I forgot my camera

Last night at 8:01pm, after waiting all day long to get a phone call, I got one as I was about to go to a friends house.  They were sending me on a high speed to Sioux City, IA.  This is normally a CRJ-200 high speed but something was wrong with the plane so they upgraded to the 900 and needed another flight attendant.  They told me I had an hour and a half to get there.  I got there at 9:30, the plane was to go out at 9:40.  Crew scheduling told me that the plane would be delayed because they had to call three crew members in.  I was the last one there and they told me they weren't going to hold the plane and we had to go now.

We only had 14 passengers so it was pretty easy, and there was no first class.  The trip was 39 minutes.  The other flight attendant Kevin, graduated the month after I did so it was fun to have two new people working the 900.

I decided I would do the service on the way there and he would do it on the way back.  Before I got to the last passenger the plane starting to go down at a pretty steep angle, I had a 150 pound cart with hot coffee in front of me...  It was so hard to get it back to the galley! I was using all of my force to keep that cart from running me down in the aisle!  Once we landing I asked the captain what he was doing and he said that we stayed up too high for too long so instead of making circles around the airport they decided to just go straight down for it. WHAT THE HECK!

In the shuttle on the way to the hotel, the driver told us that there was a big party going on and they had pizza's left, so when we got to the front desk they gave us a plate and told us to take whatever we wanted!  I couldn't sleep when we got there so I started watching the end of Juno.  Once that was over there was a Rachel Ray special on her trip to Oahu so I watched that until it was so boring I got tired.  I tossed and turned all night so that kinda sucked.  We had to wake up at 5:15 to get to the airport.  Tonight I go to Watertown and Pierre, SD.  

Welcome to Grand Forks! The local temp is NEGATIVE 35!

I found out about this trip Monday night so when they called me Tuesday morning at 8am I wasn't mad :)  Here is the trip:

MSP to Grand Forks (GFK), GFK to Devils Lake (DVL), DVL to GFK, GFK to MSP, MSP to Waterloo (ALO), ALO to MSP.

Knowing that is was going to be freaking cold I layered myself up.  I had leggings, tall socks, leg warmers, my pants, a tank top, t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, blazer, scarf, ear muffs, gloves, and my jackets.  The only thing that ever got cold was my toes and my nose.  We had an all female crew!  Christina (captain) and Lisa (first officer) woo woo!

The plane was almost full with 29 passengers, packed with people in the air force.  They listen to their music super loud!  I had my ear plugs in (the plane is really loud) and I could hear their music still! It was funny when they got off the plane, they had been over seas for the past two years or something with 80 degree weather everyday and then they come back to freeze! The past two days I've worked Diet Pepsi has been the most popular drink of choice!  It's funny when people ask for Coke and I tell them we only have Pepsi they immediately say Ginger Ale.  I'm not a big fan of Pepsi either but whatev.

There was only one passenger that was left on the plane to go to  Devils Lake.  He came up to the front and said he had a car waiting for him in Grand Forks that was driving him to Devils Lake. That was weird.  So I was all by myself in the cabin to Devils Lake :(  It was kinda fun though.  We missed our approach going into Devils Lake due to a faulty terrain warning so we just ended up flying back to Grand Forks.  We had to leave 2 passengers in Devils Lake.  Nothing happened on the way back to Minneapolis.

So we went on our way to Waterloo.  It was a pretty short flight and everyone was pretty much sleeping.  We boarded the three passengers I had to bring back to Minneapolis.  Two pilots and a lady.  They deiced us in Waterloo and by the time we got to the runway we had snow built up on the plane, so we had to have them come out to the runway and deice us again.  The snow was coming down so hard that by the time they finished we already had snow all over the wings.  They have really weak deicing fluid so the pilots were really mad.  We had to bring the plane back to the gate and deplane everyone.  We sat in the crew room for about 2 hours before dispatch told us they were canceling the flight and gave us a hotel.  

