Honduras

I recently came back from an Airline Ambassadors Escort Trip. I went to Tegucigalpa, Honduras to travel with a little girl named Kelin Artica to St. Louis. This is the third time I have traveled with Kelin. The first time she was a shy 7 year old who spoke no English and now she is an outgoing 11 year fluent in English and Spanish!

She has been receiving treatment in St. Louis for scoliosis. She is back in the states for the summer for some follow up treatment.

This trip was a little different from the others because our travel out of Honduras was on Continental Airlines. I had to travel the day before and spend the night in Tegucigalpa instead of just turning right around on the same flight and heading back to the states.

Cadena de Amor (Chain of Love), the medical organization that arranged for Kelin to come to America, is run by a great lady named Dr. Lilia Larios. She has a mission home that her medical teams stay at when they come to Honduras on medical mission trips, so I stayed there for the night.

Dr. Larios' brother was kind enough to take me around Tegucigalpa, so I could see some of the sights. We visited the Basilica Suyapa, the largest cathedral in Centra America, and he took me to a local restaurant called El Gordo, for some Honduran food. I had steak with chimichurri sauce (a mix of garlic, olive oil, and parsley) and some Honduran soda called "Mirinda" - kind of like Sunkist.

The next day, after breakfast at Burger King (how very Honduran!), Elizabeth, who works at Cadena de Amor, and I met up with Kelin and her parents, Santos and Edith. I was surprised to see how much she had grown up since our last trip. The airport was crazy busy, but we got checked in with Continental with no problem.

Our first flight was from Tegucigalpa to Houston was about three hours long. The flight was pretty full, but uneventful. Customs and Immigration in Houston is such a breeze compared to Miami, where everything is crazy and everyone is always stressed. We had about a hour and a half wait before our flight to St. Louis.

We arrived in St. Louis right on time and the Sly family, who host Kelin, were waiting outside security as usual. They were so happy to see her. It really takes special people who open their home up to a complete stranger and over the years Kelin has become a special part of their family.

I will fly back to St. Louis in August to travel with Kelin back to Honduras. They had a military coup right after I left, so I hope that things have stabilized by then.

I Got Crabs in Jamaica

No it's not what you think, but I will get to that in a moment. I just came back from a kind of crappy multi-leg Caribbean sequence. We were scheduled to layover in Montego Bay the first night and Miami the second night.

With weather in Miami, we got stuck in Orlando and Miami and ended up leaving several hours late with a full load of folks to Montego Bay, Jamaica.

The hotel is an all-inclusive place but our layover was now down to the 8 hour minimum so we were not going to have any time to partake in the fun amenities (or so we thought). We meet the next morning in the lobby only to find out the flight is delayed because the plane is broken and the part is coming on the first Miami flight and isn't going to arrive until 11:30am. We go back to our rooms and change and then head down for breakfast since we still have our little red wristbands on and with the exception of booze, can enjoy anything on the property that we want. After breakfast, I snapped a few photos of the beach around the hotel.

Now for the crab story. When we got back to the airport that afternoon, the plane was repaired, but when the first officer was doing his walk around, he noticed a family of crabs had climbed up the wheel well and was trying to nest in a bundle of hydraulic lines. Sadly, they had to be sent to crab heaven.

The nice part of our delay was that when we got to Miami, we were so late, we did not have to do the turnaround to Guatemala City, so we just went to the hotel. I had planned to have dinner with my friend Sheetal, who I have known since my college days at UNF. She is now living in Miami. She came and picked me up and we drove down to South Beach for dinner and ice cream. We could not remember in what parking garage we left her car, and as we were trying to find it, with the help of the iPhone, a homeless man came up to us and started screaming "Mama" to her. Only in Miami are the homeless bilingual!

Much Ado About London

I had a great trip to London last week. It got off to a rocky start because of some wicked weather that rolled thru. Our scheduled flight was cancelled and we had to deadhead over on a later flight. It was packed, but I still managed to score an aisle seat. The First Officer got the middle seat next to me and he had a little temper tantrum about it, so after the meal service, I switched with him since I planned to sleep the rest of the flight.

We arrived in London around noon and got to the hotel around 1pm. Given that I had slept most of the way over, the arrival nap was not really needed, so I could hit the ground running.

I met up with a four other co-workers and went to lunch with them at a place called Eats. I mistakenly grabbed a bag of beet chips instead of potato chips and they tasted like death.

After lunch we walked down past Harrod's to a place called the Tattersill Tavern and had a pint. I had a Kronenburg 1664, which was a tad bitter, but still good. I bid my farewells to my co-workers and headed over to Sainsbury to do some shopping (Ladyfriend was requesting Original Source bath products - http://www.originalsource.co.uk/) and then on to Boots (my friend Terry in my card group likes Remegel, the best antacid ever made).

