First Flights

I cannot believe how long it has been since my last blog! I have am proud to announce that I have officially started flying! Wahoo!! So let me tell you all about it. My first flight was a turn around to Amman Jordan so we didn't actually even get off the plane when we got there just reloaded new passengers and went back to Dubai. It was not so bad and no offense to Amman but there is no desire on my part to go outside of an aircraft there. I got to sit in the cockpit for take off and landing and it was pretty cool but on the flip side it was during the day and there is just desert to look at so yeah pretty uneventful. The part in plane is not so bad though most the passengers were really nice and so that made things go smoothly. Another perk about this flight was that it was my first time working on a boeing 777 and so it was considered my "supy flight" meaning I only had to work if I wanted to and could do as much or as little as I liked, I still did everything but pressure was off for sure! A few days later I had my first flight on the Airbus 380 so it was considered my "supy" as well since it is a different aircraft. This flight was a layover to Manchester which is much more exciting than turnarounds if you ask me! Also I once again got to sit in the cockpit for take off and landing and I really had a much better time considering the view this time was much better! The flight was only half full which was really nice because it was a lot less busy than normal and I heard that most of the time crew is running around giving everyone drinks the whole time so it was nice to be a bit more relaxed. When we got to manchester I went with some of the girls from the crew into the city we had lunch and shopped around a bit. It was raining out and I was so happy because I had really missed cold weather, it was after all the first time I felt the cold all fall so I embraced it! After that we went back to the hotel and I worked out at the gym which is nice and then went to bed the bed was so nice and comfy they have the most amazing pillows and there are like 10 of them on the bed and I love pillows so I was super happy about that. The next morning I met up with a few crew for breakfast and then it was time to get going back to Duabi. Manchester was all in all a nice little city but nothing too exciting. I think next time I go I will save the allowance and stay in the comfy bed with my book and hot kettle of tea!
On my way back from Manchester I was working in the cabin when my senior told me I was wanted in the cockpit, i did not think much of it because this is common to get the captain or FO something to eat or drink so i proceeded to the cockpit when I arrived there were abut 5 other crew inside and they were all looking out the captains window, I looked as well and was amazed. I will try to paint this picture for you but nothing can do it justice, it was around 11 pm, the weather below us was overcast so there was a blanket of clouds below covering any sight of the earth, above and around us however was a perfectly beautiful black sky with millions of stars. Off to the left hand side by the captains window there was a huge thunder cloud above all the other clouds and shooting out of this cloud was lightening bolts every second flashing in all shades of purple! It was the most amazing thing I could not get a picture on camera but it is something I will never forget!
After my Manchester flight I had two days off then I was put on "can-use" for four days, that means that they can put you on a flight or not anytime they want and I kept getting mine changed to day off!! I normally would love a few days off but COME ON! I have just started flying so I was ready to get out there not sit around Dubai! Finally on my last day of can use before I was supposed to go to Moscow Russia there was a change in my schedule and I was on call at 4am until 10 am meaning they could put me on any flight they wanted to. Because I had a scheduled flight the next day I was thinking they would just maybe not use me or else give me a turn around flight. I could not believe my eyes when I checked the schedule that morning and saw that I had been called up for a one week flight going to Sydney the Auckland NZ then Sydney again!! I was a little disappointed that my russia was being taken away and then my rome as well but too excited to really care too much! The trip was ok it was my first time sleeping in the CRC (crew rest compartment) it is basically a little room in the back of the plane that has built in bunk beds and crew sleep there for certain periods during long range flights. I had trouble sleeping on my way to sydney and chose to spend most my time watching a movie instead! The trip to sydney is very long we were in the plane for 14 hours so I got to know the crew I was flying with a little better they were all pretty nice and I had already met one of them because she was my friends friend from back home in Greece! Once we got to sydney it was 8 am but we still had to go to the hotel and it took a while because Emirates is really nice and puts us in nice hotels in the city as much as possible rather than right by the airport! We decided to go to breakfast at this pancake place called pancakes on the rocks and it was really good they have all kinds of different pancakes and they all come with a scoop of vanilla ice cream! After all that I needed to work out and the hotel has little maps the printed with different 5k runs on them that take you through this beautiful botanical garden and then past the opera house I loved it so much and when I got back they gave me a granola bar and water bottle, I could have gotten really used to that! The next day we went to Auckland and I was really tiered so I did not do too much but the next day after brunch I got to squeeze in a little sight seeing before heading back to Sydney for another day and then back to Duabi!
Now I am on my third of five days in a row off and I just got my roster for next month! It is all European flights and I think they felt bad about taking away my Russia and Rome last month because this month I have two of each! Here is how it looks for me: on the first a turn around to Jeddah on the 2nd until morning of my birthday the 4th I will be in Russia and then i have four days in a row off then I go to Rome, turnaround to Kuwait another layover in Manchester, a layover in Munich then layover in London and on christmas I am going back to Moscow for a layover then a layover in Rome landing just in time to ring in the new year!
I am going to try one more time o get these photos working on here...