We call the hotel to get the shuttle to the airport to get us, and they tell us that because of the weather they won't come get us. Just a joke.  So Tammy (works at the airport) said she would drive us to the hotel.  It was really bad out, the snow was just blowing everywhere! She was really cool, she said that if we ever come down on a saturday to call her and she would take us to the casino or go to the bars. Once we get to the hotel we are trying to figure out if they are going to shuttle us to the airport in the morning, and they say, "maybe, depends on the weather."   So Christina called the airport and they said they would have someone pick us up in the morning or send a limo to get us.  

Our call time in the morning was 7:30am so we couldn't even go out or anything.  My room was toasty when I opened the door, I left it like that until I couldn't stand it anymore.  It was only 10pm so I watched scrubs for about an hour then went to bed.  We got down to the Lobby in the morning and find out that the 8am flight is canceled, they decided not to tell us.  So we end up ferrying the plane back with no passengers.  We didn't get the plane off the ground til 10 that morning. Sat in the crew room for another 2 hours doing nothing.  I just wanted to be home, I wasn't even supposed to work on Wednesday it was my day off, so they gave me today off instead!  

Yesterday I was Mal's first patient :)  Here she is at her first appointment!

Bad Idea- The U.P. of Michigan in Winter

Agh. OK.

The weather this week sucks, everywhere.  I got called Monday morning at 4:40 am. Lucky for me I went to bed the night before around 9:30 pm.  I was super confused when they called because I had no idea what time it was.  He told me that I have a 6:10 show.  I had to ask if it was am or pm haha just clueless.  So my trip was to go to Sioux Falls to MSP, MSP to St Cloud, St Cloud to MSP, MSP to Bemidji and then back to MSP.  Before we even took off to go to Sioux Falls crew scheduling called and changed out schedule.  The flights to St Cloud and Bemidji had canceled because of the snow storm so they decided to send us to Houghton/Hancock Michigan!  

On our way to Sioux Falls the flight was pretty boring, I only had thirteen passengers for about an hour flight.  The only funny thing that happened was a passenger told me she has written to NWA about the reading lights and how the light doesn't hit her book right. So she asked me to tell someone about it.  She always sits in the same seat every time she travels, I suggested a different seat.  On the way back I had 25 passengers, over half were going to Honolulu! 

We had about an hour break once we got back before we had to leave for Michigan.  You think that an hour would be enough time for the plane to be fueled.  But it wasn't, we waited with all the passengers in the plane for about an hour.  Then we had to get deiced, which took even longer.  So after being delayed about 2 hours we finally land in Michigan.  I was blinded by how white it was there.  You couldn't see 2 feet in front of you, or maybe there was just nothing to look at, but it was white and snowy.  We board the new passengers going back to Minneapolis right away so we can get out and try to make up time for being so late.  Once everyone is on, we get a call from dispatch telling us that they are doing a ground hold and we can't take it.  So we had to deplane everyone and they were really mad because it was our fault that we couldn't leave obviously.  We got off the plane and find out that they aren't letting us leave until 5:30.  It was 3 at this point.  We were going to sit in the airport in Houghton for 2 and a half hours! 

 It didn't bother me too much, I grabbed a sierra mist and my goldfish and went and sat with all the passengers and read some Harry Potter.  I listened to all the passengers complaining for about an hour then that got old.  There was a 2 year old running around and then decided to climb all over the chair next to me, real distracting.  After the Pilots were fighting with dispatch forever we finally got the OK to go.

We got back and the weather was so bad, I think I sat in traffic for an hour and saw alot of cars in the ditches on the way home.  I made it back to watch Gossip Girl and One tree Hill so it made out for a pretty good night!  Mal and I decided to go work out at 10:30pm for some reason.  The end of my Monday.

This isn't from this trip, it was when we were deadheading home from Omaha, I just didn't do a post.

I <3 La Quinta!

