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

A Dutch Day Out!

A recent trip of mine took me all the way to sunny Amsterdam. Ever since I saw AMS on my roster, I knew I wanted to do something a little bit different. I’ve visited the gorgeous city quite a few times, including staying a few nights there when I backpacked around Europe with my best friend Lucy.

This time, the windmills were calling! I’d wanted to visit the quaint village of Zaanse Schans the previous time I’d gone to Amsterdam but never got round to it, so was determined to make the most of it this time.

After an early start and a busy flight, we arrived in Holland. Myself and 2 other girls from business class inquired with the concierge how best to get there, and decided on a train leaving in an hour. After a quick shower and a few whatsapp messages, we were on our way. Since our hotel is next to the airport, we had to take a train for around 20 minutes or so outside the city, then a few stops on a bus.

Before we knew it, we’d arrived in Zaanse Schans (along with bus-loads of Chinese tourists, haha!).

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The beautifully quaint little village, in Western Europe’s oldest industrial area, used to have more than 600 windmills running at the same time. Now 10 windmills continue to work, and are used for sawing wood and grinding oil, flour, spices and dyes.

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I’d piled on the layers as my weather app had told me it was to be around 15 degrees, however it was a beautiful warm and sunny day and I wished I hadn’t bothered with my jacket! As you can probably tell from my hair, it was more than a little bit windy! Perfect for all of those windmills though 😉

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New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of…

… There’s nothin’ you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
These streets will make you feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you,
Let’s hear it for New York, New York, New York!

I think you guys can guess where one of my most recent layovers was spent!

I didn’t manage to swap my 24 hour layover in the Big Apple, so after a couple of hours sleep I was up at 1am ready to serve a full cabin of hungry passengers for the next 14 hours.

Luckily, they were hungry but even more than that, they were sleepy! I guess the one good thing about a departure at 3 o’clock in the morning is that everybody wants one thing – sleep!

The flight flew by with great crew, and so many laughs in the galley whilst everybody slept.

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We’re lucky enough to fly over some beautiful places on our way around the world, and I always take time to appreciate the beautiful views out of the window. I even popped up to the cockpit to admire a bit more of Greenland and the gorgeous snowy peaks visible for a while.

Just as the passengers were starting to wake up, it was time for my break! We have a little crew rest compartment (located in the cabin on the A380 behind a locked door!) which sleeps 9, plus a separate area for the flight deck with 2 bunk beds. They are a bit of a squeeze and I’m pretty sure some of the tall guys barely even manage to fit in the bunk beds, but once you’re in it’s hard not to fall into a deep sleep!

After a short but sweet slumber, it was time to serve some breakfast, and then….land into the concrete jungle!

Being Saturday morning, the city was so busy and it took us forever to get to the hotel. Half of the roads were closed due to some market or other so we drove around for what felt like hours before we finally reached the hotel. By this time it was already lunchtime, and although I’d already eaten on the plane, I was suddenly absolute starving!

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Roaming around Rome

My next flight after my trip to LGW and Brighton was a flight to Rome. It’d been almost exactly a year since the last time I flew to Rome, so I was very much looking forward to going back to the Italian capital!

After arriving and checking in to our hotel, we caught the hotel’s shuttle bus into the city.

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The bus drops you off just a couple of minutes walk from the Altare della Patria, which is also known as the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II. It’s a monument built in honour of Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a united Italy, and is a very impressive building!

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Beautiful Brighton

After my trip to Frankfurt, I was originally rostered a flight to Munich. However, when I was sent a swap for London Gatwick, I decided to go for it and accept the swap. Going back to the UK always feels a little bit like going home, even if I haven’t lived there for 9 years!

My plan for the trip was to head down to Brighton, which is only around 40 minutes on the train. Much more convenient than getting there from London Heathrow. I just kept my fingers crossed that the weather would stay nice!

After the flight and a quick change, myself and some of the crew jumped on the train, and just over half an hour later we were in sunny Brighton. As far as I can remember I don’t think I’ve ever actually been to Brighton, so I was ready to do some exploring!

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We walked around the town, stopping for coffee and cake (if only we’d gone a few metres down the road we would have found scones and tea!) before heading towards the Lanes.

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The Lanes are a collection of narrow lanes, famous for their small shops and boutiques and narrow alleyways.

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Discovering Frankfurt

Frankfurt is a city that I never really thought twice about. I’ve actually flown there a couple of times, but since we used to stay in a hotel away from the city, most of the crew would just meet for drinks in the hotel and have a relaxing layover. However, since our new crew hotel is now only a 20 minute walk from the city centre, I decided to give it a visit!

If you saw my July roster post you would have seen that I was meant to be flying to Guangzhou. Well, I checked my roster a couple of days before and it had suddenly changed to Frankfurt! No complaints on my side; although Guangzhou would have been a new city to tick off the list, it’s not somewhere I’m particularly fussed about visiting.

The flight over to Frankfurt was nice and short, around 6 hours, although it was a 3am departure which meant lots of coffee was needed! Once we arrived I had a good nap, then got myself ready to do some exploring.

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Getting into bed as the sun is rising – that’s cabin crew life for you!

After a scorching walk into the city (35 degrees no less, I almost felt like I was back in Dubai but without the air-con!) it was time to hit the shops.

The central street in Frankfurt is called the Zeil, and has everything you could ever need! I was on a mission to find shoes to go with my dress for Kirsty’s wedding next month (my ex-flatmate who has now moved to Hong Kong) but it was mission unsuccessful this time.

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