Prime Meridian

After getting home at midnight from my very delayed Belize turn, I woke up the next morning to find that I had been assigned a London trip that evening.  I was happy of course, since it is my favorite layover city, but a bit nervous because I was assigned position 5 on the 767 which is the Business Class Galley position.  I'd never flown that position on a long haul flight.

The purser and crew were awesome though and they helped me thru it.  It was actually easier than I thought.  I guess I had built it up in my mind as something very hard, but as long as you stay organized and a step ahead of the next meal course, it's not so bad.

This was "late late" London, our third nightly departure, so we don't arrive until after noon the following day.  We decided rather than sleep, we would just hit the ground running.  It was a beautiful day in the city and it would have been a shame to sleep it away.

My friend Adriana was on the trip and so a group of us decided we were going to head down to Westminster and hope a boat up the Thames to Greenwich.  It takes about an hour and you see plenty of landmarks as your make your way out of London.  We passed St. Paul's cathedral as well as an Egyptian Obelisk called Cleopatra's Eye.  According to the tour guide, the monument was a gift from the people of Egypt, but when I was in Egypt, it was implied that the Brits stole it, so you be the judge.

We arrived at Greenwich and made our way towards the Royal Observatory so we could see where the Prime Meridian runs thru the site.  It is the line that divides the Western and Eastern Hemisphere, and the Observatory also keeps Greenwich Mean Time, which is the standard in official time and also the point in which other time zones keep their time in relation.  Kind of a big deal.

Given that it was such a beautiful day, the park was bustling with people.  I made sure to get a foot shot for my album and visited the gift shop for some postcards.  After spending a some time at the top of the Observatory, we made our way back to a local pub for some refreshments.  I had a strawberry flavored beer that was quite tasty.  It was a mild day, so I found it to be sweet and refreshing.  Just what I needed.

We then made our way out of Greenwich.  The group found a little French restaurant they wanted to check out, but I broke away from then because I had errands to run in the city before shops started to close.  After taking the train and then the tube to Picadilly, I visited a bookstore to get the new Steig Larson book for my friend Becky and the new Michael Bolton CD for my mother (I made a point of telling the sales clerk it was for her, not me).

It was still light out so I walked around a bit and headed down to Covent Garden to watch the street performers and have a slice of pizza before making my way back to the hotel.  I think staying up was the key that day because I slept very soundly and when I woke up the next morning, I was very refreshed.

Standby Surprise

The worst part about reserve is the standby assignments.  Once, twice, sometimes three times a month, you get the exclusive invite to come to the airport and sit for 6 hours at a time to be ready to go somewhere at the last minute.  This month I have done two standby's and counting.  Last week I was about 45 minutes from the end of my assignment when I was called to be part of the crew of a very delayed turnaround to Belize City.  The original crew had gone illegal so I was going to be paired with a reassigned JFK crew to work the turn.  The crappy part of the whole deal was that the trip was scheduled to leave 5 minutes before my assignment ended.  The nice surprise in the whole deal was that I got to fly with my friend Roz.  We were in the same initial training class 12 years ago.  The last two months I've managed to catch up with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in years.

We were full going down and had some rowdy guys going to a bachelor party, but coming home it was light and everyone slept since we were about 4 hours late arriving.

Making the most of it....

The second week of the month I was given a Paris trip on reserve.  What made it especially cool was that I would be covering a trip out of Boston to Paris and my friend Anne was part of the Boston based crew working the flight.  Anne and I have been friends since we were new hires back in Boston in the early days of our flying careers.  Thru the power of Facebook, we'd reconnected, but I had not seen her in years.  Three of us were deadheading to Boston cover the flight since it upgraded to a 767 from a 757.


The deadhead up to Boston was full and I had a middle seat in the back of a packed 757.  I sat next to a nice guy from Austin named Weldon who was also on his way to Paris to do a couple of concerts at Disneyland Paris.  He was a nice guy and he even gave me a CD of his music.  You can check out his website at http://www.weldonhenson.com.


Because the flight was upgraded to a larger plane, we had lots of open seats since the booking levels remained the same.  The flight to Paris is much shorter out of Boston, just under 7 hours, so we don't get crew rest or anything, which is kind of lame, but it is what it is.

Anne and I enjoyed catching up and I was excited because we would get to hang out in Paris together, BUT, the four of us who were added to the crew with the equipment upgrade were all scheduled to layover at a hotel at the airport and not in town!  Nothing could be more miserable than spending 27 hours in an airport hotel with nothing to do.

Soooooo, when you are handed lemons, you make lemonade.  Two of my co-workers, Ed and Juanita, and I decided to take the RER train into Paris and get out and see some of the city.  We all met up in the hotel lobby that afternoon after our naps and headed into town.  The good news is that there is direct train service from the airport to the center of town, so while it takes a while, it's relatively easy to get there.