So I'm sitting in my hotel bed at The La Quinta Hotel in Omaha, NE. enjoying my bag of popcorn, ginger ale and listening to the music from Across the Universe.  This hotel room is three times the size of my bedroom!  I have the choice of a King size bed, or four chairs to sit in!! I love La Quinta hotels!  The beds are so comfortable.  I invited Brian to the hotel to come swimming but the roads are really bad here so he couldn't make it.  But that's ok cause we have to get on the shuttle to the airport at 6am tomorrow!  We are deadheading back to mpls so I get to sleep!Two things I forgot to mention about my day yesterday.  1. I saw the Pittsburgh Steelers airplane at the Detroit airport. 2.  A man in first class dropped his bag on top of Steven's head and didn't even apologize!

I really wanted to go sit in the hot tub at the hotel in Harrisburg. The elevator said it was on the second floor, so I found a staircase that said "stairs to the pool."  I opened the door and it didn't tell me which way to go, and the stairs were super dark so I gave up on finding the pool real quick. The plane that we were taking out of Harrisburg was late departing from Detroit due to weather so we had to sit in the airport for a while. I managed to make it to chapter 5 in Harry Potter. 

 This one guy gets on the plane and said since it was overbooked that he was promised free drinks? He was on the plane, so I don't know why he would be mad about it being overbooked.  He told me that he wanted a drink every time I walked by him saying, "don't forget about me, I'm the one in the ravens shirt (which reminds me how bad I want to watch One Tree Hill)"  and there were at least eight other people on the plane who had ravens shirts on.

On the way to Omaha there was a Chris Brown look a like on the flight! I swear they could be twins.  It wasn't him though because he wouldn't be sitting in coach.  I was doing a walk through and a lady's cell phone was ringing really loud.  I asked her to turn her phone off and she didn't understand me.  She said her phone was off, but it was in her pocket and it was clearly ringing.  Steven decided to walk through the main cabin and give out snacks to people who wanted them, such a good little flight attendant!  

Nothing really exciting happened today since we only did two legs.  Tomorrow we deadhead to Minneapolis and then fly to Milwaukee and back then we are done! I really hope crew scheduling doesn't send me anywhere else after we get back. Here's the bed spread for the La Quinta!

Please Remain Seated

Thursday we flew from Pittsburgh to Detroit, Detroit to Lansing, Lansing to Detroit and Detroit to Harrisburg, PA.    They were all pretty short flights, all under an hour.  Once again, everyone got out of their seats before the seat belt sign was turned off at the gate.  Steven and I got on the PA at the same time so we canceled each other out so no one heard us when we told them to sit down :(  The captain said we could call him when it happens again so they can slam on the breaks so people fall over... just kidding, that would be bad.  

The plane coming into Pittsburgh in the morning for us to take out came in about a half hour late because of an oxygen mask, so the first two flights we did were a little delayed.  There was a flight attendant who was commuting to Detroit to work, she was pretty funny. The flight from Detroit to Lansing was supposed to be pretty empty, but then the flight was full! I was getting kind of crabby at this point because 2 passengers brought their bags that were supposed to be checked onto the plane, so I had to bring them back up to the front and it was so crowded, blah.  Then I had 5 people in the back of the plane with me who didn't speak english, so they didn't understand a word I was saying to them.  The girl in 20c kept falling asleep and almost tipped over on me!  On this flight, we just took off the ground and a guy STOOD UP! I told him to sit down and he just kept walking towards me, he said he had to go to the bathroom, how was he going to get into the bathroom when i was sitting in front of the door? AH I was so irritated at this point. The flight was 20 minutes, I had water and orange juice to pass out but there was not time so I just walked up to the front and helped Steven pass out drinks in first class.

When we got back into Detroit we had an hour layover, Steven and I went and walked around, I wanted to see the light show in the tunnel so bad! Here is a video of it!

(It's not uploading the Video...will try later.)

