July Roster

This month rosters came out a little earlier than usual, which was a nice surprise!

I got 2 of my bids, as well as a couple of other flights which I didn’t ask for.

Starting off the month is my trip to Brussels which rolls over from June, and then:

  • BOM – Bombay, India (turnaround)
  • SYDCHCSYD – Sydney, Australia & Christchurch, New Zealand
  • VIE – Vienna, Austria
  • STN – London Stansted, UK
  • (LHR – London Heathrow, UK) – Since changed to HKG – Hong Kong
  • STN – London Stansted, UK

As usual there’s one turnaround in there, fairly standard for every roster!

Then I have a 5 day multi-sector to Sydney and Christchurch which I’m actually quite looking forward to, as it’s been ages since I last visited Sydney and Christchurch will be a new destination for me!

After that I have a trip to Vienna – you may know I used to live in Austria (in a small town called Klagenfurt) for 6 years, so I will see if my brother or any of my Austrian friends are around to catch up there.

Then I have 3 trips to the UK! I did bid for Stansted, as it’s so close to home it’s now very easy for me to visit my family on the layover, although I didn’t bid for Heathrow so I will see if I’m able to swap that. Update – since writing this post I’ve swapped it for a Hong Kong, one of my favourites!

That’s it! Another month with a lot of flying, and a new destination on the other side of the world to visit!

P.s. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! 🙂

September Roster

I’m sure I said the same last month, but where on earth has this year gone?! It’s just flown by, and it’ll be Christmas before we know it!

But before that, I’ve got some flights to do, so without further ado here is my roster for September.

  • SKT (Sialkot, Pakistan – turnaround)
  • MEL – AKL (Melbourne, Australia – Auckland, New Zealand & then back to Melbourne)
  • FCO (Rome, Italy)
  • HKT (Phuket, Thailand)
  • DOH (Doha, Qatar – turnaround)
  • SYD (Sydney, Australia)

Two quick turnarounds, although maybe someone will be kind enough to take the first one and give me a day off?! Unlikely but you never know! 😀

The MEL – AKL trip is over 6 days and even though I usually don’t like long multi sector trips I’m very happy with this one as I’ll get to see my cousin Sarah who lives in Melbourne. I’m also hoping she’ll be able to accompany me on the layover to Auckland, which should be fun.

Then I’m heading back to Rome, one of my favourite cities in Italy, where I’ll be indulging in plenty of pasta and gelato!

After that I’m lucky enough to have been rostered a 48 hour layover in Phuket! Normally almost all of our layovers (other than west coast US) are just 24 hours, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see that on my roster.

Then another quick turnaround to Doha – this is one of the shortest flights we have at around 50 minutes each way, so it’s a quick afternoon’s work back in time for dinner!

At the end of the month I’ll be heading off to Sydney, a direct flight there and back with a 30 hour layover. I was rostered a London but swapped with my friend Sally so she could have some extra days off after her leave and I can see my grandparents who I haven’t seen in far too long. Win-win situation!

P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! 🙂

A trip down under

One of my recent flights was a 6 day trip to Sydney and Auckland. It’s been a while since I’ve done a multi-sector trip (I think the last one must have been Rio – Buenos Aires back in September) so I was a bit apprehensive. The Aussie sectors are always very tiring and it’s easy to get jet-lagged.

After a 14 hour flight we arrived in beautiful sunny Sydney! My Grandparents and Aunty and Uncle live in Australia, so when I saw I would be going to Sydney I knew I had to meet up with them. My cousin flew in from Melbourne (where she is at university) and Granny and Aunty Mary were waiting for us, then we drove home to see my Grandpa as well.

It’s become a little tradition to go for afternoon tea, and seeing as it had also been Granny’s 92nd birthday a few days prior, we had something to celebrate! Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get many pictures, as I had not slept in quite a while and was feeling a little bit exhausted! Nevertheless I had a lovely day catching up with everyone and it was well worth the lack of sleep! Thanks so much for having me 🙂

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The next morning we were up bright and early for the flight to Auckland. It’s only around 2,5 hours and the Auckland sectors are usually not full in business class, so it’s a nice and easy flight. I’ve only ever been to Auckland once before, so I had big plans to get out and see the city and more this time!

After we arrived at the hotel we were all starving, so a few of us went out for some dinner down by the harbour.

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February Roster

I’m currently on leave, and for once I’ve stayed in Dubai! 😉

My sister Lizzie and her boyfriend Jarett are here staying with me for a while; they’ve been living in the US and flew over from Dallas. So this means full tourist mode is on!

A couple of days ago I got my roster for February, so here it is, in case anyone is interested! 🙂

  • Houston (technically this is on my Jan roster but I land back into DXB in Feb!)
  • Zurich
  • Sydney – Auckland – Sydney
  • Zurich
  • Brisbane – Auckland – Brisbane

So as you can see they’ve given me two trips to Zurich (as obviously I haven’t been there enough already, haha!) and two multi sector trips. I haven’t done a multi sector trip for aaaaages (other than my Rio – Buenos Aires trip back in September) and I can’t say I’m looking forward to them!

