Cedar Rapids..

I'm on my overnight in Cedar Rapids, IA. There is absolutely nothing to do here.  When we were driving to the hotel in the shuttle the drive was telling us all about the city when the flood happened.  It honestly reminds me of New Orleans. All the houses are boarded up, you can see the water lines, and the businesses are empty.  I wanted to go out and take pictures of the houses but my day got screwed up and I didn't get out. When i have another over night here I will be sure to take pictures and post them.  We are staying at the Crowne Plaza tonight, I've never had an entire hotel room to myself! It's kinda scary? But it's a super nice hotel and I have two beds, which one to sleep in? I've been here since 12:30pm and now its...6:30 and I just figured out how to work the wireless. sweet.

The CRJ-900 was CRAZY this morning. The flight was 37 minutes. That means no time for me to know what the heck I am doing! Everyone boarded so fast.  My instructor went over paperwork and other procedures with me here at the hotel once we got here.  I'm hoping tomorrow goes better, I have three legs to figure out this plane! And the worst part is I won't even be back on it for at least another month! 

I got my December schedule yesterday, thinking I was going to be on reserve because of my seniority being...young.  Nope, I got a high speed line! AHH!  That means, I am on continuous duty over night.  Fly out of Minneapolis at 8pm, and get back to Minneapolis in the early morning.  Don't know how I feel about this except...I get to be on the Saab the entire month!! YES! And I get to do two flights into Canada.

I have to wake up at 3:30am tomorrow so it's time for bed! Goodnight!

First Flight

Friday I had my first OE (operating experience) on the Saab 340.  It was my first time on a prop plane.  We flew to Lacrosse, WI and then onto International Falls, MN later that day.  The plane was pretty full on the way to Lacrosse with 26 people!  The pilots though it would be funny to get on the PA and let every passenger know that it was my first day, I got a few claps haha.  The flight into Lacrosse was smooth until we started to descend, then it got bumpy, scary.  I thought it would be hard to do service during the flight but when i stood up it didn't even feel like we were flying.

We had about a half our layover in Lacrosse, the pilots came out of the flight deck and sat down with us in the cabin, they were super nice. I found out that the captain is a cousin of a girl I went to high-school with.  He told me that there were about 9 things that were broken on the plane but we were still OK to fly, I wish he wouldn't have told me that.  I guess a lot of the Saabs were broken that day, some flights were canceled because of it

After we flew back in Minneapolis we had a 2 hour layover before we left for International Falls.  I just sat in the break room, nothing interesting happened.  We switched onto a different Saab for this flight, and again, there was stuff that was broken.  The gate agent told me that there were going to be 7 passengers, only 3 showed up and they all sat in the back.  It was kind of fun only having three passengers, because they slept the entire time and we just hung out in row three drinking ginger ale.

Flying into International Falls was beautiful, the sun was starting to set!  We were supposed to have another half hour layover in International Falls but the pilots wanted to go home so I had literally 5 minutes to do everything! It was insane.  Once again we boarded on 3 passengers, who all sat in the back.  This flight home I had to do everything by myself.  At the start of our service we take out a anti bacterial wipe for our hands, not even looking, I grab a sugar packet instead ( thinking it was the wipe) tear it open and sugar goes EVERYWHERE!  Thankfully no one saw. 

Then we landed back in Minneapolis, finished some paper work and went home!  I would say my first day was great and I was more prepared than I thought I was.  Tuesday I do my OE on the CRJ-900.  We fly to Cedar Rapids, IA and spend the night there, 16 hours in IOWA, what to do?  We get up the next morning and fly to St. Louis and get back home pretty early, I'm nervous for it!

Here are a few pictures from the last day of training and Friday morning when we met in the parking ramp!

A Great Idea

I went into school today to pick up the frames I was supposed to get two weeks ago (oops).  Before I even got a foot into Colleens office she said, "What's this I hear about you being a flight attendant?" So I had to explain myself.  I was in Business of Photography about a year ago, and a teacher had gone around the class and asked everyone what we wanted to do when we graduated.  When it came around to be my turn I said, " I want to be a photographer, a flight attendant, and marry someone with a french accent." Pretty much all that was said back to me was, "You can't do that."

Well.  I will.

Maybe not the whole marrying someone with a french accent, but someone who can fake one?

So Colleen came up with a great idea for me to do a blog about being a flight attendant and a photographer.  Every where I'm sent, I'll take one picture and post it.