Day Zero: Flight to Dubai

It was a slightly grueling flight from Brisbane, Australia to Dubai. It was about 11 or 13 hours, give or take, I was lost in the time difference of 6 hours. The flight was a Auckland-Brisbane-Dubai, so there were people who were worse off than me, having to take a long ride to Auckland in order to get to Brisbane.

I thought I brought 60kg worth of stuff for a 50kg check in baggage limit and hoped that my future "colleagues" will be super helpful to let me pass. But nooooo. 60kg was in fact 65kg, and when I removed my belongings, even 53kg was not good enough. That was very miserable. Leaving my husband in tears was also emotional. He was very sweet and patient and endearing of course. He made me laugh as he tried to take pictures of me leaving and captioning me in the bad light: "Janet is leaving me."

Anyway, I was not really recognized as a newbie. From previous facebook posts, there were girls who were in the food preparation area on the plane wearing the emirates hat and having cards signed off by the emirates staff. Well I did get that and was quite envious for a bit.

When I got off the plane, the Marhaban staff, a rather glum looking lady called Angela received me and Keiler from NZ/ melbourne, and we took the monorail to the baggage pick up area. The airport was so huge that you do not walk or take the travellators, you have to take the monorail. So we got our luggage, I had 4 so everyone was waiting for me, then we got through with our e-visa slips, then baggage declaration. Got pulled over, they thought I had too many vacuum-sealed clothing in the luggage. Guessed they thought I was going to be making a business out of selling them. PFFT.

We were ushered to the Emirates room just outside of baggage clearance. Got our welcome pack with details of documents for induction, our sim card. Got slightly worried for not bringing a coloured copy of my passport as they had to hold our passports for visa applications.

The cab driver drove me to the ivory grand hotel apartments in al barsha suburb, which is walking distance from the mall of emirates.

Got first dibs in the 2 room apartment. Chose the bigger one. It was an ensuite with my own jacuzzi! LOL. I need to get bubble bath soap, seriously. Wished my husband was there to join in the fun.

Slept a fitful 4 hours sleep after greeting my neighbours.

Felt like my tenacity for small talk has gone down a lot.

Found my other brisbane interview contender living down the corridor from me. 

Went out to the Dubai mall by taxi, it was 35.50 dirhams.

Restrained. Exchanged money. Bought lunch, I had 19 dirhams chicken rice and 9 dirhams non-alcoholic mojito from KFC. The whole day I actually divided everything by 6 to convert it back to Singapore dollar. I WAS SO WRONG. It was roughly 3. :( sigh and I thought everything seemed pretty ok. Wow it is now doubly, not okay.

I am pretty exhausted now, so my sentences are short. Going to bed for a 6.15am start tomorrow for induction.