They’re very tiring and you get very jet lagged in Australia, but I’ll try and make the most of them and have a good time anyway! At least for once I’ll have a new destination, as I’ve never been to Brisbane before 🙂

Just a short post today as I’ve got guests – but there’ll be one up soon with some pictures from my trip to Barcelona!

P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter @rachelwwilson for more day to day updates on my life!

Australia & New Zealand

My most recent trip was a 5 day one which took me to Sydney and Auckland. I’ve been to Sydney before but never to New Zealand, so I was quite excited!

The flight to Sydney took 13 hours, which is the longest I’ve worked on the plane since joining. We do get a couple of hours of rest in the bunks, but it is long and tiring! We arrived in Sydney early morning and arranged to meet around lunchtime which would let us have a bit of sleep first. 

We decided to walk from the hotel and do a bit of sightseeing, so headed down towards the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. We got so lucky with the weather, even though it is supposedly winter in Australia, it was beautifully warm and sunny!

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By this time we were all feeling quite hungry, so decided to have some lunch sitting by the opera house. We probably could have picked somewhere slightly cheaper, but the allowance in Australia is pretty generous and we had a gorgeous view! After lunch we walked up to the opera house to have a look around, and soon discovered there was free wifi….which lead to us sitting in the sun for at least 45 minutes catching up with everything we had missed in the past 24 hours! (Wifi in the hotel would have cost 30$ – ridiculous!) 

We then walked along past the opera house to the botanical gardens, which are more like a huge park. They would have been perfect to sit and have a picnic or just relax. Whenever I go to a country where there are lots of parks/trees, I realise how much I miss that in Dubai. We strolled around enjoying the sunshine for a while and then headed up back towards the hotel.

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The other girls went back up to their rooms, and I decided to walk around Sydney a bit more on my own and try and find somewhere to have a coffee with wifi! I walked around for a while but as it was getting dark it was also getting colder so I went into the first place I could find with coffee and wifi which happened to be McDonalds. Not my first choice, but beggars can’t be choosers! I must have stayed in there for about an hour or so skyping and catching up with Joey, then I had a little bit more of a walk around Sydney and headed back to the hotel. 

Jet lag finally hit me for the first time since I’ve started flying and even though I went to bed around 9pm I woke up every 20 minutes…eventually I gave up around midnight and watched re-runs of The City on MTV until the wake-up call at 4:30am! Luckily the flight to Auckland is only a quick one – just under 3 hours 🙂

I forgot to mention I was duty free operator for the trip, which meant I had to count all the duty free items, try and sell them (not really time for that on the quick Auckland flights though) and then fill out any paperwork and seal it all back up. Once we got to Auckland we arranged to go out to dinner and as a couple of the crew were fasting for Ramadan we decided to go quite early so they could break their fast as soon as the sun set. Image

We went to a Belgian Beer Cafe, where a lot of the crew had their infamous mussels. I’m not a huge fan of seafood (apart from fish and prawns – I think it’s all a bit too slimy!) so I had good old sausages and mash! I did however try my first mussel, and wasn’t too impressed!

We stopped at Starbucks (the only place that was still open at 8pm; not used to that in Dubai!) for a hot chocolate on the way home and then headed straight to bed. The next morning 4 of us girls met up for breakfast ….and what can I say, it was easily the best breakfast buffet I’ve ever had! I would put up with the crazy long flights and jet lag just for the breakfast in Auckland any time!

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There was a pink chocolate fountain! (I didn’t actually try it in the end because I was too full :D) As  well as all the normal things, there was a waffle and pancake station, any type of egg imaginable (I had eggs Benedict but with smoked salmon – so good!), even ice cream if you wanted it!

After breakfast I went back up to the room to let it all digest a bit, then decided to go for a walk around the city to pick up the obligatory fridge magnet. I walked down towards the harbour and to be completely honest I was fairly disappointed – the city was nothing special in my opinion. The weather probably played a part in that – it was grey and drizzly and reminded me too much of any ordinary day in England! The harbour was also mostly just a load of ferries, so not particularly exciting. 

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Soon enough it was time to get the uniform and make up back on and fly back to Sydney. A whole group of us went out to dinner once we got there in the evening and then I went straight to bed to try and catch up on lost sleep!

The next morning I had arranged to meet up with a family friend, Philippa, who I haven’t seen in years – she’s currently travelling around the world and has now stopped in Sydney for a while. I walked down to Darling Harbour to meet her where a bit of rain came out, but luckily it cleared up again within a few minutes and the sun came back out! We had lunch overlooking the water and catching up!

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All too soon Philippa had to head back to work and I had to go and get ready for the evening flight back to Dubai. It was a long night flight (14 hours instead of 13!) but I did manage to sell some duty free which is great, as I’ll be getting some commission along with my pay check next month! 😀

After finally landing around 6am, I handed in my duty free pouch and got straight on the bus home. A long and tiring but fun trip!

In the evening Joey came to meet me at home and we went to the Madinat hotel where he had been invited to an Iftar, which is the meal Muslims eat at Sunset to break their fast during Ramadan. I felt very cultural! Now I’m packing for my flight to Moscow tomorrow afternoon, which I’m pretty excited about as it will be my first time to Russia. I’m also (extremely) impatiently waiting for my August roster to come out, so I can finally book my flights to England! 🙂

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!