The train made about million stops and with each one, got more and more crowded.  Of course there was a lady with a stroller the size of a small car who tried to get on an otherwise packed train!  We exited around Notre Dame cathedral.  I decided a foot shot would be a great addition to my "Around the World with my Feet" album.  The bad news was that it was raining and everything was dirty and damp, but Ed let me borrow his USA today so my butt didn't get moist.

I also stumbled upon the "Center of the Universe" which is the kilometre zero in Paris.  Not sure what it means to the planet, but everyone gets their pictures taken on it and people throw money around it and the gypsies collect it.

After leaving Notre Dame, we made our way over the Seine to the Hotel de Ville, the famous building that used to serve as the City Hall of Paris.  It's the site of the famous photograph of the kissing couple taken around 1950.

Given the weather, it was not super busy here so I grabbed my own photo.  Not much has changed, although now there is a modern fountain to the left of the building.  As we were walking around the neighborhood, we saw a man get hit by a cyclist, which was a little upsetting.  The cyclist didn't seem to care, and since I don't speak french, I tried to give the "ok" symbol to the poor pedestrian, who responded with a "oui" so I am guessing he was ok, and he did get up and walk away.  I think he might have broken his iPod though.

After buying some french moutard (mustard) at a little bodega, we stumbled upon a little pedestrian side street and a neat little pizzeria called Tresor.  We enjoyed a nice bottle of red wine and some great food.

We made our way back to the train station and began the long train ride back to Roissy.  At this point, it's close to 11pm, so we are getting sleepy.  The hotel is supposed to run a van to the train station every 15 minutes, but after 45 minutes, and still no van, we found a kind security guard who let us use his cell to call the hotel and get a van sent our way.


I finally put my head on my pillow around midnight.  I was a little miffed when I woke up a mere two hours later and was WIDE awake.  I never did go back to sleep and there was not much in the way of non-French television.


We were scheduled to deadhead home to base and the flight was not full in coach.  Jane, our third co-worker got an upgrade, but Juanita and I were stuck in the back.  We had a row to ourselves, but there was a bratty little kid behind us who kicked our seats for the entire 10 hour flight home.  I was so tired that after lunch, I even managed to sleep a few hours while the little spawn of the devil continued to terrorize everyone around her.

Icelandic Boycott

Tonight I am supposed to be jetting off to London, but instead I am sitting in my living room watching the 10pm news.  Why?  Because the Icelandic volcano, whose name no one can pronounce, has forced my flight and hundreds of others, to be cancelled.

I was supposed to visit tomorrow with my friend Amanda.  We were going to hang out in the city and go see the muscial Wicked.

Now I am scheduled to fly to Paris on Sunday night, but am having my doubts about if that will go or not.

Stay tuned..... in the mean time I am boycotting all things Icelandic.... according to my friend Amy that means Icelandic ponies and sweaters.

Belize Escorts

This past week, I was able to participate in an Airline Ambassadors Escort trip to Belize.  It was to be a two day trip with an overnight in St. Louis.  I would be escorting a little boy named Albert from STL to Belize and then bringing two children named Tifara and Valdimir out of Belize and back to Dallas/Ft. Worth before handing them off to a flight attendant named Susan who would take them off to St. Louis.

I actually met Albert once before.  In December, I was working the flight out of Belize that he was traveling on with a pilot from my airline named Mark.  (See http://ronno1976.blogspot.com/2009/12/albert.html).

I flew up to St. Louis on Monday night and spent the night at a local hotel.  I met Albert and his host family at the airport on Tuesday at 6am. The local Rotary Club sponsors the clinic in Belize that refers these kids to Shriners in St. Louis and I also met a Rotarian named Charlene who brought two cerebral palsy wheel chairs for me to transport as my "checked luggage".  I made sure to mention I was a former Rotary Scholar to Spain in 1997 :).  After getting checked in we had some time to kill so we sat at a bagel shop and passed the time before boarding.

Albert got a little emotional when it was time to leave.  This was probably going to be the last time he would be in St. Louis since his hip operation was a success and he was real attached to his host family.  After a few tears, we made our way thru security and to our airplane.

Albert slept most of the way to Dallas.  We had a few hours before our trip to Belize so we walked around the airport terminal.  Albert wanted his picture taken with the Rocky Mountain Chocolate bear.  I took him to our crew ops and we played with Hotwheels cars and he colored in the Transformers coloring book I brought along.

Our flight to Belize was great.  The crew was very nice and for some reason Albert was ticketed in Business Class, so I got to sit up there too.  We enjoyed a lovely lunch of grilled Hailbut and got to watch The Fantastic Mr. Fox on the screen.

Since I fly to Belize a lot, I have gotten to know one of the agents down there quite well.  Her name is Shari.  I emailed her last week to let her know I was coming and would have limited time to get Albert dropped off and Tifara and Valdimir checked in.  She was scheduled to work that day, so she promised to be there when we arrived.  She got us sped thru customs and immigration.  Albert's family was waiting outside with some officials from the local Rotary club.  She had also already checked me in for my return flight and gotten us all seats together.

We had a little "photo shoot" as we exchanged kids and documents before making our way to the gate.

