Cape Town, South Africa

If anybody has been reading my blog for a while you will probably know that the only place I have been to in Africa is Lagos, Nigeria. So the moment my roster came out last month and I saw Cape Town, I was pretty excited to say the least! I’d never been to South Africa before, and to add to that my brother Harry had been there for the past 2 months and he agreed to come and meet me!

The flight over was pretty easy and uneventful. It was around 9 hours, and we got 1 hour rest in the bunks which helped break up the flight a bit. As it was a night flight leaving around 4am most of the passengers went straight to sleep! Once we arrived in Cape Town, Harry was waiting at the airport having just arrived from Johannesburg. We all got to the hotel and then around 9 of us arranged to go on a tour that the concierge organised for us. Our hotel was near the waterfront, and the tour took us all the way down to Cape Point, the south-western most point of Africa, to see Cape of Good Hope, and also to see some adorable penguins near Simonstown!

This was our first stop. Unfortunately it was very windy and cloudy, but the view was still incredible.

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After that quick stop for some awesome pictures, we drove on down to Cape of Good Hope. It got even windier and started raining as well, but that wasn’t stopping us! We walked all the way up to the lighthouse on the top so we could get an amazing view out onto the ocean. (the walk was actually not very far at all, only about 20 minutes!)

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By far the best way to go up a mountain! ImageImageImageImageImage

After a quick stop in the “Curio Shop” aka souvenir shop to pick up a couple of postcards, we continued our journey heading back up towards the hotel to see some PENGUINS!!

As it was still really windy and rainy we didn’t stop for too long, but there was enough time to walk along the specially made path by the breeding area. We saw so many adorable little penguins, and lots of babies as well.

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We passed by what is supposedly the world’s longest beach on our way home. There were so many surfers out there!

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Once we were back at the hotel a few of us arranged to go for dinner by the waterfront. Of course we had to go for steak in South Africa, and I have to say although it by far wasn’t the best steak I’ve ever had, it was pretty tasty!

The next morning Harry and I went down to make the most of the breakfast buffet (I even managed to get him the crew discount!) and had a little walk around the hotel to burn it off again before it was time to get ready for the flight back. 

Harry was flying standby on my flight home and luckily he just managed to get on at the very end. The flight was around the same flying time as coming over, but because it was a daytime flight everybody was awake, hungry and thirsty! I barely had a minute to sit down and eat, let alone chat to Harry. It was insanely busy and I felt like I was a waitress taking orders from everybody! (But no tips…haha) I was so glad when we finally touched down in Dubai! 

Harry stayed with me in Dubai for a couple of days and we found a great seafood restaurant, went up the top of the Burj Khalifa, had a very hot day at the beach (41 degrees!) and before we knew it it was time for his flight home and for me to go back to work.

My roster for October has just come out and I’m going to be in Munich for the last weekend of Oktoberfest, spend 30 hours in Seoul, South Korea, do a turnaround to the Maldives (if only we got to stay there!), discover another new place in Africa – Casablanca, go back to Kuala Lumpur again, and finally finish the end of the month with two German flights, Hamburg and Frankfurt. I’m most excited for Seoul and Casablanca, as these are new destinations for me! 🙂

 

London, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai – this month’s destinations!

The last time I posted (was that really 10 days ago already?!) my friends had just left Dubai and I had a flight to London. That was pretty uneventful; it’s an easy night flight and the hotel beds are to die for! I made the obligatory trip to Primark and stocked up on a few maxi skirts and dresses (essential in Dubai!) and of course, plenty of work tights.

Back in Dubai I had 2 days off, and to be honest I can’t remember what I did – probably lots of sunbathing and eating! That seems to be what I do best at the moment! 😀

After that I was back to Kuala Lumpur for the second time this month. We arrive at the hotel just in time for the start of happy hour, so of course a few of us made out way down to the pool and tried a couple of the buy one get free cocktails in the sun before dinner. A group of us took the metro two stops to the street restaurant area and all shared lots of delicious food!

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After dinner a couple of us stopped off at the market area and I got a new watch for work. The next morning a few of the girls were going to the caves and I had originally planned to go with them but I ended up sleeping in and then going to gym. Before the wake up call in the afternoon I decided to go to the Petronas Towers and have a browse around in the shopping mall inside. I also got some chicken satay for lunch overlooking some lovely fountains!

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After KL I had 2 days off again and then another trip to London. I was flying with Jess, one of my batch mates, which was great 🙂 Once we arrived at the hotel we decided to go straight out and go to Primark and also go for a big food shop at Asda! I stocked up on lots of bacon, sausages, crumpets, English muffins and wine! 😀

Once I arrived back in Dubai in the evening I got the bus home, showered and got ready as quick as I could and headed straight out to the Shangri La to meet all of the girls! I think this was the first time since training college that all of us were together! We had a really great evening and it was so lovely catching up with everyone together!