We finally got to Harrisburg, totally wiped out from the day.  I finally got a hotel where my wireless would work.  I blogged wednesday last night and went to bed.  The bed..so comfortable by the way!  And they even put an extra blanket in the closet!  We planned to get up at ten this morning to go do something.  I woke up at 9:30 and called Steven and asked if we could change it to 11 and he agreed!  Fell straight back asleep, had some weird dreams about going to the dentist before going to see Mallory on the 14th, which she told me not to do so I was freaking out haha.  So I finally got up and got ready. 

 I met Steven down in the front lobby.  The shuttle will only bring us to the airport so we decided to just walk to Target, I really needed toothpaste.  We bared the cold, and it is really cold!  We got to an intersection that wouldn't let us walk across, it wasn't the safest intersection to walk across I understand that, but we had no other way to get to Target.  We stood there for a good five minutes thinking about what we should do, then there was a clearing and we ran across!  On our walk back and ran into the Captain who was also walking to Target.  

We got back to the Hotel and I heated up my soup and sat in the bar area and watched some TV show I've never heard of, it was pretty entertaining.  I wanted to go sit in the hot tub so I walked to the second floor and opened the door that said "Stairway to Pool."  It didn't tell me which way to go and it was kind of dark so I chickened out and went back to my room. That's about it, we get on the shuttle to the airport at 3:15pm today.  All we have to do it go to Detroit and then to Omaha, pretty short day. 

Bye Bye Bunny :'(

We had to put Annie to sleep.  I'm so sick of cancer taking everything away.  She was the best dog ever.  I miss her so much :(

Wednesday was the start of my four day trip.  I walk up to the gate agent and she tells me that we have a high risk fugitive that was on the run with two law enforcement officers.  Lucky me sat in between the two officers in the back. They found him up in Duluth and were bringing him to New Orleans.  The LEO's were super nice, one of them talked to me for most of the trip when I wasn't busy.  He lives in New Orleans, and he started talking about the hurricane.  He said he couldn't find his wife for 3 days.  He was working at the airport when the hurricane happened and when the city was getting a lot of people out on planes.  He said that there were boxes full of guns and knives that people had on them, he also said they found prison jumpsuits in the garbages outside of the airport...(yikes.)Everyone knows that when the seat belt sign is illuminated, you are supposed to stay seated in your seat right? Well not the three flights we had on wednesday! We told everyone to sit down, and they just stared at us, then we said it again, and again.  I don't understand.  Also, I've never seen both bathrooms on a plane being used during the entire flight.

We have to have all of the overhead bins shut before we close the door, I had all of them shut except for row 14 over seats c and d.  I couldn't get it shut, I had to have tried over 20 times.  So I went and got Steven and asked if he could shut it for me, of course he gets in on the first try so all the passengers are laughing at me.  I don't know what's wrong with me this trip but I'm having a hard time with the over head bins.Our trip on Wednesday was Minneapolis to New Orleans, New Orleans to Detroit, and Detroit to Pittsburgh.  When we were flying over New Orleans all I could think about was when we went down this past March.  I miss it so much. Once we got into Detroit it was snowing, the flakes were sticking to the windows when we were waiting for passengers to board and you could see every little detail in the flake.

I think we got to the Holiday Inn around 11 or 11:30pm. Here is the bed spread.

 We were super hungry so Steven and I went to a place called Eat N'Park.  It is kind of like a Perkins, open 24 hours, serves breakfast all day and night.  I got a strawberry lemonade (so good) and a bacon cheese and eggs bagel with hash browns and toast.  I probably could have gone with less food but it was yummy.  We got back to the hotel around 1:50 am and it took me forever to fall asleep.  We wanted to go explore downtown Pittsburgh in the morning so we got up at 7am and headed out at 8am.  We took the shuttle to the airport and from there took the city bus downtown.  It took about 40 minutes total to get where we wanted to.  We went and saw the Heinz Historical Museum.  We got there at 9am, and it didn't open until 10 so we went across the street and sat in the hotel lobby.  The museum was pretty sweet.  Here is my favorite picture from inside.

