Flying with friends is a dream come true!
Instead of yet another trip to Bangkok, I opted to swap onto a Paris flight in order to fly with the lovely Rachel from the Dubai Diaries! Originally I had sent out swaps to everyone on the flight, and they were all rejected… I was just about to sit my final SEP recurrent exam when I saw that someone wanted to take my Bangkok for Rachel’s Paris! Even though she’s upstairs in business class now on the A380, I was still thrilled to fly with her as we were thinking of visiting Euro Disney! The flight was so busy in economy that I barely saw Rachel except when she came down to help us out, and bring me some cheese 😉 After we landed, checked in and helped ourselves to yummy hot chocolate from the crew lounge, we shared a taxi all the way to the City with some nice crew. We decided that Disneyland would be a bit dear at this time of year, so that will be saved for a more temperate and less busy time! After a crepe stop and a thousand photo opportunities, we wandered down the Champs Élysées to admire the festive shop windows, lights and just generally people watch!
Crepe stop! Life is too short not to eat dessert first!
This is me attempting to be creative….
…and this is Rachel capturing my attempt at creativity! Inception 😉
We saw the largest Ice skating rink at the Grand Palais, were the Chanel fashion shows are held during Paris fashion week, and the line was literally kilometres long! Unfortunately that would have to wait until next time as well. We spent the rest of the time browsing the markets, toasting to the New Year and navigating the metro back to our faraway airport hotel.
Typical Taylor…ruined the only nice picture of us by blinking!
Freezing and fumbling for my gloves
Seeing as we would be spending New Years Eve at work, we had champangne to celebrate near the Eiffel tower the previous evening.
Cheers!
The captain of our flight was really nice and announced when the countdown was commencing, so I celebrated 2015 collecting blankets at 22000 ft just before it was time to secure and sit down… We were meant to land at 11:59pm on the 31st, yet by the time we landed, did our post landing duties, got on the crew bus and were stuck in traffic for 2 hours, I didn’t get into bed until 4am… Not before sneaking some champagne and a Fauchon macaron with my roomie! I slept all day until midnight when it was time to Skype James for his Canadian birthday at lunch time (Vancouver is 12 hours behind Dubai) and then went to my snow boarding lesson at Ski Dubai in preparation for our trip to Whistler for my birthday! Can’t wait to share that and more exciting news with you all!
Love and Light from the city of Lights!
Happy Wanderlusting! X
VOLARE 
ohhh…I love Paris!!!
Glad you enjoyed Paris xx My favorite city!
Lovely!!! Would love to go back to Paris during the Christmas season! 🙂
Enjoyed your blog post and pictures as usual. It was fun to be able to read about the same trip your perspective as well as Rachel’s!
Your blog is officially my favorite blog ever. I have read so many of your posts now in awe 🙂 I have been on Emirates flights a few times now and absolutely love the airline and crew. You write in a great way and I really feel like I am with you on your travels. Keep up the good work 🙂 x
Wow! Thank you, what an honour! I will definitely keep writing and I hope you’ll keep reading, too 🙂
A really nice destination! I love Paris as well. Does any european layover last more than 24 hours? That´s not much time to enjoy wherever you are.
Paris is beautiful! It was my 5th time to the city for work and my 8th time altogether but the beauty of the city never ceases to amaze me! Some layovers are 48 hours, depending on operational factors and the time of year, for example Paris and Munich (which I have done), and also we used to have a few other including Vienna and some other European Destinations. 24 hours may not seem like a lot, but it is more than enough time to get a feel for a city and decided if/when you’d like to come back. 24-28 hours is standard for European layover (often 30 hours for some), and it is more than enough time to have something to eat, explore and take pictures…most of the time it’s early nights for us seeing as the crew have been awake since 3 or 4am! and worked for up to 8 hours flying to Europe 😉 x
Hi Taylor!
I’ve been reading your blog for over a year, and I love how descriptive you are! I’m a little behind, because I stopped reading and researching for a while, since I’d like to join and I had still 2yrs of Uni to go. But I still peeked the most recent posts (i couldn’t help it! Haha) since I saw you had change of course. Hope all is going well with you!
I have some questions, and thanks already for the patience if you have already answerd them in posts I haven’t yet caught up to! :p
1. I noticed CC usually takes a while to start getting US flights. Is it because of the time it takes to process CC visa, or some other unrelated reason?
2. How come there are 48h layovers in Europe, which is closer to Dubai, and a 24h layover in JFK? What’s their criteria?
3. I saw you and Rachel mentioned that it’s possible to skip reserve. How is that done?
Thanks again and happy new year! xx
Carol
Hi Carol, wow thank you! That’s great I’m so glad to see that you’re enjoying it. All is very well with me now!! My pleasure, this is my hobby and I am more than happy to answer any questions that you may have (even if I have already answered them before!)
1. It depends on the requirements of the company. I had friends who had been flying for 6 months- a year more than me and they still hadn’t been rostered for their visas when I already had mine. It also depends on the country where you are from! Some Eastern European countries don’t receive their US Visa due to entry requirements. It takes about a month to process, and you can request it, but the best thing to do is wait until you are rostered, because the US Embassy needs your passport for 4-5 days in a row, and if you don’t have your passport you can’t work!
2. Again, it depends on the operational needs of the company. Some European layovers are longer than others (Vienna, Paris, Munich) on certain days of the week because the aircraft will stay grounded for longer, as there are less flights leaving. The JFK layovers are so short because the airline has up to 4 flights there a day because it is such a popular destination, and the flights are always so full!!
3. Reserve is a lucky dip. You can “forecast” when your reserve will be by looking at your bidding group. The month after your top bid (when you should theoretically get whatever you bid for) is your reserve, when you are at the “bottom” of the bidding barrel, and you get what you are given, no plans. no roster and sometimes, no flying!! You can sometimes skip this by taking leave in your reserve month. You can’t have leave and reserve in the same month as you won’t have enough flying hours to get a decent pay/ meet minimum salary requirements.
Keep in mind that I haven’t been in Dubai for about 11 months and things may have changed, but as far as I am aware these are still the unspoken “rules” of flying!
Good luck with your studies and application!
Taylor x
It’s all so much clearer now! Thx soo much 😊😊
Xx from Brazil
Carol