t really do-able in Dubai (except maybe for a few months in winter).
Pretty soon it was time to have dinner, and we decided upon Vapiano on Mariahilfer-Straße, one of the main shopping streets in Vienna. It’s really quick and cheap, but such yummy food. After dinner we walked back to the hotel, even passing a group of people who had set up a little area to dance in on the street!
In the evening my friend Maria came to meet me at the hotel and we had a drink there, and then headed out for a couple of hours of dancing! I hadn’t seen her since she came to visit in April so it was great catching up 🙂
The next morning, after not quite enough sleep, the rest of the family came back to the hotel to meet for breakfast. (Harry and Lizzie both live in Vienna so they stayed at their apartments).
We decided just to walk around the city and see what we could find, and ended up at a cute little cafe just opposite the cathedral on the main square.
It was lovely seeing the whole family again, since the last time we were all together was a year ago! To finish off – one final picture of all the children together! 🙂
I really liked your blog …….. it gives an insight how one can enjoy his/her life while creating a balance between life & work routine. Please keep it up and do keep us updated with your adventures.
Regards
Shan
Long answer? WOW don’t worry! Even better :D. The more detailed your answers are the better for me. 24hrs average? Wow, that’s not bad. Its completely the opposite of what I have heard (7-12 hrs). How often have you been getting those layovers with “bad” timing :P? How many hours have you been flying per month so far? I am just extremely curious about how a roster looks like. Or actually how a normal month of work looks like. Really curious about that kinda thing :). I am not lazy at all, but I do like having enough free time to enjoy my life. I work to live, not live to work 😀 Life is short!
Thanks for your time and answering my question.
Good luck with work and keep enjoying yourself.
Hi there! I’ll be moving to Dubai next month :). Your blog is cool ;). One quick question, how much time did you have with your family? It seems you had enough to do a lot :O! Is it always like that? Or are they stressful or kinda annoying sometimes? I am just wondering how much free time you have while flying. What about in Dubai, how much free time do you have and how often are you off?
Good luck and keep enjoying yourself.
Sorry for al the questions 🙂
Author
Hi, thanks so much for reading! I had 24 hours in Vienna. That’s the average time you get on a layover, but because we arrived early afternoon I had the whole afternoon/evening and then until lunchtime the next day 🙂 Sometimes the timing isn’t so great and you arrive in the morning or late evening and then don’t have as much time to do stuff. And as to Dubai, well it depends on my roster haha. This month for example I have 9 official days off, but thats not including all the times where my flights land at 6am and then I have the whole of that day as well! Haha sorry for the long answer! Good luck with your move to Dubai 🙂