I'm still around

For all of you wondering where I am, if I'm still alive, or whatever, "Yes, I'm still somewhere in Holland, travelling between Dordrecht, Amsterdam and Schiphol airport".
Days are flying and the only thing on my mind is this horrible training. Well, not exactly horrible, as it is very interesting as well, but it's true what they say in advance "you'll have no social life". That's not even that horrible, the most horrible thing is what this training is doing to my body and mind. The thing is, even if I would want to keep my social contacts, I simply can't, as I'm soooooo tired and exhausted..... So I'm really sorry that I hardly have any contact with all of you. I miss our contacts, fun, laughter, cheering up, more fun, more laughter, even more fun and even more laughter.... It's not the lack of interest on my side, but simply the lack of time and energy.

I'll give you an example of a week of my training: Every day getting up between 6 am and 6.30 am, leaving the house at 7 am. Getting the metro, train and bus to Schiphol airport. During this trip I read once more the theory for the test of that specific day. The training starts at 8.30 am, until approx noon. Then lunch break till 1 pm (we spend it mostly by studying) and the rest of the afternoon training until approx 5 pm. The training is a mixture of the classes Service and Flight Safety, both theoretical and practical. Every day new information, new chapters, so I try to stay fully concentrated the whole day. Most of the time not possible, as about 3 pm I start to get tired, trying to stay energized by bananas, nuts and Dextro Energy. About 6 pm I come home, unpack my bag, getting my books ready for studying, taking a cup of tea, reading my emails and then the studying starts until I get some dinner. Directly after dinner back to my books until I finish or, when I'm not finished, until I notice that my brains can't take it anymore and I need to go to bed. The next morning exactly the same cyclus. On Friday eve straight after training I travel back to Dordrecht where my parents take good care of me, trying to give me enough vitamins for the rest of the week. Saturday I'm simply too tired to study, so spend it mostly by reading the stuff that I need to study and Sunday I study the whole day again...

It's hard, nothing more, nothing less. Everyday studying new stuff, getting a test the next day and straight afterwards start with new things again. It's a lot and it goes fast. Especially Flight Safety. Last week was all about emergency landings, evacuations, unruly passengers, bombs on board and bomb warnings, hijacking, decompression, oxygen, .... This was stuffed in 4 days, as Wednesday I had my first trainingsflight.

The trainingsflight was great! I went to Oslo, started with service straight away in the economy class and on the way back I did the Select class. Take-off from Oslo and landing in Amsterdam I was seated in the cockpit. Unfortunately not a good view on the white world around us in Norway, but I have to admit that the view in the cockpit itselves was not bad either ;-)
Unfortunately the end of my trainingsflight was dissapointing. When I came out of the cockpit the cabin crew had left already(!). I could find my evaluation on the worktop in the galley when suddenly the purser showed up again. Two other members of the cabincrew were waiting outside the gate already, wanted to leave immediately but the purser told them to shake hands and then they started to run for their trains. The purser had to accompany an unaccompanied minor and I was left alone with a nice present of the cabin crew, a special necklace made from all kinds of tie-ripps with some small notes of them attached to it. Normally it is more or less a tradition that after your first flight you wear this all across the airport. But it is also some kind of tradition that they take some time for you, making a photo, etc. And there I was, on my own with my necklace, no clue where to go! Fortunately the cockpit crew was walking behind me and I asked if I could join them to the crew center. So I took off my necklace, no need to wear it now as the cabin crew was not there and followed the guys. Luckily they explained me some more about how things are working after arriving in the airport. Later I found out that the purser didn't even sign my evaluation and was not allowed to leave me like this without discussing my evaluation.
Although I had a great flight, this was really disappointing and because it is the last part of the flight, it overwhelms the other experiences. Even more if the next morning you find out that the rest of the class had the best photos, fun, etc.
Anyway, the trainer told us that this was an example of how it shouldn't be...

I can tell you much more about my training, for example the simulator test where I had to work with a decompression, passengers without any oxygenmask, emergency landing and no slide working at my door or all the firefighting that we did yesterday, but it means that I could continue for another hour.

Perhaps by reading this impression of how my week looks, you'll understand that I have no time for any contact at all, although I wish I had. It's just studying the whole time, no exceptions, as I have to pass every test.
My life just consists out of nothing else. It takes a lot of energy and I feel that the little energy left I need for myself, before I can give to others. Aaah! That feels so bad! It's not like me :-(
I can't even believe that I just landed 3 weeks ago from Thailand as it seems that I'm doing this for ages already. Such a pity that I couldn't enjoy all the memories of my trip a little longer, instead of full focus on this new part of my life.

Some photos will follow this weekend or otherwhise next week!
Miss you!