Venice

Ok so lots of photos for this Venice post, but as you can see it was so beautiful its kind of hard to select which photos to include and which ones to leave out. 

Venice is one of my favourite cities in the world, there is nothing quite like it anywhere else.

I love just walking through all the alleyways and coming across multiple restaurants, canals and shops. 

It felt like we didn't have a lot of time there (even though we were wandering around the city for about 8 hours). We tried to eat and drink in as many places as possible as well as seeing all there is to see in Venice.

Because we were traveling with an Italian we were able to make our way around a little more easier and we found people were more willing to help the local then the foreigners (we even managed to score free shots at one restaurant!!)

It was quite funny really because when we were at the Rialto Bridge we ran into one of the passengers on board (she was Australian, traveling alone, about our age, and was joining a tour the next day) so we invited her out for dinner with us and we had a blast. 

After dinner it was quite obvious that we were all pretty exhausted so we managed to catch the boat back to the bus stop and make our way home. 

I can't wait to go back to Venice! Will definitely be bidding for it in the future!

This week is full of turnarounds to India and Pakistan so I am really not looking forward to it... 

Hopefully it will fly by, because next layover is Milan!!

Kuala Lumpur

So the night before my flight to Colombo I double checked my roster and there seemed to be a change. I was unsure what the code was so after asking around I discovered I was deadheading to Kuala Lumpur. I was so excited! This meant I got to sit in Business Class for 7 hours and be on the receiving end of service for a change. At first I thought it was just myself deadheading, however when I got to EGHQ I noticed that the whole crew were deadheading over with me, which made it more fun. 

Once at the other end the F/O suggested we all go out for a bite to eat and grab a couple of drinks. KL did not fail to impress, it was filled with fresh food, prostitutes and multiple drinks. It started to bucket down with rain just as the bar we were at was shutting, so after waiting a while we realised that it would just be easier and cheaper to run home in the rain and then continue the party (with the few people we could find/call) in one of the rooms.

I think it was fair to say that a good time was had by all. 

Because we deadheaded over it meant that instead of having 24 hrs there we had just 20 hrs. So before we knew it was time to hop back on the plane and head home. 

Once all the passengers boarded the plane we all started securing the cabin. It was at this stage that I noticed one of the customers wasn't responding to my requests and was moving rather slowly and just appeared out of it in general. I quickly called the SFS over to see if he could assist me and it was then we realised that the customer was in fact having a type of fit. We instantly called the Purser who called the flight deck and we taxied back into the parking bay which allowed medical personelle to come on board and help us further. All up it was quite a stressful moment as this is the first medical situation I have been placed in since starting the job. All in all we were lucky we were still on ground. And with only a 1/2 hr delay we managed to get home in no time. 

Tomorrow I head off to one of my favourite cities, Venice!!

Dusseldorf

Let me start off by saying that from a very young age I have always LOVED Dusseldorf. 

At 15 I was lucky enough to go on a school exchange to a town just out of Dusseldorf for 6 weeks. It was on this trip that I experienced many firsts. It was the first place where I got drunk, illegally drank in a bar, was away from my parents for more then a few nights, lived with another family who didn't speak the same language as me (well almost), and where I gained my first taste of independence. 

So when I heard I was going back there on one of my flights I was beyond excited.

Over the years I have managed to keep in contact with my exchange partner, Sandra, as well as my friends exchange partner, Ann. So with such short notice (I only got told about my roster last week) we were lucky enough to arrange to all catch up for a bite to eat and a couple of drinks. 

Although I had been to Dusseldorf a few times before, I had never managed to find the main city center. So before meeting up with the girls I decided to walk around in search of a few shops close to the main train station. Once again I found it impossible to find the main shopping strip (however I did manage to come across a homewares shop and I was able to score the sweet daschund cushion for my bed). It wasn't until later when I met up with the girls that they told me the main part of town is a train ride away, and that was where I had been going wrong all these years! 

So after a quick train ride to the Old Town we emerged to a group of shops, restaurants and bars all along the river Rhein. It was so beautiful at night with all the cobbled stone roads and the foreshore all lit up, it really felt like Europe. 

We had such a lovely dinner and it was so good to catch up with everything that had been happening in our lives. I am so excited to get more trips there in the future!

Thats one good thing that I realised about this job, and that is that you get to catch up with friends that are spread out all over the world and for that reason I love what I am doing!!!

The flight home was great as we had a half load and the passengers on board were so friendly and polite.

Next up Columbo!

Amsterdam

This month I have been lucky enough to visit Amsterdam twice. The first time I went there happened to be my very first layover as cabin crew for Emirates. It was the first time I got to walk through the airport in my uniform, and it was such a thrill. I was surprised to see that people were even taking photos of us!!!

It was freezing cold both times I went but I managed to fit in and see quite a lot in the 24 hrs we had there.

The first layover I had there was great! A group of us, including the Captain and the Purser, all went to the sex museum which provided a lot of laughs, then my friend Claire and I went to the Heineken experience. The place is amazing! Its got 4 levels of interactive activities and to top it off we got free beers at the end of it (although I am ashamed to say that I was still slightly hungover from the previous weekend so I wasn't able to finish all my beer)...

