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

Boston Baby!

I’ve just got back from my last flight of my reserve month. I was rostered home standby from 3am – 9am and around 4 o’clock in the morning I got a call from crew control letting me know I’d be heading to Boston! I was pretty excited, as I’ve never flown to Boston before and I knew it would be wintery and snowy there.

I quickly packed my suitcase, got ready and made my way to our headquarters. The Boston flight is operated on a 777-300, which is exciting as I haven’t done a US flight on the 777 since I worked in economy! I was particularly looking forward to the CRC (crew rest compartment, our little bunk beds) as it’s so much bigger than on the A380!

Flight time was 13,5 hours, and we were kept busy most of the time. Once we arrived in chilly Boston (1 degree!) a few of us arranged to meet up for some dinner. Since none of us knew the area, the concierge recommended a restaurant called Legal Seafood. There seem to be a few of them around Boston, so we got a taxi to the closest one to our hotel.

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And since we were in Boston after all, it seemed only right to order a lobster roll! Delicious 🙂

The next morning I woke up super early (always the case in the States, as there’s a pretty big time difference from Dubai) and headed to the gym. I’ve been trying to get back into my fitness and have been making sure to take my gym kit with me on layovers and actually use it, rather than letting it sit in my suitcase! I’ve especially been loving the Nike Training Club app, which has some great workouts which are really easy to follow.

After my workout I headed to breakfast, where I decided what my plan of action for the day was. Since none of the other crew were up to much due to the cold, I planned to take the hop-on hop-off trolley bus tour. At $37 it was a little pricey, but since I didn’t know my way around the city I thought it would be a good option.

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The Dubai Diaries РFavourite Caf̩s

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

February Roster

It’s that time of the month again…it seems the first month of 2016 has flown by and I’ve already got my roster for February.

I’m still on reserve at the moment, and I’ve already had a turnaround to Bombay, a trip to Madrid (including lots of tapas!) and a 6 day trip to Melbourne and Auckland. I hope you enjoyed the pictures from that trip, where I explored a lovely little town called Devonport, just a 10 minute ferry ride away from Auckland.

My reserve continues until the 10th of February, and after that I’ll be heading to:

  • SFO (San Fransisco)
  • Leave (my best fried Lucy is coming to visit!)
  • BOM (Bombay turnaround)
  • DUS (Dusseldorf)

I’ve actually never been to Dusseldorf before, so that’ll be another magnet to add to the collection! I’m trying to swap my San Fran for something else at the moment (a Sydney would be nice, so I could go and see my grandparents) but we’ll see where I end up.

Don’t forget you can follow me on instagram, where I post more frequently. That way you’ll know which trips I end up getting on my reserve month!

 

Melbourne – Auckland

Being on reserve means you never know where you’re going to end up…and on my last standby I was pulled out for a 6 day trip to Melbourne and Auckland! My standby started at 3am but by midnight I could already see the flight on my roster, so I tried to get a few hours of sleep until crew control called me around 6am.

I got up to re-pack my suitcase (I was sure I’d end up somewhere in Europe and had packed thick jumpers and boots!) and get ready for a long day.

The flight to Melbourne was just under 13 hours, and as it was during the daytime most of our passengers were awake. However it wasn’t too busy and we had a great crew which made it seem a lot less than that!

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We were greeted by a wonderful sunrise in the morning, and soon headed off to the hotel for some much needed sleep. It’s always tricky to plan your sleep when you arrive in the morning, as you don’t want to waste the whole day and not be able to sleep at night, but you’re also exhausted from being up all night!

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Despite the beautiful sunrise, it was a grey and rainy day in Melbourne, which meant I didn’t feel too bad for going to sleep for a few hours!

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A Wander around Warsaw

I recently got back from a lovely layover in the beautiful city of Warsaw. Poland was never somewhere that was necessarily somewhere on my top ten list of places to visit, however it certainly is now!

The city is absolutely stunning, full of gorgeous buildings and architecture. Although it was absolutely freezing, we still managed a little walk around.

The flight over was a little less than 6 hours, and incredibly busy! With a full cabin and a breakfast and lunch service, we barely had time to sit down, let alone eat!

Once we arrived it was still early, so myself and Aoife, another business class crew from Ireland, set out to explore a little bit. When I said it was absolutely freezing, I meant it… -12 degrees!!

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We arrived in the old town, which is surrounded by the castle wall.

We spotted the last few stands left over from the Christmas Market, and had a little wander along.

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