Frozen Feet

February 13th - 15th, 2009

This is the first day of a three day trip. Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Each morning we had to wake up before the sun had risen.  Our first flight was to Appleton, WI.  When we got in the air the sun was just starting to rise, one passenger decided to put his sunglasses on instead of closing the window shade.  During the one hour long flight, I would say 4 out of the 23 passengers actually were awake.

Our next leg was to Houghton/Hancock, MI.  I only had 13 passengers on this flight, so they were mostly sitting in the back of the plane.  There was one passenger seated in the exit row that had the worst B.O. ever.  I could smell it all the way up in the front of the plane.  I felt bad for the passengers sitting right next to him.  My parents came home from Florida right before I left for this trip.  My aunt had given my mom a few books to read, and The Other Boleyn Girl was one of them.  I went and saw the movie when it was out last year and really like it so I decided I could try to read it.  It's harder to read than I thought and I keep getting the characters mixed up.

On the way back to Minneapolis from Houghton/Hancock, we were only supposed to have 10 passengers.  But the flight on the CRJ-200 that was supposed to go out before us broke down, so we ended up taking all of their passengers.  We ended up with 3o, and there were two love birds sitting in row one kissing the entire time.

Once we got back to Minneapolis we flew to St. Cloud to spend the night.  Every single passenger was a world perks elite member, usually we only have about 6.

Saturday we flew back to Minneapolis  at 5:30 in the morning.  Our next leg was to fly to Appleton and back again.  I walked out in the jet bridge to drop off some garbage, and when I walked back into the plane I hit my head so hard on the top of the door I actually thought I was bleeding.  I can't believe i wasn't knocked unconscious.   We flew up to Brainerd to spend the night, we were staying at The Lodge at Brainerd Lakes.  The captain's kids and husband drove up and spent the rest of the day with her in the water park.  The FO's wife flew up on our flight and spent the night and flew back the next morning.  It was a really nice hotel, nice hotels usually have wireless internet in the rooms, but this one didn't.  So after complaining to Mallory for about an hour I finally went down to the front desk to get an ethernet cord.  It wouldn't work, so the maintenance guy came up and tried to fix it but that didn't work either.  SO I gave up and went down to their "wireless internet" lobby.  Didn't work.  I went to the front desk to return my cord and they said they have been having trouble with it for days.  If they would have told me that 2 hours ago I wouldn't have been so crabby.  So I watched ABC Family for the rest of the day and fell asleep at 7pm.

When we got on the plane that next morning, the plane hadn't been heated at all overnight.  It was frozen, I was scared to sit down on my jump seat fearing that I would get frostbite.  When we got off the plane, the three of us were walking really weird, we couldn't feel our feet, it was like walking with cement bricks tied to our feet.  I went to the Itasca Grill and ordered some hot chocolate and a hot breakfast to try to warm up, it never really happened. I had the chills for the rest of the day.

Ready Freddy?

3 Day Trip.

I started out this trip with a flight to Houghton/Hancock Michigan on the CRJ-200. The plane I hate the most.  I don't talk about trips I take on the 200.

Once I got on the Saab we just had to fly to Dubuque and spend the night.  I was just there last week so you've already seen the bed spread. It's the same one as Peoria.  While I was waiting in the plane for the passengers to come down, the gate agents walks down to the plane and said, "Ready Freddy?"  Haha it was cute.  Nothing exciting happened on the flight, I only had 14 passengers.  Once we got in the shuttle to the hotel, the pilots were just talking to each other the entire time about farm equipment. So I just sat there and stared into the nothings of Iowa.  I got caught up on watching Private Practice and was up til 2am.  I didn't sleep much that night and ended up having the worst nightmares ever.

We planned on getting together for lunch the next day.  It was really nice out, so we walked down to this restaurant called Cooper's Wagon.  I got a Guacamole Burger and Fries.  I pretty much stared out the window while the pilots talked about farms.  sweet. 

There was weather starting to form up in Minneapolis, and we got out of Dubuque just in time before it started pouring out.  The clouds looked horrible from up in the sky.  Turbulence was pretty bad.  Once we got to Minneapolis, we had to do a Duluth turn and then go to Aberdeen for the night.  The flight up to Duluth was packed.  Once we got to Duluth there was freezing rain. I opened the door to the cockpit and all they said was, "We are going to be here for a while."  It ended up only being for an hour though.  I was walking back to shut the overhead bins and tripped over a guys leg and almost fell on my face.  Later in the flight when I was doing my service I hit his knee with the cart and we called it even.  I had to tell two guys to turn their laptop off 3 times. I would walk back and they would close it, then I would see them lit up in blue 2 second later. 

