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

The Dubai Diaries: Hidden Gems

Even after almost 3 and a half years in Dubai, I’m still discovering new spots in town.

When my best friend Lucy came to visit last month, I took her to all of the usual sights (the Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall, Desert Safari, Dubai Marina…etc!) but I also tried to include a few areas she might not have heard of.

We jumped in a taxi to the old Dubai, Bastakiya, located along the Creek. Here you can find the traditional old spice and gold souks, as well as lots of lovely little side streets.

The Dubai Museum is also located here and at only 3 dirhams per person, is a real bargain and worth it if you’re interested in the history of Dubai and how the UAE has developed from a small pearl-fishing spot to the metropolitan city it is today.

After having strolled through the old streets which house the traditional wind towers that were once used to keep the houses cool, we stopped for a coffee in the Arabian Tea house.

This is an absolutely charming little cafe, hidden inside a courtyard.

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It’s full of pretty flowers, wicker chairs, and white drapes floating in the breeze.

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Dinner in Düsseldorf

I recently got back from a quick little layover in Düsseldorf. It was actually my first time visiting the city, however it’s never been somewhere I’ve been particularly interested in visiting.

The flight over was relatively busy but only around 6 hours, so we were there before we knew it. Our hotel is right next to the airport, so we walked over from the terminal and once I got up to my room I collapsed onto the bed!

I’ve been doing a lot of flying lately with not many days off in between so I was pretty exhausted (even if it wasn’t a long flight, getting up at 4am takes its toll!).

A few hours later a few of us met up to head into town for some dinner. Since it was Sunday, almost everything was shut, as is the norm in Germany. If not I would have made more of an effort to see a bit of the city, but I’ll have to save that for my next trip there!

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After a quick trip on the train, we were in the city centre. It was pretty quiet, and although it was chilly, it was nice to get some fresh air and see a new city.

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The Dubai Diaries in Fujairah

A couple of weeks ago my best friend Lucy finally came to visit me in Dubai! What with me travelling most of the time and her working full-time in the UK, it’s never been easy to plan a visit out here, but we finally got our act together, I booked some leave and Lucy got hers approved, found some cheap(ish) flights and before we knew it, I was picking her up at Dubai airport ready for a week of adventures!

Since it was her first time in Dubai, I tried to plan a few things to show both sides of the city, old and new, as well as plenty of time for relaxing, just as a holiday should be.

After a good few days full of sightseeing and eating out, I surprised her with a trip to Fujairah, one of the 7 emirates of the UAE. I actually came here around the same time last year with my friend Kirsty, however it was only a day trip – this time we’d be staying overnight.

It’s about a 2 hour drive from Dubai, so by lunchtime we’d arrived at our hotel ready for some sunbathing, swimming and cocktails!

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I chose the Le Meridien Al Aqah resort, since they offer a really great discount for Emirates Crew, which was very handy! It also had the best reviews out of all of the hotels in Fujairah.

Since our room wasn’t ready straight away, we popped down to the pool area and ordered a deliciously refreshing mojito, sitting in the sunshine in a gorgeous little cabana!

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March Roster

I hope you all enjoy these posts every month… I quite like putting my roster up here each month so I can look back on it and see where I was each month of the year!

My roster next month is quite alright, no new destinations but some quite nice ones 🙂 I’ve also got a business promotions event which is very exciting. I applied to be part of the BP team and got accepted, so when I find out what the event is I’ll keep you updated! It could be anything from a sports event to a press conference, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

In March I’ll be heading to:

  • ZRH (Zurich, Switzerland)
  • HAM (Hamburg, Germany, where I’ll be meeting one of my old school friends from Austria who lives there now!)
  • LHR (London Heathrow – hopefully I’ll be able to pop home for the day!)
  • KWI (Kuwait – quick turnaround)
  • ZRH
  • JFK (New York, USA, where I’ll hopefully be meeting up with my cousin who is there for an erasmus semester!)
  • Business Promotions

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As always feel free to leave me a comment with any suggestions or anything you’d like to see here! Thanks for reading! 🙂

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

Reserve month is over!

I survived my reserve month! As you may know I was scheduled reserve in January (and the beginning of February), which means you are pretty much on standby every day until you check your roster at 6pm. Then you’ll know if the next day is going to be a day off, a flight, or a standby duty. I was pretty much only rostered standby duties and put on a flight from there.

My first day of reserve I had airport standby, and before I even arrived I could see a turnaround to Bombay on my roster! Other than that quick overnight turnaround I was only rostered layovers, so I got pretty lucky really!

I ended up in:

  • Madrid
  • Melbourne – Auckland
  • Beijing
  • Boston

I guess now I’m writing it down that doesn’t seem like many flights, but the trip to Melbourne and Auckland is a 6 day trip so that took up a nice chunk of my roster.

Before that I’d had a few days off, and somehow I managed to get a rather nasty bout of food poisoning! I’m not sure what it was from but I had to call sick for 3 days, and I try not to call sick if I can avoid it. However this time I definitely needed some time to recover!

My trip to Beijing was pretty uneventful, although it was a 30 hour layover it was absolutely freezing (-1 degree!) and I had been on airport standby when I was put on it. It’s very hard to pack for airport standby as you could end up anywhere! Especially this time of year where it’s winter in most places, you need to pack for any type of weather and any length of trip. Luckily I’d packed a coat and I’ve been to see the Great Wall before so it’s not like I was missing out.

Boston was a nice surprise, as I’d never been there before. If you didn’t catch it, my last post was all about my snowy layover there!

After all that my reserve month was over! I got pretty lucky with my flights to be honest, and some good flying hours which means my salary won’t be suffering either, haha!

I then had a trip to Houston, where we visited a great Mexican restaurant, and did some shopping at the giant mall there. (As if we can’t get enough shopping in Dubai!)

After my trip to Houston, my best friend Lucy came to visit me in Dubai! This was the first time she’d been to Dubai, so we made sure to visit all of the usual attractions, and then spent a couple of days relaxing in a lovely hotel in Fujairah. Now I’ve got a couple more days off to relax at home before it’s back to work for me!

 

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