#TravelTuesday: Keep Calm and Move To Dubai

On May 18th at exactly 11:30pm EST I received a phone call that has forever changed my life. In my previous post I spoke about how I had interviewed with Emirates on a whim through a suggestion from a friend and now that whim is taking me on my next big life adventure. I received my "Golden Call" as they call it in Emirates world to officially be asked to join the company as a flight attendant and be based in Dubai, UAE. I. FREAKED. OUT.

Since that call I have been busy making preparations and getting everything in order for the big move. There were piles of paperwork to do as well as medical and dental formalities but now it's all submitted and I've been given the 100% official yes that I am moving to Dubai. My date of joining (DOJ) is set for July 23rd and I'll be leaving from Vancouver instead of Toronto. Vancouver isn't one of the places Emirates fly's out of but because it's a major city they make arrangements on other airlines to fly me to a layover city where I will then hop on to my first ever Emirates flight. I know, I know, I've never flown with them before, bad me! But it's ok because I will be flying with them a WHOLE lot now!

I'm still a little bit in disbelief because it's still quite a ways away for me. There are a bunch of things coming up before I even think about leaving like World Pride here in Toronto at the end of the month. Then I leave for Costa Rica for a week with the company S-Trip! as a Trip Leader which I'm excited about! Then on the 14th of July after spending a week down south I hop on a flight home to Vancouver and have just about a week before I pack up and head out to Dubai! After the big move I will be on probation for 6 months so I'm glad I get to go home and see my friends and family before I leave.

I've had a few friends reach out to me with concern about me living in Dubai because of my sexuality but I want to let everyone know that I've done extensive research on living in Dubai. You really can't believe everything you read online people. I've talked to many travel friends who are gay and they loved visiting Dubai as well as friends of friends who also work for the airline and are over the moon happy living in Dubai and have been for three plus years now. It's not so much scary, more so just different and to a lot of people "different" is scary. To me different means adventure and a new opportunity for me to learn and grow as a person. I've been very blessed to have grown up in Canada and in such a diverse and welcoming country. It may take a little adjusting but what it comes down to mostly is respecting the culture that you choose to live in and how they do things. I may not agree with it and how they treat LGBT rights but I also realize that it's my choice to move there so it has to be my choice to also respect it. I also want to learn what it's like living in such a different culture because if you ever want to be the voice of change you first have to learn compassion and understanding for all ways of thinking so that you can best learn how to educate and help in the correct ways that don't lead to aggression or violence.

After all is said and done I'm very excited to be moving to Dubai. I've heard the most amazing stories and I'm opening myself up to so many possibilities when it comes to lifestyle and travel. I'm going to be able to visit so many amazing places in this magical world and share it all with you at the same time. Hopefully my stories will be able to inspire you to go out and create your own amazing stories to share with the world. I have my top picks of places I want to visit first but I'll save that for another post!