The first officer was telling me all about these children books he reads to his nieces, he was so into it! Even doing the sound affects and voices! I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about!  We had pretty bad turbulence the entire trip, so I was sitting in my jumpseat watching the passengers move with the plane, it was entertaining.  On the flight to Aberdeen this guy got on the plane and asked me if he could go into the little girls room.  I just sat there and stared at him for like 10 seconds until I figured out he was asking me if he could use the bathroom. It was weird.  

Once we got to Aberdeen, my hotel room key didn't work.  The captain walked down with me to the front desk, which was like walking through a maze. I got lost in the morning trying to find my way out.  Once I finally got into the room, I opened up my suitcase to change.  My soup exploded EVERYWHERE. It smelt awful.   Luckily we got a free breakfast in the morning. I ordered biscuits and gravy, which came with hash browns and two eggs.  I wasn't happy about waking up early because I stayed up again watching t.v. shows i had missed from the week before.  But I had to eat breakfast because my lunch was all over my clothes.   After breakfast I went back to sleep til 12.

On the shuttle to the airport the pilots kinda started talking to me and I told them I lived in Crystal.  Turns out the First Officer's friend is the owner of Jet's Pizza (my love.)  The ride back to Minneapolis, I swear i was going to get sick from the turbulence, every second we would just drop, and drop, and drop.

The trip to Waterloo and back was pretty uneventful.  There was a guy from Germany that was sitting right across from me that was talking to me for a while.  He is the spinning image of my friends boyfriend (when he turns 40.)

Weight & Balance

Our day was short.  We flew from St. Cloud to Minneapolis, then straight to Peoria to spend the night.  I sat in my jumpseat the entire first flight because it was only 17 minutes.  We had two hours between our flights and were switching planes so I grabbed my stuff and headed to our new gate.  I sat and read the entire time.  I said goodbye to Harry Potter and am on a new book.  We boarded the plane, and were ready to go.  We sat at the gate for an hour, while the pilots and the bag people were trying to figure out the weight and balance.  The tail was sitting on the tail stand and wouldn't lift off of it, or something. After the hour of sitting on the plane, we finally deplaned everyone and got a new plane.  All of the passengers were so nice! I didn't get yelled at once!  At one point, a guy walked up to where I was standing and I was expecting for him to yell at me but he just asked for a ginger ale and told me that he was really happy that we were doing this for the safety of the passengers.  I don't think that will ever happen to me again!

Once we got to the airport, we ended up waiting for our shuttle for about another hour.  The Sky West crew decided to get in our shuttle instead of theirs.  They didn't figure it out until they signed in to the Holiday Inn and realized they weren't supposed to be there.  We got a coupon for a free breakfast! I am actually going to set my alarm to wake up at 9am so I can eat :)  We go out tomorrow at 5pm. Goodnight!

Lean Mean Grilling Machine

My 4 day trip started out yesterday at 11am.  

Grand Forks, Devils Lake, Grand Forks, Minneapolis, Duluth, Minneapolis and St. Cloud.

I started out with Steve and T.J.  They were only with me for the Grand Forks and Devils Lake turn.  Once we got to Grank Forks they were getting giddy in the cockpit about the cheeseburgers the crew makes us when we get to Devils Lake.  The last time I was supposed to go to Devils Lake we didn't land. I was getting excited!  They make them on the George Foreman grill.  We got a cheeseburger and a bag of chips for 2 dollars! Good deal!

I'm sick, so when we get up in the air my ears get clogged and I can't breathe, really uncomfortable, but at least the flights are short.  I had 4 cans of orange juice and I think it just made me feel worse.  We got into St. Cloud around 10:30.  I went straight for my bed.  At 5a.m. I woke up to the alarm clock that was going off in the room next to mine.  It went off for an hour so i finally got up and called the front desk so they could shut it off.  I woke up around 11. It felt so nice to sleep in!  I went out to get more ice to keep my sandwich cold, and got locked out of my room.  I had my key but since it was after check out time they changed the codes! SO...I had to walk down to the front desk, my hair was still wet and not brushed from taking a shower, ugh.  

I met my friend Becky for lunch at the Green Mill that was attached to our hotel, we split a pepperoni pizza.  She told me that she is going to the Holy Land for the entire month of May with a group of students from her school, she gets to go see the pyramids! 

Goodbye Hawaii

Saturday January 31st, 2009

We decided to wake up super early so we could get in as much sun as possible for our last day.  We started packing alot of our things up so we wouldn't have as much to do later.  Pat's fiance flew in Friday night and I wanted to meet her so I went down to the beach for a while and hung out with them, then met Hannah back up at the pool.  We laid out for probably 4 hours, the most we did all week.  We went back to our hotel around 1pm to finish packing and to get ready to leave for the airport, our plan was to go and see if we could get on the non stop at 5:45 or something around then.  