A New Year

Happy New Years! 4 days late.

I've skipped out on writing for a few days so I have a lot to say.

I had the worst flight of my life.  I was sent to Moline, IL on a high speed.  It was on the CRJ-200. A plane I had never seen, or been in.  So I get there early so I can go check it out, but of course the jet bridge isn't connected to it and the door isn't even open, so I'm just freaking out.  Then the captain comes up to me and tells me both of the coffee makers are broken. We finally get into the plane and everything is so messed up, I hate the galley on the 200.  The passengers board and everything and I start to make my announcements and thats all fine.  Then I go to sit in my jump seat, guess who can't get the seat belt unhooked...me.  So I'm just hanging out with the arm straps around me so I don't fall out of my seat on take off.  I get up to make some more announcements and start to get my cart ready for service, turbulence hits and i'm trying to hold on for dear life.  I mess up some more announcements and I get to row two and the guys are asking me if it's my first flight, that means i suck.  The way back in the morning was better but I never want to go back on that plane again. I'm done talking about this now. Here is the bed spread from the hotel we stayed at.

Here are some pictures from my Holiday party I had on the 30th. I set up a photo booth in the laundry room, it was fun!

I got the pleasure of being scheduled to do an overnight on New Year's Eve. I flew to Hibbing and Thief River Falls.  On the way there, I believe there were at least 5 people who brought canes on the plane with them, so boarding took a while.  The flight went pretty smooth, nothing interesting happened.  We got to the hotel (Seven Clans Casino) around 11:50.  I ended up being on the floor above the pilots so I had to take the elevator up.  I got in the elevator and there were two people SMOKING!!!! bleh it was so gross.  The hotel reaked of smoke that night, i didn't know you could smoke in hotels but sick, it must be because its on an indian reservation.

I figured I should so something to celebrate the new year, but being in a hotel room by myself made that kind of hard. So I decided to jump on the bed. And then I documented it. The highest place to set my camera was on the t.v. and I cut my head off.

I was hoping that I wouldn't wake up and have dinner waiting for me on the front table, but we got the best sausage, egg and cheese 'mcmuffins'.  They were huge! I couldn't even finish one!

On the way back to Minneapolis I had to unaccompanied minors, two little skater boys names Shade and Seven. They will be famous one day.

Now that It's January I'm on a new schedule.  I'm on reserve for the entire month, they call me when they need me.  Friday I did a quick turn to LaCrosse, WI and back.  27 minute flight.  I think I was in my car to the airport longer than in the air to LaCrosse.  Sunday I deadheaded to Aberdeen, SD and worked the flight back.  Then worked it there and back once more.  I thought deadheading would be fun because we just get to sit in the back on the plane and watch the other flight attendant work, but I was so bored! The flight was an hour and I left my book at home so the only thing I had to look at was the World Traveler magazine.  When we got back to Minneapolis, the flight back to Aberdeen was supposed to leave right away, I had to switch planes, so I got to the gate and the plane wasn't even there yet, It had just left, so I sat on the bench and called my mom, neither of us had anything to talk about, we were both bored.  Once we got on the plane, there were about 20 old people who were on a tour in Pasadena, CA.  The first thing I told them was that it was -6 degrees in Aberdeen! Haha they were mad, but they were super nice and talked the entire flight so I had something to listen to.  On the way home there were only 5 passengers, pretty quiet ride. Wassau

Now I have today off and back on reserve tomorrow til saturday. I just checked my schedule to see if they put anything up and they gave me a four day trip!  I'm kind of excited for it, just not excited to pack food for four days!

Even more exciting news...Hannah and I are going to Hawaii at the end of the month!!  My aunt and uncle will be down there so we are going to have a great time! If it rains this time I am never going back, that's it!