Hope all is well back home I miss you all lots!

5 weeks down...!

I am finally getting around to putting up a new blog! I know it has been quite some time since my last post but believe it or not I have not led the most exciting life that you would imagine a member of an international cabin crew would lead up until this point. It is all about learning how to do the job right now.
 So basically I am just doing the training. It has been fun and exaughsting! I have already covered about how we need to get up early every morning to be at training college I think but I think I also told you that I was working out in the mornings, that quickly stopped for the most part. I now have came to the realization that I am human and cannot run on coffee alone *sigh*.The training college is amazing though, they have such great facilities it is awesome! We weren't supposed to take a lot of photos and go posting them about so I tried my best to follow directions and have like no photos but it is really amazing! There are these simulator planes that really look like a real section of a plane both on the inside and on the outside, they also feel like a real plane feels during take off, landing, turbulence, crash landing everything! It was quite trippy to think that we really we not taking off when seated in the plane.
In the classes we covered all types of training and I can even deliver a baby if need be. I can put out all types of fires, deal with hijackers and bombs and by next week I will be able to do all this as well as provide service with a smile, and I bet all you thought all the cabin crew did was serve drinks and say "chicken or beef"!  In one of our training sessions we got to disembark an aircraft simulator via the slide raft into water. It was really cool to slide the side and take the raft off the plane I hope I never have to do that in real life though, something tells me it will be slightly more thrilling in a much less fun way!
SO i guess I have had some fun in the training but it just seems at the time like you will never actually get to fly and all you do is learn stuff and get freaked out by all the horrible things that could possibly happen while in the aircraft, most of which are human error.  It is really good though because we are one of the best and make little mistakes thanks to the  long hours we log in the classroom sooo that's motivating at least!
In other news, the other day we got our official lovely uniforms and are now expected to show up to training college wearing tem I really like mine and I think for the most part iy looks nice so that is good. All us girls had a great time the other day taking pictues so I am working on getting some of them up here but I am not a tech pro so I forget how I got it to work the first time....
Anyway I have 2 more weeks of training and the only thing left is service! I have heard that it is a lot of fun so I am excited! Also I have a lot to look forward to because today something really amazing happened that I have been waiting for since I found out I got the job, can you guess what it is...?


I got my ROSTER!!!! I start flying next month after training! I will officially have my first flight on November 11th it is nothing too special just a turn around (meaning there and back no getting off the plane) to Jordan. Then the next day I have my next flight to Manchester, UK this flight will be a layover for 24 hours (so i have 24 hours to explore before back to work on the return flight). These two flights are just learning flights so we are still observing and trying things out kind of ( I also heard most of the time the pilot will let you sit in the cockpit for take off and landing so you really get a awesome view!) And my one of my friends from training is on one of the same flights as me and my other friend from training is on the other! After this I have a few days off then I am on call
bvdskfor a while and then I am going to Moscow in Russia and will actually have a layover there during thanksgiving! I then go to Rome!!!! (most excited about this layover) and one more turn around to Dhara. I think my roster is amazing! I am so excited I know someone else going on almost all of my flights and I can't believe all the great places I get to go I feel really blessed. I am trying to remember though that in this industry things happen often and rosters change a lot so this is not set in stone. I just really hope they don't change my Rome!
 Like I said before, I am having trouble posting the pictures but I will try to get some up soon I promise!
Miss and love you all!