While we were packing, Pam called and told us there was a flight leaving for Portland in an hour and a half and it was pretty much wide open. So we booked it to the airport and got there just in time.  We each got out own row in the plane! So sitting coach for six hours wasn't that bad.  They showed the movie The Duchess.  I really liked it.  I moved over to Hannah's row and we were flicking the screen off for most of the movie because we didn't understand why Keira Knightley would let that happen to her!

We were maybe 10 minutes out of Portland when the captain comes on over the P.A. and tells us that a Continental flight missed their landing due to the fog, so we missed ours to, and they sent us to Seattle.  Whatever everyone was mad and we were already going to have to sit in the airport til 6 in the morning to get a flight to Minneapolis so who cares.  But there was a red eye flight leaving from Seattle to Minneapolis so we just hopped on that.  Then comes the morning and our bags being lost situation that I don't even want to talk about.

That's the end of my vacation.

It was nice :)

Picky Picky

Friday January 30th, 2009

Hannah and I actually slept in a bit today, 9am!  I think it's because we were out so late.  We woke up to the sun again!  We got ready and went to Pam's for breakfast.  After we got done eating the four of us walked down to the international market square.

 I really wanted to find a cool ring that had a turtle on it, but I wasn't impressed with the selection.  I ended up getting a ring that is silver and rose gold and kind of has some engravings in it, hard to explain but i am in love with it.  Hannah was looking for a charm that had three Hawaiian flowers on it, silver bronze and gold.  After looking at 8 different ones she decided to go with a whale tale with flowers on it! It's stunning.

After we were finished with our shopping we went and laid out on the rec deck with Pam and John, finally getting some sun!  We went to La Mariana Tiki Bar for dinner that night, SO COOL!  We made it there for the sunset which was the first and last sunset we saw while we were there.  We were tired (what's new) after dinner so we went back to our hotel and opened a bottle of champagne.  Our beds are uncomfortable and our hands fall asleep while we are sleeping. It sucked

North Shore

Thursday January 29th, 2009

Hannah and I decided to make turkey sandwiches around 7am for breakfast.  We were going to go to the north shore today and it was actually sunny out!  Before we went to the beach we stopped at La Mariana Tiki Bar to check it out to see if we wanted to go there for dinner one night.  It was so cool! We couldn't walk inside because there was an inspection going on. After that we stopped at the storage place to pick up some chairs and another pop up tent for Pam and John's pro bowl party.

We set up at the beach on the north shore and laid out on the beach and tanned.  Hannah didn't want to go in the water, so John came down and I went in with him.  I went and go the boogie board and failed, went back to tanning.  We grilled cheeseburgers and the leftover vegetables from the other day.  We stayed at the beach until 4pm.  One the way back to the hotel we stopped at the dole plantation and got ice cream, I think it was called pineapple whip.

My friend Pat from highschool is based in Hawaii for the Marine Corps.  Him and his friend came out to Waikiki and went out with us.  We hung out in the hotel room for about an hour then went to a place called Dukes for a few drinks.  We sat out on their patio on the beach.  After that we went to a place called the Big Kahuna.  It was kareoke night and there were 3 guys next to us who screamed and whistled the entire time, we payed for our drinks the second we got them and left.  We finally got to our final destination, Mai Tai.  It was a bar in the mall but it was wide open and there were no windows, so the breeze felt really nice.  It was packed with the locals, they don't like the guys in the marine corps so we were watching our backs the entire time, it was scary! We took a cab from Mai Tai to jack in the box so everyone could get food.  While they were eating a local came up to the guys and asked them if they were in the marine corps, they said yes, and the guy put his hood up, and walked away to his friends, we walked out the back door at that point.  It was around 3am at this point, the latest we stayed up during the entire trip.

Da Smokehouse

Wednesday January 28th, 2009

We woke up again super early, opened the shades and saw...clouds.  We were so unmotivated we stayed in our hotel until Noon watching Americas Best Dance Crew on MTV.  The sun decided to pop out for 2 hours and we booked it to the beach.  Hannah taught me how to tan correctly.  We were laying about 50 feet in front of people who lived on the beach.  I opened my eyes at one point and there was a guy walking into the ocean with his shoes and jeans on.  He went out to a rock and did a cannon ball about 3 times and walked back up.  I guess he was washing his clothes.