Valdimir and Tifara are both going up for a second round of procedures/operations.  Usually, the "goodbye" portion of the trip is hard on the kids and families, but I guess because these kids have been thru this already, and because they were a little older, they were pretty strong emotionally.

Since the flight was so light, the crew gave us an "upgrade" and the kids got to eat dinner and were a little more comfortable with a bigger seat.

We arrived in Dallas a bit early and made our way thru customs quite easily.  Susan, the flight attendant taking the kids up to St. Louis was waiting for us and she and kids made their way to their connection.

London

I've got two London trips this month, thanks to some senior friends and some creative trip trading.  The great thing about my two trips is that I get to fly with my friend Gail.  I have known Gail for years, back from when we served on the Ballot Committee for our Union, but we have never gotten to fly together..... until now!

The trip got off to a rocky start, when as we were preparing for departure to Heathrow, our 777 started leaking hydraulic fluid.  We wait for about two hours with a planeload of very patient people until the mechanics finally took the plane out of service.  We ended up leaving on another plane about four and a half hours late.  We finally made it to the UK and the hotel around noon.  I made a quick trip over to Sainsbury for my usual purchases before taking my nap.

Given the shortened layover time, Gail and I decided to meet in the lobby at about 5:30 and head out for a walk around the park.  The time change to DST mean't it wouldn't get dark until 7:30 or so and it was an absolutely beautiful day.

We walked down to Kensington Park and thru the public gardens that sit beyond Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana lived at one time.  There are signs everywhere that say DO NOT FEED SQUIRRELS, but after seeing how fat and friendly they were, I am guessing no one really pays attention to that.

We were shocked to see so much litter on the grass though so every time we passed something on the ground, we were picking it up and placing it in rubbish bins.

We stopped at Gloucester Arms for a round of brew.  We were given the treat of getting to see a crazy man walk down the street in nothing but underwear and an overcoat with a drink in his hand yelling at everyone.  One of the chaps in the pub said he was their local crazy guy.

As the sun started to set, we made our way back towards the hotel.  We passed Partridges, a kind of high end gourmet grocery store.  I love going in there.  Gail, who flies this trip every week had never heard of it, so we went in and looked around.  They have great pastries and cheeses, spreads, wine, etc.  She got a meat pie  to heat up for the flight home the next day.

We had planned to go to a place called Stanhope Arms for some traditional English food, but off the cuff mentioned a place called Ask, that I used to go to when I flew London during my Boston years.  Gail used to like going there too and I hadn't eaten there in 10 years or so.  We decided that was the place to go.  They have great Italian food.  Gail had a pizza and I had a mushroom and cheese calzone.

We wrapped up our day around 10:30pm or so and made our way back to the hotel. I ran into my purser Lisa and some of her friends who were on some of the other London flights (our base flies 3 a day this time of year) and joined them for a quick drink before retiring for the night.

Of course, we ended up being delayed the next day as our plane was late arriving from Miami.  We ended up spending about 30 minutes sitting in the departure lounge with the passengers  before our plane was ready for us.

On the flight over we had a cool guy in Business Class named Earl.  He was scheduled to be a passenger on the way home with us and when he arrived, he had Cadbury Chocolate Truffles for us.  They were very very good.

The delays really started to wear on us, but we were glad to finally get home.  We do it all over again next week.  Hopefully it will be another great trip, sans the delays.

Lenten Reflections

For Lent this year, I decided to give up the usual, desserts.  But last year I read an interesting article about christians who give up something more techno, like the internet or Facebook.  I found it intriguing at the time and shared it with an old college friend, Jenn.  We decided last year that a Facebook fast would be our goal for 2010.  I kind of forgot about it, and then mentioned it to Jenn in January and she was still game, so we went for it.  I tried to be responsible about my Facebook hiatus, giving everyone a heads up, selling the fish in my virtual Fishville aquarium so they wouldn't die, removing the app from my phone, etc. etc.

The fast is over, and post Lent, I am about 5 pounds lighter thanks to the lack of dessert and I was surprised at how easy it was to quit Facebook cold turkey.  In fact, I came to enjoy the simplicity.  I didn't realize how much time I was spending in the land of social networking, especially in the evenings as the day was winding down.  When Easter came, I logged in for the first time in 40 days and was OVERWHELMED with all the messages, friend requests, notifications, etc. that were waiting for me.  I think I had over 100 notifications from various Facebook apps!  It was almost easier to not have to worry about that.  I am still slowly working my way thru those, and finally managed to catch up with some people.  Of course it was a nice surprise to see a few friends who had surfaced while I was gone, including a friend from my early days in Sarasota (we're talking 20 plus years).

The one realization I had was that I did not see how I had come to use Facebook as my primary means of communication with so many people.  My next door neighbor, who like me is a flight attendant, and I commented on how we never heard from each other during my fast, and our houses are 15 feet apart!

So coming away from all this, I will try to use more email and phone calls to friends versus FB messaging and wall writing.  I'm glad I took this fast and think it will become one of my annual Lenten rituals.