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On Sunday my friend Bruno invited me and a couple of his friends round for dinner – roast pork! It was so delicious and definitely just what I needed, washed down with a few glasses of wine and some cocktails!

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Yesterday Sally and I spent the day relaxing at Emirates Towers pool (free entrance for FACE card users, yes!) and getting a bit of sun. Even though it wasn’t the hottest day ever in Dubai, it was a refreshing change to have a bit of a breeze and some clouds! I still managed to top up my tan slightly!

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Thursday early morning I’m back off to Kuala Lumpur again, and then the May roster will have come out, which is very exciting, I can’t wait to find out which new destinations I’ll be going to! 🙂

Back again!

So I have just had a nice 12 hour catch up on sleep after my last couple of flights – I got back from Chennai, India last night!
I was rostered for this flight with one of my lovely batchmates, Cully, and as she lives near me we got on the bus together to go to HQ before the flight. We were sitting waiting for the gates to open when I got a call, telling me that the aircraft configuration had changed and they wouldn’t be needing me, so were putting me on airport standby for four hours! I wasn’t really that bothered, so I went and had a coffee and waited for my standby to start. Once I signed in and sat down, I got called literally straight away for a flight. Turns out they had put me back on the same Chennai flight!
Luckily on the way there it was only 2/3 full, so was not too bad at all. On the way back the plane was completely full, so we were rushed off our feet! There seemed to be at least 10 call bells going off at once at all times, and there was always something to do! During the meal service we ran out of the vegetarian option and the passengers at the back who didn’t have a choice were getting quite angry at us! 
Luckily the crew were awesome and we all worked well together and had fun!

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Chennai Airport from the back of the plane!

Before my turnaround to India I had something much more exciting…Kuala Lumpur! The flight there was pretty busy and demanding, and every other passenger wanted pot noodles instead of the meal service, but I didn’t really mind as I couldn’t wait to get to Malaysia! Once we arrived we got the bus to the hotel (which was beautiful!!), checked in, had a quick shower and met downstairs for dinner. By this time it was about 11:30 already, but about 8 of us took taxis to an area full of street restaurants and chose one. I had some pad thai which was pretty tasty, and everyone else tried some other kind of Asian dish! 
After dinner we had a walk along the street and headed back to the hotel. The next day Cully and I met up for breakfast…and yes, I did abuse the buffet and eat as much as possible! 
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After breakfast we met up with 2 of the other girls and headed out to Chinatown to do some shopping! We had originally planned to go to the Batu Caves, but decided we were too tired and wanted to do some shopping instead! 
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All of us managed to buy something – bags, scarves, watches etc! I bought a gorgeous blue Celine bag! (Unfortunately not the real thing…but who can tell! :D). After shopping we went back to the hotel to put our stuff away, and walked to see the Petronas Towers. They used to be the tallest buildings in the world and are very impressive, especially at night when they are all lit up! We didn’t go up, but we did take some obligatory tourist pictures in front of them!
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We wanted to get a massage before going home; one of the girls decided to stay at the hotel, so we walked to a Thai massage place and went for the 90 minute full body massage!! It was quite nice, but Cully’s lady kept burping which we could all hear through the walls! We also got asked if we wanted “special special”….which we still aren’t quite sure of the meaning of, but we definitely did not want it!
Coming out of the massage place it started to absolutely pour, so we got soaked getting in a taxi back to the hotel! It was only about a 5 minute walk but we would have got so wet walking back that we had to get a taxi! The driver however had no clue where he was going and we had to get out halfway through, cross the road and get a different taxi!

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Once back in the hotel I went to bed to have a nice few hours sleep before the flight home. I ordered some room service and had it in bed before getting ready to fly back home to Dubai!

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Room service in bed….club sandwich is always a good choice!

Now I have 3 days off (although it is 2pm already and I’m not dressed yet…so today doesn’t really count!) and then I will be off to Zurich! Have to say I’m very excited to be back in Europe and possibly see some snow! I’m not sure if I brought any winter clothes with me when moving here so I might have to wear lots and lots of layers!

Next months roster came out yesterday as well ….and it’s amazing!!! I only have one turnaround to Karachi at the end of the month, and I’ve got a trip to Singapore – Melbourne – Singapore, Milan, Shanghai (2 day layover!), Munich and Dublin! Especially excited about the Melbourne, as my cousin has just moved there for uni so I’ll be meeting up with her as soon as I get there!

Now time to get dressed and pop over to headquarters to get a few things sorted out, and then enjoy my days off!