Once it got cloudy and cold we decided to walk around the shops and get some ice cream. Then went back to the hotel and got ready to go for dinner.  We went over to Pam's to meet them and then went to The Elks Club for drinks and to watch the sunset (kind of.)  For dinner we decided to go to Da Smokehouse.  I can't say I've had a better barbeque chicken sandwich in my life!

I bring the rain wherever I go

Tuesday January 27th, 2009

We got up pretty early again.  On Tuesdays and Fridays there is a fruit and vegetable market a few blocks from the hotel.  We met Pam and John down there and got some pineapple and potatoes and other vegetables to grill at the beach.  After waiting in line for maybe an hour we went back up to Pam's and had breakfast sandwiches (so good.)

After breakfast we packed up and got ready to go to Sandy Beach.  We made a few stops on the way to see some different views, and we stopped so we could look at the stairway to heaven, Hannah decided that she would not be climbing that. Then we stopped so we could see the blow hole and eternity beach, and saw a turtle swimming in the ocean.  It was cloudy and sprinking the entire time :(  Hannah and I both were wearing dresses and covered them up with a sweatshirt all day.  Really attractive!

For lunch John grilled up some cheesy hot dogs for me and pam and steak for him and hannah.  The vegetables were so so good!  Hannah and I went and sat on the beach for a while after we ate and watched people attempt to surf.  Yes, we are the girls on the beach talking about you.

Once we got back to the hotel we decided to pop open a bottle of wine and make some music videos on the balcony.  Then walked around waikiki beach for a bit.  That was pretty much it.

6am Wakeup

Monday January 26th, 2009

We woke up pretty early.  From our balcony we can see Pam and Johns condo.  Pam put out a bright pink cover up (?) every morning when they got up so we could know if we could come over or not.  Hannah and I sat out on the balcony for a bit and then went over to Pam and Johns for breakfast.  We had scrambled eggs, sausage and croissants.

After breakfast they took us to Sams Club, Wal Mart and another grocery store so we could get everything we would need for the week.  We bought way too much.  Hannah grabbed a case of coors light, having never drank it before.  But I didn't fight with her I just let her buy it.  She didn't drink one until Thursday night, she took one sip and said gross.  I hate coors.

After all of the shopping we went and hung out at waikiki beach for about an hour.  We went back to the hotel room after that and just hung out on the balcony and had some champagne and croissants.  We got ready for dinner and took off to Pam and Johns.  We all went to the Yacht Club first so they could get a ticket, and we looked around.  After that we went to Harbor Pub for some pizza. We had some pretty interesting conversations, especially getting out of the parking ramp. I think we got back to the hotel around 8:30 or 9 and went straight to bed.

This is Pam and Johns Bedspread.

A week of vacation

I'm going to do this day by day, otherwise it might possibly be the longest blog in history.

Sunday January 25th, 2009

As a result of oversleeping, Hannah and I got the the airport security checkpoint two minutes after our first flight left.  Then it took a little bit longer to get through and we missed another flight.  We were both starving so we went to burger king, hoping that they had their breakfast burritos at the airport, but they didn't.  Neither of us finished what we got.  I think I ate 5 tater tots and through the rest of them away.

After sitting in the airport for almost 6 hours talking to Pam & John non stop about what to do next, we finally got on the 2:30 flight that went through Seattle.  We were assigned our seats and were maybe 4 rows apart.  We were going to ask people to switch seats with us but I ended up getting asked to move even farther back.  Once I was in that seat, the lady next to me asked if i would go back and switch with her mom so she could sit next to her daughter.  After walking back almost 20 rows I saw that I was going to be surrounded by the University of Alaska Fairbanks hockey team...no big deal.

I wanted to die.  I hate sitting in coach, I was so crunched even sitting in the aisle seat.  Who knew four hours to Seattle could be so painful.  I put my feet out in the aisle, but with enough room for people to walk by my without tripping, but everyone managed to kick me as they went by.  Finally the plane landed in Seattle, since Hannah was almost at the front of the plane she got off before me and headed straight to the gate agent to upgrade us to First Class for the rest of the trip, thank..god.

First we ordered a glass of champagne (drinks are free in first class.) Then all I wanted was the bloody mary mix on ice, then water, and orange juice.  We also got dinner!  There was a ceasar salad, a roll, strawberries, grapes, and a lasagna roll up that was really dry.  For desert there was some chocolate cheesecake or something, but it was really good.  The movie of the trip was Nights in Rodanthe.  I had wanted to see it all summer and never did.  I was so dissapointed.

We had taken our shoes off once we sat down, and when we had to put them back on we couldn't get our feet in because they were so swollen!  Pam and John picked us up and the airport and they brought us lei's!  Once we got the hotel all we wanted to do was pass out and sleep, and that is what we did.