I dropped everything back at the room and then headed down to Piccadilly and the Criterion Theare to try and get a seat to The 39 Steps (http://www.criterion-theatre.co.uk/), a play based on an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I was able to get a seat in the Upper Circle, the nice British way of referring to the Nose Bleed section for about 20 GBP.

I still had some time to kill so I thought I would do a little walking around and some people watching. I saw a group of high school kids who were wearing Nebraska t-shirts and they were obnoxious and all I could think about is that I hoped they were not on my plane the next day.

I walked over to Trafalgar Square and got some take-away food from a cafe and sat around the fountain to take in the scene. I saw the police pick up a man for pick pocketing, which was kind of interesting.

I got back to the theatre and made my way up to the high altitudes that was my seat. The play was great. A mix of suspense and comedy. The cast consisted of only four actors who played all 139 roles. Watching them switch between characters was hilarious.

After the play ended, around 10:30 or so (it was still light out), I made my way to the Underground and back to the area near the hotel. There is a 24 hour TESCO, a kind of mini supermarket, near the hotel and I got a few vittles for breakfast.

The flight home was OK. Since I had purchased the bath products, I was over my allotment for liquids, gels, and aerosols and had to check my bag. It's a bit unnerving to have the driver leave it out on the tarmac next to the plane just sitting there out in the open.

I actually slept for most of my break, and we landed right on time.

Inflight Haberdashery

When one has a digital camera and a passenger leaves a big sombrero in the forward closet, one can be certain that tomfoolery will ensue. This was on the way to San Juan after being on duty for 14 hours, so we might just have been giddy and tired as well.

The $3 Layover

Just back from a "Rocket" to Sao Paulo, Brazil. The layover is like all the other South America trips. You arrive in the morning, sleep all day, and then fly home. No time to really do anything. This is the $3 layover because that is all you spend on the trip. You give the van driver from the airport a dollar, the waiter at the hotel a dollar after the free breakfast, and another dollar to the van driver who takes you back to the airport.



I did make a great deal of progress on War and Peace, just passing the 700 page mark.

One hour in Honolulu, (or the longest turn of my life)

Being on reserve means great trips (see Madrid entry from last week) or crappy trips. On Friday of Memorial Day weekend, I got called to deadhead to San Francisco. The next day I would fly a turnaround to Honolulu. At over 5 hours each way, it would be a scheduled flying time of 10 and a half hours. On Sunday, I would deadhead home.

The flights were full going and coming. I did get to enjoy an hour in Honolulu and stood outside the jet bridge for a few minutes to feel the tropical Hawaiian breezes. Then it was back to the silver tube for the long flight back to the mainland. Since it's Hawaii, most crew stray from the formal uniform and add some local island flare. I ditch the tie and put on kuku'i nuts and wear a serving apron with surfboards. I got a passenger to snap a quick photo of my fellow stews I was working with in coach.

It took all my strength just to get to the hotel that night. I slept like a rock and then deadheaded out of SFO on the first flight of the morning. I was able to get a first class seat on the flight home and slept the whole way, and salvaged the afternoon to enjoy a Memorial Weekend get-together at the house of some friends.

Spain

This is my reserve month, so I am usually given last minute assignments. Sometimes you get really great trips and sometime you get really crappy trips (usually the latter). Well, Sunday, I was in the right place at the right time. I was called about two hours before sign in for a trip to Madrid, Spain. I think this is the best reserve assignment I have ever been given and it was all luck. I was the first Spanish speaker to go for a three day and the assigned flight attendant must have called out at the last minute and they were one of the flight's designated speakers. What made this even more great is the fact that the airline just started this new Madrid service on May 1, so ten days into it, and I am working it.

I first went to Spain in 1997 to study abroad and lived in Salamanca. Since then, I have been back a few times, but my last visit was in 2000 when my dad and I went on a tour of southern Spain.

Since this was a new route for my base, this first month, the trips are all going pretty senior. Everyone on the trip had at least 20 years on top of my 11 years of seniority. Fortunately, the crew was pretty cool and I knew we were going to have a great time. Our flight over was pretty smooth. We had about 60 kids from the Coast Guard Academy (I should say young adults) who were traveling in economy and on their way to Rota, Spain, where they were going to sail a Coast Guard vessel to Bermuda later this month. I was working in Business class and everyone was pretty cool with the exception of a nutty couple on my side (of course) who just could not seem to find any thing positive about the flight, life, etc. etc.

One of the gals on the trip was my friend Pam, who I used to fly with on domestic. She was one of the few very senior people (she has 41 years with the airline) to come over to international this month when a few slots opened up to support this new route to Madrid. Her late husband was an art dealer, and she was really wanting to go to one of the art museums and see some work by the many famous Spanish artists. We decided we were going to go to the Reina Sofia, the Spanish art museum that houses the works by well known 20th century artists.

