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

DXB – HKG – LAX – ABQ – ORD – VIE – KLU

Call me crazy, but those are all the airports I’ve visited in the past 10 days…a fair old bit of flying!
So I originally had 5 days of leave allocated at the beginning of April, but somehow I managed to get 4 days off before and 2 days after, leaving me with 11 days of leave! Joey and I had originally planned on going away for a few days but unfortunately he’s got a lot of work at the moment and couldn’t take any extra time off. So I decided to do what any sane person would do and fly halfway around the world to Albuquerque, New Mexico! Ok, there was a reason behind this…my sister has just moved there, so I thought I’d go and visit her and her boyfriend. 
However once I’d decided where to go, I just needed to work out how to actually get there. Flying on standby is always a bit of a gamble, and all the direct flights to America from Dubai are pretty much fully booked every single day. So with a little help from my dad (who is a pilot with a different airline, so can also get staff travel), I flew Dubai – Hong Kong, and then Hong Kong – Los Angeles. From LA it was just a short hop over to Albuquerque. 

Once I arrived at the airport Lizzie and Jarett came to pick me up and we headed on over to their apartment. Our first evening was spent catching up, eating and I soon fell asleep very quickly after around 30 hours of travelling!

ImageImageThe views over LAX and Albuquerque

ImageI brought Lizzie and Jarett some chocolates from my trip to Osaka!

During the week Jarett had to go to work and uni, so we could only meet up with him at lunchtimes when he had a little bit of time to spare. Lizzie and I spent the days exploring Albuquerque, doing lots of eating and generally having a lovely time! One evening we bumped into one of Jarett’s friends and decided to go to dinner at a Mexican place called (I think) Zacotecas.

ImageSkulls on the wall at the restaurant

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One morning Lizzie and I cycled down to the Rio Grand. It was such a windy day, we honesty thought we were going to get blown off our bikes!ImageImageImageThe (not so) beautiful Rio Grand.

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We stopped of at the Old Town and had a wander around.ImageImageImageImageThe most amazing chocolate and sweet shop ever! We couldn’t leave without getting some fudge.Image

The next evening we met up with Jarett’s sister and her partner and daughter and went to an Irish pub/restaurant for dinner. They did the most amazing fish and chips, almost as good as in England! Afterwards Lizzie, Jarett and I headed over to a rooftop bar (thankfully they had an indoor section as well, as it was pretty chilly outside!) for a drink.

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On my last day, Lizzie and I took the train to Santa Fe, which is about an hour and a half from Albuquerque. The landscape is beautiful, lots of desert, mountains and quite a few horses along the way! 

ImageImageImageImageImageStopping off for a salted caramel chocolate. So good!

ImageImageThe main square area of Santa Fe was pretty similar to the Old Town in Albuquerque, with lots of quirky shops and art galleries.

ImageImageWe spent the day wandering around, having some more Mexican food for lunch, and then hopped back on the train to Albuquerque. That evening the 3 of us cooked dinner (actually Lizzie and Jarett cooked, they refused to let me help) and had dinner with Jarett’s sister and her family. Before we knew it it was time to pack my suitcase again. A lovely 5am start the next morning and I was once again off to the airport.

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Thankfully the standby gods were on my side, and I made all of my flights; I actually got the last seats on two of them!

Mum, Dad and Harry were waiting at the airport in Austria when I arrived and we headed home for a nice catch up. I was only home for 2 days but I managed to squeeze in some time with my friends as well.

ImageDelicious coffee and cakes with my friends Iris and Claudio who were in Klagenfurt for the weekend.

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We also had a stroll around the Easter Market and cuddled some of the fluffiest bunnies EVER! They were so soft! 

The next day I met up with my lovely friend Simone who I hadn’t seen for a while and we sat outside in the sunshine catching up. Somehow I even managed to squeeze in a haircut! After my last experience I don’t trust the hairdressers in Dubai!

All too soon it was time to head back to reality and tomorrow I’ll be back to work again. It was a lovely break and it was so great that I managed to see all of my family even though we’re all in different parts of the world!

And now for some other exciting news….next week I’m moving apartments!!! FINALLY after nearly a year and a half of living out in the desert, practically in Sharjah, I’m moving in with my friend Kirsty onto Sheik Zayed Road! I’m super excited, as I finally feel like I’ll actually be living in Dubai now! I’d probably better start packing soon, as I have a feeling I’m going to have accumulated quite a bit of stuff….!

 

P.s. If you want more regular day to day updates of what is happening in my life, follow me on Twitter and Instagram @rachelwwilson!

 

 

Jordan, Malaysia, India, Switzerland…

So these are some of the places that have been put on my roster ….. yes, my very first flight is happening in 5 days time!! I’ll be flying a turnaround to Amman, Jordan, which is about a 4 hour flight from Dubai. I’m guessing it will be pretty tiring as we about 2 hours or so there, then come straight back the same day. After that I have a week of “can use” – basically where I will be sitting at home waiting to hear whether or not I have a flight!
And after that…some exciting destinations! I have a layover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which I am so excited about, as well as a turnaround to Chennai, India, and another layover in Zurich at the end of the month!

I can’t believe how quickly time flies; in only 2 days I will have finally finished my training. Sometimes it feels like I have been in training college forever, and then I realise I have only actually been here for almost 8 weeks! Luckily I am still absolutely loving it and am so glad I made the decision to come!

During service training so far we have had 2 mock-up flights, one to London Heathrow and one to Ahmedabad (India), and tomorrow we have our final one to Sydney. We are split into 2 groups and take it in turns to either be crew or customers. The first time I was doing the bar cart, so I had to serve drinks to our customers, and then on the Ahmedabad I was doing pre-flight checks, boarding, welcome services, and also tea and coffee service after the meal. On our Sydney mock-up tomorrow I’ll be in the first group, serving lunch. As there are 8 of us and 8 customers, not everyone can do every part of the service, so I’m hoping I will get to do the actual meal cart to give me some practice before my first flights! After we have done our service, the crew and customers swap round, so we will be having a snack served to us and then breakfast as well! 😀

Last Thursday my dad had a quick overnight stopover in Dubai, so he came to visit my apartment for some lunch before training college which was very nice! He also brought me a bottle of wine which was consumed very quickly the next evening 😉 (Not by myself, my friends Michelle and Sally helped!). As usual we all went out at the weekend, Thursday night to Crystal and Friday night to Mahiki! Sally and I also had a quick trip to Dubai Mall on Friday, as the weather wasn’t great (windy and even a bit of rain!) so we couldn’t spend all day at the pool like we usually do. Saturday I managed to stay in bed feeling a little bit (a lot!) worse for wear and only got out to go to the door when the pizza I ordered was delivered! Ultimate lazy day, but then again these weekends where everyone is home at the same time will not be happening much once we start flying!

I’ll try and get a few pictures up soon, right now it is almost 2am and I have just had a really nice long skype session with my best friend Lucy back in England and so I am feeling very tired and ready for bed!