A day out in Cambridge, England

A couple of weeks ago I had a nice little string of 5 days off, and it just so happened that the first day was my mum’s birthday! With a bit of sneaky planning with my siblings I managed to get on the first flight out to London, and Jarett (my sister Lizzie’s boyfriend), managed to come and pick me up from the airport, all while Mum had no idea I was coming home. My brother Matt and his girlfriend Miriam had just been to visit and my other brother Harry had also just arrived, so we almost had the whole family at home!

I was lucky as the weather was the start of the hottest week of the year so far, absolutely beautiful blue skies and sunshine every day.

Actual clouds…a rare occurrence in Dubai!

As I walked through the door mum still had no idea I was coming….and she was just a bit surprised, to say the least! 😀 First things first of course, I whipped up a birthday cake which we sat down and enjoyed with a cup of tea. When in Rome…!

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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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The Dubai Diaries: Hamptons Cafe

I’d like to try and feature a few more places in Dubai, as it’s becoming even more of a cultural hotspot, and new cafes and restaurants are opening every day. There are so many new places planned for this year alone, and I’m excited to see the city transform when the Dubai Canal is finally finished. It’s such a huge project but I’m hoping it will be well worth the traffic jams now when it’s finally unveiled!

As well as that there are plenty of up and coming new areas, such as the City Walk expansion and the Opera House, which will be showing theatre productions, concerts, exhibitions and opera of course.

One place that I’d been meaning to try out for quite a while is The Hamptons Cafe. It’s actually been open for almost 2 years, but I just haven’t got round to visiting.

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Located along Jumeirah Beach Road, it’s hard to miss when you pull up, as it’s covered in beautiful flowers and plants and has a gorgeous front terrace area, with beachy style sofas to relax in.

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The Dubai Diaries – Favourite Cafés

It’s about time I did a post featuring some of my favourite places in Dubai. Most of my blog posts are about my layovers, but after all I do live in Dubai and spend plenty of days off here so I thought I’d show you a few of my favourite cafés.

This isn’t in any particular order, it’s just a little collection of a few cafés that do great coffee and food, and that I enjoy visiting!

  • Coffee Club

This is actually a chain which originates in Australia, however in the past year it has made it’s way to Dubai. If you’re down on Al Wasl Road, I’d definitely give this one a try. The coffee is absolutely fantastic, I always go for either the flat white or the mocha, both of which I’d recommend.

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The food here is also delicious, they do all sorts ranging from cakes and brownies, to breakfast, brunch and lunch.

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Something else I have to mention is the wonderful service. All of the waiters are very attentive, without being too much. There’s also outside seating which is great for the winter months, although it can get a little noisy since it’s just along a busy-ish road. View Post