not yet on cruise-control

Well, where to start...

First of all needless to say that I had the best birthday party ever!!!
At my birthday itselves I took my parents, brother and girlfriend and my grandmother out for dinner. As I'm really missing the noodles, we went to this 'wok-restaurant'. Wow! I just ate everything! And I was fusing big time! Haha! Eating a chilisoup, combined with just every eastern snack that I could find, but also with the dutch 'specialty' bitterballen :-D Let's just say that it was about 20.30 pm already and I was hungry big time! During wokking I took some Thai curry, which was delicious! By then I didn't know that I would have been able to combine this with the Thai Chang beer... :-(
While leaving the restaurant I noticed the beer in the fridge and couldn't pass anymore.... I have no idea, normally I don't like beer at all, but this is different, this is memories of Thailand! The waiter was surprised to hear that I knew the Chang beer, so I told him about my trip and ended up with a free bottle of Chang and a free bottle of Japanese beer... Although hard to resist my mum convinced me that it would be better to wait with drinking it until Taylor arrives and I know she's right, shit!

That Saturday I had a birthdayparty for my friends. Also this party was about fusing, about fusing in 2 different kind of ways. First of all, fusing food again, as everyone brought some food and we shared this. Great fun as everyone was curious about what the others had been cooking. So we had mexican food, greek food, spanish food, snacks, salads, soup, handmade chocolates... Wow! The other way of fusing, was the fusing of my friends. As I haven't been celebrating my birthday for 2 years, my friends didn't had the chance to meet these last years. So it was for some of them a reunion after so long, but next to that, during my working abroad and the last year in Holland, I made some new friends and for the first time they all would meet! So exciting! And it all went so well! I was so happy, looking at all these different and wonderfull people, realizing that they are my friends...

After that, time for serious stuff, no party anymore, as in 4 days my KLM training would start and I had some homework to do. The first 2 days we would be tested in english writing skills and in an introduction in flight & safety, all self-study. This felt strange; after so many years studying, feeling the discipline again, the stress. Having the pressure of the norm of achieving 80% for every test. But hey, I managed! English was even scary, as I left the classroom after 10 minutes. Yesterday evening and this morning was however more stressing! From now on we will get almost every day a new test of which you only know one day before about what. We will discuss the material in class and next day you need to know. Well, let's put it this way: after 8 hours of intensive training per day and not being an 'evening person', studying in the night is really difficult for me! I'm simply so tired already at 9pm. Yesterday evening I stopped learning, started reading, as I was moving too slowly, but at 11pm I couldn't even read anymore... I had to stop without finishing it. Stress and worries big time! Getting up extra early for study is not really an option as I get up already at 6.15 am to make absolutely sure to be in time for the training, otherwhise you can shake it (no excuses!).... One minute too late: you can't get in and you will have to report, you miss your test and.... well, that's bad! I felt a little relieved to realize this morning that I was not the only one having difficulties with finishing our homework and getting stressed about it. In the end, we all succeeded and I'm almost too embarrased to say that I got a fully 100%...
I'm sure next week I will feel exactly the same (stressed) as it will take some time to put the cruise-control on, but at least I now have the experience that that doesn't say anything about the results.

Today was fun as well, as we had to come in uniform. It felt so good to wear an uniform again, I can't explain why. I just change... And the people around you as well. We all experienced this this morning. Some of my fellow trainees were followed by trainpassengers the whole trip because as a flight attendant you know everything about trains, right? One of us got spit by a vagabond and I got a free cab, haha! What happened was this... I thought I wanted to study during my travelling to the training and planned to take another route as normally. Instead of first walk for 8 minutes, then take the metro for 3 stops, then take the train for 1 stop and then take the bus for -I don't know how many stops-, I decided to take a walk of about 8 minutes and then take a busride for about 1 hour. So yesterday eve I checked and double checked to make absolutely sure that I would know where to be on time, as I can't be late. This morning I left early the appartment to even build in some more safety. For some reason, the internet information is NOT right! Shit! I arrived at the busstop but there was no sign at all saying that this specific bus would stop over there, just nothing! Whereas all the other busses were mentioned. So I had 2 options: waiting for most probably nothing or started to walk back the whole road trying to be in time for my other route. So I did... But I ran into this taxi and I thought, why not ask him about the nearest busstop that I couldn't find? As next time I do need to find it! He only knew the busstation and so he brought me to the busstation. As we were driving I noticed that his meter was not on and as I polite girl I warned him about that. I'm in uniform, so I warned you I'm different then ;-) But the answer was that it would be his pleasure to take me there, haha! So we arrived at the busstation, he drove around to make sure that he stopped at the right busstop and even waited untill I drove off in my bus.... And, I'm a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y sure that without uniform I had to pay!

Well, that's it for now... This weekend studying again (no test on monday, hooray!!!) and next wednesday my first (european) flight! Monday I will know where I'm flying to!!!!
I'm ready for take-off!