First Blog of 2010!

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2010, I hope that everybody had a great time celebrating the beginning of a brand new decade.

On Thursday, I headed to the college for my very first exam. It didn't feel like New Year's Eve at all. I breezed through the verbal part of the exam, where the trainer asked me questions and I replied using proper aviation terminology and basically reciting my manual word for word. Unfortunately, the practical portion of the exam wasn't so simple. I walked into the door simulator room, and smiled and said good morning to the trainer. He stared at me with an expressionless face, and pointed at the simulator. I walked over, suddenly feeling extremely nervous. He shouted out commands and I carried them out, with a few minor mistakes. I could recite the list of procedures word for word, but being watched and evaluated makes it so much more difficult. Fortunately, I did just fine and finished the exam succesfully. One down, many to come.

After my entire ab initio group had completed the exam, we headed to the Boeing 777 simulator, and practiced more emergency drills. It's always so scary trying to remember everything. Attention to detail is so important, because one mistake could be the difference between life and death in some situations. For those of you who think that flight attendants are nothing more than glorified waitresses... well, you are generally right, but you have to realize the huge amount of responsibility placed on our shoulders. Sure, it's our duty to make sure that all of the passengers recieve their meals, but we are also the ones in charge of saving their lives in the event of an emergency. So please be nice to your cabin crew next time you fly. There is a lot more to the job than you see from your seat. Later that afternoon, we practiced ditching, which is an emergency landing on water. We crawled onto the slide rafts, hopped into the freezing cold water, and learnt techniques to stay warm in the water before climbing back onto the rafts. There was more theory, and then we were free for the weekend!

That was when I realized that it was New Year's Eve, 4:00 pm, and I had no plans.

Everybody was exhanging phone numbers on the bus, trying to make plans for the evening. Eventually we decided to go to Barasti, a bar on the beach with a huge New Year's event planned. A few people went to get tickets while the rest of us stressed over what to wear. It was 11:00 pm by the time that we finally arrived, and the place was packed. It is a really beautiful location, right on the beach with the city as a backdrop. There were approximately 6,000 people drinking, eating, dancing, and celebrating. I grabbed some greasy food, met up with more people from our group, and waited by the pool for the countdown. The DJ announced 60 seconds until midnight, and I frantically tried dialing Ryan. Unable to get a signal, I joined in with the countdown and proceeded to hug everyone and scream, as it seemed to be the thing to do. Wow, 2010. I finally got ahold of Ryan and wished him a Happy New Year while watching the amazing fireworks display over the water. We spent the night on the beach shouting out flight attendant commands. It's so great to finally know people who are as obsessed with flying as I am. I made it home at around 3:30 pm, called Ryan, washed the sand from my feet, and flopped into my bed. I woke up at around 10 am and waited for a much aniticipated phone call from Ryan. At 10:58 am, my phone rang and I was on the phone as he counted down to 2010 at home. It was cool to count down twice! I welcomed him to the new year that I'd already been in for 11 hours.

Later on in the afternoon, I was sitting in the restaurant downstairs (taking advantage of the free wireless since my internet has been down for a couple of days) when I heard a huge boom of thunder. I know what you are thinking... "There are thunderstorms in Dubai?!". Well typically, no. Here in the desert it's hot and sunny every day, just as it had been an hour earlier. The skies opened up and rain POURED down and the foods quickly flooded. Dubai has a terrible drainage system, which is somewhat understandable given their usual absence of rainfall. I returned to my apartment building to find water all over the floor, and I had to resort to taking the stairs, as the elevators were inoperable. Dubai spends billions of dollars on building giant buildings, palm tree shaped islands, and shopping malls, but when it rains they'd rather flood the roads that improve the drainage system.

I still can't believe that it's 2010... it's going to be an amazing year.