Week one Dubai

I have sucessfully completed a whole week in Dubai!!! It has been fun and memorable.  My batch at training college is the best, they are all really fun and we are always doing things together which is really very nice and keeps me busy!
I have good and bad news though I will start with the good, Dubai is a very fun place and there is a ton of stuff for me to do, can you guess the bad news.... All the fun stuff cost money! This week everyone has wanted to go places together and go to eat and everything. It has been fun but exhausting. We are always reminding each other that we have plenty of time to do everything because we live here we are not on vacations and have to squeeze a lot into one or so weeks. However training does get much more intense starting Sunday so it was nice to be able to go out and about this week more. One of the best things I have done so far is that I saw this dancing fountain that they have outside the mall. It is awesome! I think they have one in Vegas but it is not as good as the one in Dubai, I took a video of it so if I can figure out how to post videos on this thing you guys are in for a treat (except bear with me I realized upon watching the videos a few times my camera skills are not too good!) Another really cool thing my friend Palma from Italy and my friend Teresa from Spain and I went to a little set of stores that had really cute little shops in them that were more stuff specfic to dubai. I really enjoyed that because up until then I was going to just normal malls and I really liked it but I was ready to experiance a little more culture of the area.
As I mentioned earlier, this week was the first week of training college which means only 6 more weeks YAY! There was not a whole lot of learning going on this week we more just got to know each other and the facilities that we will be training in as well as the Dubai culture. The other day our trainer brought in dates and arabian coffee. The coffee is made from a few spices such as terragon and saffron combined with coffee beans and rose water it was really bitter coffee but combined with dates it was super yummy which surprised me because i did not think that I liked dates!
I have been getting more of a idea about how my life here will be being flight attendant. I have heard that being from America the chances of me getting a lot of American flights is very high. This is good and bad because I was sort of looking forward to seeing the world not America but I think I will get to do both and American flights are the one everyone wants for some reason so if I do get a whole lot after my probation is up I can switch with other people. I am just excited about it all. Also here with emirates we get a month vacation but they split it up for us as we choose with the maximum time we can take at once being 15 days and a minimum of 5. Since we just joined the company we were not around when people bid on holiday time so we are just going to get assigned a vacation time but I do know when  and I am not sure for how long either maybe 7-10 days(fingers crossed I can somehow get thanksgiving off.... though this is highly unlikely I think). Another nice thing is that Emirates always gives you a day off imediatly following your vacation so if you have 5 days off you actually have 6 days off! It is really nice and they do not care it you are back from vacation then or not so I can use that day as my flying day! It is awesome I think because flying to the states cost me a day as it is.  All my friends want to come visit America with me lol I find it pretty ironic because most of them are from really amazing places and all they want to do is come to America, grass is always greener I suppose. Two of my girlfirends want me to introduce them to my cute American guy friends and hook them up, there plan is for things to go well enough they will get married and be dual citzens... SO for all you single cute American men reading this I have cute foriegn girls just dying to meet you hahaha :)
In other news my whole batch self included has practically forgotten what sleeping in is actually we have forgotten themeaning of the word sleep. I averaged during the week last week 4.5 hours of sleep each night. (If any spelling errors and grammer errors are in here the whole lack of sleep thing is to blame...)We basically do not run on sleep but rather coffee which I prefer anyways but it will be interesting to see how long we can keep it up, I am shooting for 3 years since thats the length of my contract :)
Lastly, today we went to a mosque then I had my first wave of homework assignments that Jordan Palma and I worked on the homework because I told Palma I would help her cause she was worried her english was not good but she did stellar! So I will put up pictures of all these things and hopefully the video too cause it is SO cool and I think you will really enjoy!

Some of my very good friends from my batch


Dinner with a lot of people from my batch at the Hard Rock Dubai

Camel! There is so much camel stuff everywhere and the real ones are so cute! I think these are my new favorite animals:)

My apartment building is the taller one with white on the side and the AWR at the top

My room from the door kinda
My room from the window

I cannot figure out that video but just google dubai mall dancing fountains or you tube it if you want its really cool
Miss and love you all lots!

Getting acquainted with Dubai

Dubai I must say is growing on me! I have had the opportunity to explore the city a bit in the past couple days and I am really surprised by a lot of things that I have seen but not maybe in the way you would expect... I feel as though I am in America except for the occasional camel and lots more sand oh and heat! Dubai has almost everything they have in America when it comes to products for bathroom supplies to clothing stores! I was really surprised to see an American Eagle in their mall along with victoria secret and even forever 21! They also have an Ikea! Basically when it comes to the shopping I feel right at home no actually I feel even better than I would at home more like I would feel in heaven, seriously the only way heaven would be better is if all the clothes were free for me oh and maybe not so many people (at the mall, they can be in heaven they just have to find their own mall, not hard to do here I haven't been to the same mall twice and I have already been to 4!)
My  first couple days here have been pretty good I have figured out the metro I think but I have also came to enjoy a great benefit we flight attendants get which is free rides on a shuttle strictly for crew to and from the emirates headquarters to your or other flight attendants buildings. Right now I am headed to the headquarters to meet up with a few girls in my training group to get our nails done and have some dinner and drinks or as on of the girls I am meeting Alex calls it tea. That is one of my favorite things about working with an international mix of people all the different slangs and accents everyone has! She had no clue people from other places do not call dinner tea and I had no clue what she was talking about, "Alex! We are getting dinner not tea!" I exclaimed and she was like, "yeah..I said that" :)
In other news everyone is taking turns cooking meals from their homes and I am at a complete loss for what I can cook. Nothing is too American but they all asked I cook them a thanksgiving dinner! I do not think the quite understand how much work that involves and also the fact that I have never personally cooked one so this should be interesting... I think I've got some time before it is my turn though so I have time to get prepared!
Anyways I have a few more photos I would like to add but I am on my iPhone and not sure how to do that so it may need to wait till next time!