The second trip I took there was equally as good as I was able to briefly meet up with my one of my friends from back home, Lucy. It was such good timing as she has been traveling around Europe the last few weeks and happened to be in Amsterdam while I was there. 

When we were walking through the city an older gentleman stopped me and gave me two free tickets to one of the rides at a fair that was happening outside the palace. At first I wasn't sure if they were real so when I asked the guy who was running the rides if the tickets would work here he gave me a strange look and told me to hop on. You can see the ride on the right hand side in one of my pictures (it is something I definitely would not recommend to those who are afraid of heights). Meelis (another flight attendant on my flight) and I took in such an amazing view from up there, however it was so unbelievably cold that I was sort of happy when we made it back down onto land. 

After that we all went and grabbed a bite to eat, as well as treating ourselves to a chocolate drenched waffle and walked around the town (including the red light district) before heading back for a well earned rest. 

I have to say that the crew on the second trip were amazing, on the way back the two SFS and Purser played a practical joke on us and smeared chocolate cake all over one of the toilets and then told us someone had had an accident, and started yelling at us for not checking the toilets more frequently. This lasted a good 10 minutes and I have no idea what the passengers must have thought because after they all dragged us there to have a look we were gagging on the way back and complaining of the state and which the 'person' had left it in. We were convinced they were going to write this on our flight review, but then they couldn't hold their laughter in any more and told us it was all a joke, so the Purser had to go and clean the toilet (which never happens!!)

I was meant to be traveling to Cape Town tonight which I was so excited for, but they have changed it to Jakarta at the last minute, so the next post should be on that (although my wisdom teeth are coming through and are proving to be very painful which means at the moment I look a chipmunk, so I will have to see how I go to whether or not I call in sick)

Until next time.

Weekend in Dubai

So in order for me to rekindle my romance with Dubai I am trying to keep myself busy on my days off by trying to do new things. On Thursday night a group of us got together and went out. We were going to go to this club called Boudoir because we heard they were offering free drinks for ladies until 12am. After a half an hour of driving with a crazy taxi driver who kept showing me photos and home videos of himself we finally made it (for free I might add). We walked into Boudoir and it was empty and they told us there was no such thing as a ladies night on a Thursday. So we decided to check out a Mexican bar next door. It was great! There was live music and everyone was tango dancing, and the food looked so yummy so we have all said we must go back there for dinner one night. 

After a few hours there we decided to check out Crystal as most of other friends were there. That place never fails to impress me. It is at the top of a pyramid and you get a great view of Dubai from there. We managed to hop on a table where our friends were and score a free bottle of vodka, so we were set!

The next morning I decided to join some friends that I met out one night at dune buggying. I got picked up at my apartment bright and early and got driven out to the desert where they do desert safaris, camel riding, sand-boarding, etc. Although it was on the pricey end of things dune buggying was well worth it!

It was so much fun and I got to see my first camel so that was also really exciting. I am so glad I splurged and did this as I don't think I will get the opportunity to do it anywhere else with the same scenery. 

Anyway I better head off, I have a trip to Amsterdam tomorrow morning and hopefully meeting up with my good friends Lucy :)

Seychelles

Let me just start off by saying, the Seychelles were amazing!! We only got to have a 15hr layover there but boy did we make the most of it. When we were on the bus on the way to the resort everyone who had previously been there had warned us that the resort was not the best. However when we got there I was pleasantly surprised. 

The pool was amazing and the view of the beach from there was incredible. The Captain had mentioned to us that we should grab a bite to eat at the pizzaria restaurant next to the pool, however seeing as we arrived so early we had to wait another four hours for it to open. However once it did it, we realised that it was worth the wait. 

Emirates have a policy where cabin crew are not able to drink 12hrs before the flight, so we decided that we should make the most of the 3 hours we had so we decided to a sit by the pool and down as many local beers as we could within that time frame (it was heaven!), however seeing as it was 9am when we started we attracted quite a few odd looks from the other holiday makers. 

After spending all day in the sun, Laila, Alex and myself all returned home to Dubai with a lovely sunburn but heres hoping it turns into a nice tan :)

New Chapter

So it seems a lot has happened since my last update at Christmas time. I had an amazing New Years in New Zealand with my friends, I found out I got the job with Emirates and since February I have been living in Dubai. Seeing as I will now be traveling on a constant basis I have decided to make this more into a travel blog and a diary of sort so that I have something to look back on in years to come. 

This first post is going to be on Dubai. Wow this place is just insane, I told my parents the other day that it reminds me of a wanna be Las Vegas. Everything here is on such a large scale, they have the tallest building in the world, the largest mall which includes a aquarium and fountain show, and to top it off they even built an island in the shape of a palm...

I feel like everyone here is from somewhere else. I am yet to meet a local. The weather so far has been really nice, its dry and mild however I have been told that summer is absolute hell! Apparently when you walk outside the heat just hits you so hard it takes your breath away. (I am really not looking forward to that)

When I first arrived here I thought this place was awesome, however since I have started flying Dubai has kind of lost its appeal. It could be related to the location of where I am living (which is in the industrial area out of the city) or it could just be the place in general. So hopefully it gets better.. I might have to consider moving to a better building. Anyway I better head off as I have a flight to the Seychelles, which I am so excited for! We have a 15 hour layover so I plan to just chill on the beach and have a nice meal before we have to head back.