Howdy ya'll. Just got back home (yesterday) from my designated 4 days on duty only to find out it was snowing...what a joy! Maybe it's because I've lived in Texas most of my life, but anytime it snows I'm like a little kid. Needless to say, this morning I couldn't resist waking up with the sun and venturing to Starbucks to treat myself with my 'regular' latte and a pumpkin scone. As
Adventure Girl recently wrote about, sometimes it's the simple pleasures in life that make us truly happy!
So, my trips went pretty well this week. Friday we arrived in San Diego by 2:30pm. Although it had been a fairly long day, I still had energy. Once I got to the hotel, I changed out of uniform and decided to go wondering about the city. It really is beautiful there. I managed to snap a few shots from my phone...
The weather was absolutely gorgeous, I would say somewhere in the upper 60's and clear skies. I can see why so many people live there, for myself however, I guess I'm more of a small town girl. That's another nice thing about this job though...you get to live where you want (well, if your lucky like me ;) you can) yet you get to visit so many amazing places and learn to appreciate them for their own uniqueness.
Speaking of my trip, several notable things happened throughout the 4 days, both good and bad. I'll start with the bad first just to get it over with because those of you who know me know I'm not usually a complainer.....
So, if you haven't figured it out by now, I work for a regional airline. Therefore I work on smaller aircraft (50 and 70 seat jets) and do not have comparable galley space to what the larger aircrafts have. This in turn means that there is no possible way I can offer all the beverage and snack choices that many main line carriers offer for the simple fact that I don't have the space to store all of it.
With that in mind, as I was providing my beverage service on one of my flights, a women asked for hot tea. This being one of the drinks we don't offer, I apologized that we had none and then offered the explanation as to why. Before I could even finish however, this woman starts a 5 min rant about how that is the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard of and she's writing a letter to the company to let them know. To be honest with you, I tuned her out after about the first 30 sec. (this is an acquired skill many flight attendants develop) but it still blows me away that there are people out there who can get so bent out of shape about something so petty. The way I see it, if you want to fly first class on a big airplane that accommodates your every need then buy a ticket on them. Otherwise, don't expect to get a cheaper ticket on a smaller plane and then act surprised because they don't have tea when they still offer you 14 different beverage choices. You know what? You can make that 15 beverage choices if you include the fact that I can get you a cup of hot water...so next time bring your own tea bags lady, if your going to be that picky! Ok, I'm done venting. :)
The highlight of my trip...only because this sort of thing never happens, actually involved a nonrev on one of my flights. *For those of you who don't know, a nonrev is a non revenue passenger who usually works for the airlines themselves and therefore is flying for free on a space available status. Anyways, this really cute gal walks on my plane and introduces herself to me as a flight attendant and lets me know where she is sitting in case I need anything. Although this is common courtesy to introduce yourself to the crew when you are a nonrev, now a days your lucky to even get a 'hello' much less a 'thanks for the ride' sometimes. So as she went back to her seat I thought, "What a nice flight attendant!" After everyone had boarded, I was standing in the galley waiting for the rampers to bring us the paperwork and someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and it's this flight attendant handing me a large bag. She said, "Here sweetie, I brought this for you and your crew." The smell was distinctive...I knew exactly what she had brought...CINNABON! I can't tell you how excited me and my pilots were. How thoughtful that this flight attendant who wasn't even working and didn't know any of us took the time and $15 to go buy us all breakfast and surprise us with it. Needless to say, she made my day!
The last day of our trip ended up a little more hectic than planned. Before I say anything else though, I must first say this...once you become an airline employee you have a much greater understanding for the day to day operations of the industry itself. With this comes an understanding that sometimes crap happens (delays, cancellations, etc.) that you have no control over. In these situations you have to learn to be flexible and go with the flow. That's just the way it is.
That being said, as we were waiting in the lobby of our hotel in SAN for the van to take us to the airport, my captain gets a call from crew support. *Those of you in this business know that 99.9% of the time crew support calls you while your in the middle of a trip...it ain't gonna be good! Sure enough, our first flight to LAX was cancelled and so they were just going to deadhead us home through SLC. *Deadhead is when a crew member who is on duty but is not working the flight, rides in the back as a passenger on a positive space ticket meaning that you are guaranteed a seat (most of the time!) This would have all been fine and dandy (we were going to arrive home only 2 hours later than originally scheduled) yet our flight we were to deadhead on ended up being very late and we missed our connection in SLC to get home. To make a long story short, we didn't get home until 7pm...that's 7 hours later than we were originally scheduled to.
Normally, although I know we have to be flexible, I would have the tendency to gripe about this situation because it's not like we get paid any extra (besides our per diem) to be gone 7 more hours than scheduled...(livin' the dream baby, livin' the dream) however, I was able to take away something good from this fiasco. We ended up not leaving SLC until the sun was going down and as we were climbing to altitude over the mountains, we were flying into one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen...
Is that not absolutely gorgeous? The picture doesn't even really do it justice but it still looks amazing. Now see...if we had been on schedule that day, we would have arrived home at noon and I would have never paid any attention to the beautiful sunset. I guess this just goes back to the fact that sometimes the most simple things in life are the things that matter most and that we should appreciate more.
Well, that is about all I got right now...I hope things are going well and that today you take the time to stop and enjoy one of the more simple pleasures life has to offer. Peace out.
Hey ya'll...I just wanted to share with you about my awesome day yesterday! Well, I got home around 12pm from my trip and Jon asked me what my plans were for the night. I told him I didn't have any and then he said well it's a good thing I have an extra headset because your going flying with me and Vinny. SWEET! Those of you that know me, know what a big dork I am and how excited I get for the chance to go up now a days. I miss flying so much but I just don't have the time or money to get back into it right now. Needless to say I was so excited! We went up in a Cessna 210...It was a nice ride. I was able to snap a few shots during the flight...