SEA to DXB

Hello Everyone!
Well, I am in Dubai!! Wa-hoo! I arrived last night around 8:30.
The plane ride was great for the most part. I had selected a seat near the back of the plane and next to the window so I could look out I also selected a seat that did not have anyone sitting in the seat next to me. I was very happy with this arrangement because it was close to wear the crew were so I could knid of get a sneak peak of the back-scenes and what I will soon be doing. The only dissapointment was the fact that a middle aged man did not like his seat and chose to move to the one next to me... not horrible but he was a little weird and kept snoring as he slept.
The plane ride other than that was great though! I had a whole three meals while on board and the crew was extremely nice. They gave me a ton of candy and extra stuff haha and a tour of the whole plane and a cappachino which normally is not offered to people in economy! Also they let me sit in 1st class for a while, that was such a luxury! Other than that I tried not to sleep too much because there is an 11 hour time difference and once I got to Dubai it was like 7:30 am American time and I am used to getting up around then. Instead of sleeping i was pleasently surprised to find there was loads of entertainment as far as movies and tv shows go! I watched a few movies and then discovered they offered 8 epsiodes of Friends (may favorite show) and so spent the rest of the time watching that!
Once in Dubai it was very easy, there was someone waiting for me and she took me stright to the front of the customs line and I went through no problem then some other lady told me my schedule for the up coming week and sent me to a man who would take me to my new home. I was placed in the 21st century tower and lucked out with the master suite! I was too tiered to unpack last night and so I just showered then one of my roommates came home. She is a very nice girl from south america but i cannot remember her name.... The other roommate is a gril from India how is on a layover right now she is married and her husband is visiting right now so he was here but i cannot remember his name either... They are moving into there own place so the girl from South Africa is having her friend move in here in the other girls spot. I do not know her name either, (clearly not a name person) but she is apparently very nice and from New Zealand so i think it will be very nice.
I am trying to figure out how to post photos so you can see about my plane ride:)

This is of me with me with the eye mask they provide for the passengers

This is the Burj Khalifa, it is the tallest building in the world and very close to my apartment

this is my breakfast on the plane, they give you a menu with a few options and this one is kind of english it is a egg and pepper type casserole and beans, sausage, mushrooms, crossiant, oj, fruit and coffee.

This is not a great picture but it was when we were going over the North Pole!

This was actually our first meal it was a choice between curry or lmab and I had had curry with Chase for lunch so I chose lamb. It was good but I think my favorite part was the wine and cheese I saved for a little later, also I really don't like the idea of eatting a cute little lamb :(

This is a picture of the plane from the terminal, not the best photo though...

Yummy tea a little later and cookies

Ok so on the plane they have a channel you can pick and it shows you what is under the plane so I took this picture of the channel when we were flying over the north pole, lucky we didn't hit any raindeer!! hahahahaha  

Welcome to my 1st Blog!

I decided to make this blog mainly to let my friends, family, and anyone else who cares to read know about my life as a international flight attendant. For those of you who don't know, I will be pursuing my life long dream of working for as a flight attendant for an international airline starting in mid September. Taking this job means moving to a foreign country (Dubai) and traveling about to several different countries! Very exciting yes, but a bit of a leap of faith as well seeing as how I am going over there completely ALONE (don't worry I won't be a hermit crab or anything, i plan on making friends) and staying there for at least three years (the amount of time I have on my contract). I am really stoked about this but also a bit nervous.

 I always thought blogging was sorta cool but I never felt I had much to blog about until now! I hope this will be a fun blog to follow as I will try to blog about my training upon arrival, the culture in Dubai, and a lot about my different travels; as well as a bit about life working on a airplane! Supper exciting stuff (fingers crossed). I doubt I will be posting much on here until I leave but I wanted to get the ball rolling a bit and start the whole blog thingy so all you lovely people can see what I am up to when I am half a world away and then even though you won't be with me it will be almost like you are there too :)!