first flying experiences

Last Saturday: I had a bad night of sleep (woke up many, many times), felt nerveous and had the feeling that there was a brick on my stomach.... And all because I was going to fly! Sounds silly, because flying should be fun as you choose it as your job, but at that moment my feelings were shifting from very enthousiastic to 'oh no, I'm going to fly' and back :-)
It had all to do with the fact that from no own I'm not a trainee anymore, but don't have anything under control yet. Put me in the aisle with a trolley and I'm doing great, but just the fact that I had no clue about which service on which flight, how to build up the trolley, how to stow everything again. And I wanted to do good!

I started with 3 flights that day and was surprised about how fast they went. My last flights were intercontinental, so this was a big difference! Before you know it the captain is making the 'cabin crew, prepare for landing' anouncement over the interphone. After the stretch to Paris (which means AMS-Paris-AMS) I felt more confident, although I was assigned to the C-class, which is business class and service is very different over there than in the economy class. So feeling more confident and starting to get a little more routine in it, we stepped on the aircraft direction Edinburgh, Scotland. I started with my pre-flight check and flight safety security check: Where did the lavatory go?? And where are ....? I thought that this was going to be more easy, but we changed aircrafttype, from a Boeing 737-800 to a Boeing 737-400, which means that the inside is completely different (except for the cockpit, which is fortunately still in the front)! So I had to open all the closets again to find the fridge, the cups, the dry goods, the cans.... Pffff! So here we went again.... :-(

But then arriving in Edinburgh, Scotland! Wow! I could see the mountains or highlands (how is it called over there??) from the airplane, this was so great! The hotel was located next to the old town, so although very late arriving, about 8 pm local time, I just needed to explore a little (and needed to get some fresh air). So I went off on my own, made a quick tour and concluded that I definitely need more time in this beautiful city.
The next day we were off to Amsterdam again, before we flew to Venice. Never been there either! The hotel was simply great, this was definitely Italy! To give an example: I just put my alarmclock for the next morning 15 minutes earlier as I wanted to experience the more than beautiful shower.
We took the train to Venice, because of course I wanted to do some sightseeing there as well. Venice was just packed with tourists! And prices are like in the Efteling! But after 10 pm, when we headed back to the trainstation, streets were empty and quiet, so lovely. It's such a pity that there are hardly any people living anymore (because of the high prices), so almost all the houses were dark behind the windows. We made a long tour to finally arrive at the San Marco square. By then I dropped my 2 other colleagues in a restaurant as the girl couldn't do without a Chianti anymore ;-) Although dark, the square was still beautifull, all the buildings had very pretty lightning. I went back to my colleagues and we enjoyed our Italian cuisine, Limoncello and some real Italian coffee. Getting back was difficult, we were soooo tired, but falling asleep (of all the experiences) and getting up the next morning at 3.45 am was even more difficult. But at least I can say that I've seen a little of Venice.

Now I'm 2 days off. Trying to relax a little as I notice that I'm still tired of the training and all the sightseeing that I did last week with Taylor. For the ones among you who didn't know yet, he arrived in Amsterdam last week!!
On Thursday I start flying to Helsinki again, have a stay over there and will have stay overs in Warswaw, Berlin and Newcastle, before getting back to Amsterdam again.
To conclude this long story: I can definitely say that I made the best choice to quit my office job and start flying! It just gives me such a good feeling to get a smile on peoples faces with a little of attention.... Although with some people hard to succeed, but with some extra effort still possible!
The flights were great, I feel so much more confident than on my first flight and I just had great stay overs with my 2 other colleagues. Oh, before I forgot to say it, I had another evaluation again, based on these flights, and on all skills I got a 3 (out of 5), which means good and above average! So this is really good. These next 2 months I will have several evaluations, before KLM will offer me a contract for a year.

I added some pictures for an impression of Edinburgh and Venice.