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

Sunset, Steak & Rain in Rio

If you follow me on Instagram you may well have seen that somehow I was lucky enough to swap two of my not-so-lovely night turnarounds to Mashhad and Hyderabad (both leaving at atrocious times of the night and coming back around lunchtime-ish!) for a flight to Rio de Janeiro!

Now, for anyone that is crew, you’ll know that this is a practically impossible trip to swap on to! Rio is one of our most highly desired trips, and even after bidding for it for years I’ve only been lucky enough to get it once, way back when I was still working in economy. You can read all about it here. This time around, instead of heading onwards to Buenos Aires (and then back to Rio for another day) I would be spending 30 hours in Rio and then flying back to Dubai.

I can’t lie, working in first class does have it’s perks. Whilst economy and business class were completely chockablock, we were lucky enough to just have one passenger in first! So in-between looking after him and the flight deck and helping out in economy to keep ourselves busy, the 14-hour flight went by fairly smoothly.

We touched down in Rio in the afternoon, and were welcomed by beautiful sunshine and palm trees.

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Snapshots from Barcelona

Barcelona…one of my favourite cities in the world! I lived nearby in a small seaside town for 3 months one summer doing an internship as a hotel receptionist, and most weekends or days off we would jump on the train and head into the city.

So every time I see Barcelona on my roster, I’m always happy!

We arrived fairly late in the evening and a few of the crew were heading down for tapas. Normally I would have joined them as I love tapas, but it was already late and considering I wasn’t actually even hungry, I decided to give it a miss this time.

The next morning I was up fairly early and popped down to the breakfast buffet, where I bumped into a few of the other crew. We decided to head into the city for a stroll around, as the weather was gorgeous.

Our first stop was the Boqueria Market, a huge covered market selling all sorts of tasty treats.

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Souk wandering in Casablanca, Morocco

Whilst still on reserve I was pulled out for a trip to Casablanca, Morocco. I’ve been in the past and visited the incredible Hassan II Mosque, the largest mosque in Morocco, as well as the corniche by the ocean, and Rick’s Café, famous from the movie “Casablanca”. This time I decided to take it easy and just head for a stroll through the souk.

From my hotel room I had an incredible view over the city, including the Hassan II Mosque which is unmissable.

If you’re heading to Casablanca for the first time, I’d definitely recommend a trip there. The architecture is stunning, with lots of detailed tiling and doorways.

Myself and one of the other girls met after a quick power nap (I’d be on home standby waiting for the phone to ring all night, and then had an almost 8 hour flight, so was feeling rather tired!) to stroll down to the nearby souk.

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Freezing in Oslo

My roster this month took me back to the beautiful city of Oslo, Norway. I visited last year in April, and you can read about that trip here. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to bid for Oslo in January, possibly the coldest month of the year, and as well as that the sun sets at around 3:30 – 4pm!

The flight there was just over 6,5 hours, and at the last minute changed to a 2-class aircraft, which meant no first class! Myself and the other first class crew had to work in economy, which certainly made for an interesting change from first class!

We spotted some beautiful snowy scenes out of the window, which got me excited to land in Norway.

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The Reality of Flying

As much as I love to keep my blog positive and only post about the fun things I get up to either in Dubai or on my layovers, the reality is that I don’t actually spend every layover out and about, exploring the city or surrounding areas.

And that’s perfectly ok! I think I would be totally burned out if I never rested and made sure to get a proper night’s sleep or spend some of my layovers just lounging in bed.

I would love to keep you all believing that this is the most glamorous job in the world, but that isn’t always the case I’m afraid! Now, of course we all know that sometimes it really is amazing – breakfast in Dubai, lunch in Milan, and dinner in New York. But on other days, the reality hits you and I don’t want to portray a false illusion here.

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