We landed right on time and got to the hotel around 11am. The outbound crew was waiting for pick up, and my friend Sandy happened to be down in the lobby so we visited briefly while we were waiting for our keys and they were waiting to get their bags loaded for the trip to the airport.

Once we got to our rooms, we decided we would meet up in the lobby at 4pm and make our way to the museum. Two other flight attendants decided to go with us, and the others were going to go out and shop. When I lived in Spain, there was a restaurant I used to visit called Casa Mingo, and so the crew decided we would all meet up there at 9pm for dinner (Spaniards eat dinner very late.... 9pm by their standards is still quite early). I made sure they all had directions (it is easily accessible by metro).

We took the bus from outside our hotel south to the part of Madrid where all the museums are located. I was hoping to visit the Prado as well, but it is actually closed on Mondays. We ended up getting off at the Prado and walking down to the Reina Sofia. It was a beautiful day with highs in the low 70s.

We passed a bank that didn't seem to have a bottom to it, so that was the first photograph that I snapped.



We got to the Reina Sofia and began our self guided tour. Unfortunately, a lot of the exhibits were closed due to building renovations, but we were still able to see a great deal of the permanent exhibits. You are not permitted to take pictures inside, so you will have to take my word for it, but we saw some great pieces by Picasso, Dali and Miro... the three most famous Spanish artists of the 20th century.

The highlight was Guernica. It is the painting Picasso created to represent the bombing of the Basque town by the same name by the fascist regime (Franco) during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting). It is 11 feet tall and 25 feet wide. It is so impressive. Pam, my co-worker, commented that she got goosebumps when we walked into the room housing the painting. There is such detail and specifics in this very dark painting that you have to look at it from different ends of the room just to notice everything.

I was a little disappointed to see that the Alexander Calder exhibit was closed. He was the artist famous for trippy sculptures and mobiles (he even designed a livery for a Braniff Airlines plane back in the 1970's called Flying Colors), but they did have one of his mobiles out in the courtyard of the center of the museum.

After leaving the Reina Sofia, we made our way over to Atocha Train Station. It is one of three major train stations serving Madrid, and the most famous. It was built in the 1850's and one of the designers was Gustave Eiffel (he did some sort of tower thingy in Paris you might have heard of). One of the highlights of the station is the 4000 square meters of tropical gardens in the center of the station. It is also one of the stations that was bombed in the 2004 Al-Qaeda attack on the Spanish rail system.

Our next stop was a Tapas Bar near the train station for some beer and snacks. I actually had a Clara, which is a combination of beer and club soda (it's a bit lighter and more refreshing IMO). We enjoyed some calamari and Spanish bread as well.

We took Calle Atocha up towards the Plaza Mayor (which was uphill quite a ways and something I was not expecting). We stopped at various shops along the way, including a supermarket where the girls could get some olive oil and Ramiro got a six pack of beer.

We made our way up to the Plaza and did some souvenir shopping. Each Spanish city has a main square or Plaza Mayor. Salamanca, where I lived, has the most famous Plaza, but the one in Madrid is a close second. There was a extremely overweight man dressed as Spiderman in the center of the Plaza and I wanted to take his picture, but the girls said I would only be rewarding bad behavior. (Look in the very bottom right corner of the picture below and you will see him).

I bought a fridge magnet and some other souvenirs and then we made our way to Opera metro station to catch the train to Principe Pio, the metro stop near the restaurant. On the subway, I managed first to break Ramiro's camera and then fix it, but I felt pretty bad about it.

Casa Mingo is a tavern style restaurant serving Asturian style food (Asturias is a region in Spain). They are most famous for bottling their own Sidra (Hard Cider) and their rotisserie style chicken.

We ordered three chickens, two bottles of cider, two tortillas (Spanish potato pies) and Tarta de Santiago (almond cake) and it ended up coming out to about 70 Euros or 10 per person, which is a great deal. I love this restaurant and the rest of the crew really enjoyed it, so it was certainly a nice way to wrap up the evening.

We strolled back to the metro and ended up getting back to the hotel around 11:30pm or so. Having just had a few hours of sleep that afternoon, I had no trouble going to bed, and got a good seven hours or so of shut eye. I got up early enough to go work out in the morning and go to the supermarket (I got a tortilla to take home and a box of Spanish table wine for the equivalent of less than a dollar).

The flight home was long (we blocked in at just under 11 hours gate to gate), but this was a phenomenal trip. Even being a Spanish speaker, Madrid is not a trip I think I will get that often, so it was a nice treat, especially just 10 days into the new route.