Elsja Down Under

Airplanes for Dummies January 28, 2010

In case you need some explanation…

 

The Long Journey Across the Pacific: Part 1 November 7, 2009

I’ll start from the beginning…

It was a sunny Sydney Friday around 1:15pm and I had just arrived at the airport to check in for my flight to LA. I immediately received a business boarding pass which was awesome considering I was on standby. The plane was loaded in a timely manner but then we waited at the gate for some unknown reason for another 30 minutes before starting to taxi out to the runway. Finally we headed out towards the entrance to the runway where we proceeded to sit for another 15 minutes or so.We thought we were waiting our turn to take off, we were wrong. It was at this point that the captain made his first announcment. “Hi folks, unfortunately we’ve got a problem with the fuel management system that I’m not comfortable with. We’re going to call the engineers but we need to let you know there is a chance that we might have to return to the gate.” It was at this exact moment that I had the feeling I wouldn’t be getting to LA the next morning.

Ten minutes later.  “Ok folks, well it looks like unfortunately we’re going to have to return to the gate to have our engineers check this out. We’ll keep you posted with any updates and we appreciate your patience.”

One hour later (it is now about 5:00, we were supposed to take off at 3:10). “Alright, thank you for your patience. We think we’ve solved the problem… (pause)…put it this way, we don’t see the problem any more so we’re going to go ahead and taxi out so we can be on our way to Los Angeles.” Many people were not very comfortable with his choice of words. I admit, it probably wasn’t the best way to let everyone know what was going on, but I wasn’t worried. I just wanted to go!

About 2 hours after takeoff.  “Hello folks, it’s your captain again, I have some bad news. Unfortunately that fuel pump issue is still causing some problems and we are not going to be able to continue on to LA at this time. We have a few options. We could head to Fiji, but we don’t know how you will be treated there (read this), we could go to Melbourne but we don’t really think that’s the best choice so we think the best plan would be to go back to Sydney, so were going to turn around. Those of you watching the travel route on your screens will see that we’ve already started to turn.”

2 hours later.  “Hello this is your captain again. Well we’ve made it back to Sydney but unfortunately there is some heavy traffic and Air Traffic Control is having us hold for awhile until it clears up. We anticipate that we should be on the ground around 9:28pm.”

9:30pm. “Hello it’s your captain again. Well as you can see, 9:28 has come and passed. Unfortunately while we were waiting to land the weather in Sydney took a turn for the worse. There is a lot of rain and the ground is very wet, so unfortunately we will not be able to land here and we’re going to have to divert to Melbourne.”

Around 10:30 pm. We finally landed SOMEWHERE. It wasn’t LA, it wasn’t Sydney, but it was solid ground and after more than 7 hours in a plane going nowhere, solid ground was nice.

Luckily everyone in business class was told where we would be staying immediately before exiting the plane. This meant we didn’t have to stand in line with 200 other passengers to try to figure  out our accommodation details. THANK GOD! It also meant that I got to walk right across the street to a super nice hotel where I finally checked in  around 11:30pm and the 2nd part of my journey continued. Well, it wasn’t actually part of the  journey per se but some other stranded travellers did help to at least make the night more interesting.

Part 2 coming soon…

In summary:

*Part 1 of the journey- 11.5 hours from my front door to the bed at the hotel.

*Obviously this is all paraphrased but I’m pretty sure I underestimated the number of times “unfortunately” was used and I definitely should have included many more apologies, there were TONS of those.

*There’s a tiny, and I mean TINY, story about the incident here. Evidently the version on the news was much more entertaining. Supposedly we had an “emergency landing.”  The TV reporters clearly did not get their facts straight, what’s new?

My Year in Review January 2, 2009

2008 was a good year… full of ups and downs, but luckily more ups than downs I would say. Let’s look back on my 2008… 

January ** I rung in the new year with my sisters in Laguna ** I did the God awful Master Cleanse detox diet **

 

** Andrew and I spent Valentines day on our couch, with a bottle of wine **  I pretty much spent the whole month preparing for Jen’s shotgun wedding (shower & bachelorette party) **  February 

March  ** I went home to California for Jen and James’ wedding- it was beautiful  ** We had Jen’s bachelorette party and wedding shower… so much fun!  **My niece Emma turned 5 and I got to be with her at her birthday party **

 

** My nephew Preston turned 8… he’s getting so old  ** I started my 101 in 1001 list  **April 

May  ** Andrew got a letter of intent from Qanta Mainline (international flying)… it’s been his dream and goal for years! Now we are STILL waiting on a start date…   **  Andrew and I went to Maui with my sister and her family **  

 

June  ** My sister Jan got married, unfortunately I couldn’t go to the wedding  **  ** My poor puppy Emmi died of cancer. Damn cancer!  ** Andrew and I started saving to try to buy an apartment  **July 

 

August  **  Andrew and I went to CA to visit my family and friends  ** We then went to Costa Rica and had an amazing time **  Andrew got to meet my sister in Texas and her kids for the first time **

 

 

September  ** This month marked the 1 year anniversary of when I moved to Australia  ** I Turned 28 over the international dateline on our flight back to Sydney ** 

October  ** I went to my first Australian “footy” game… the NRL Grand Final * After months of preparation, I Got my Australian residency ** Andrew turned 28 **

November  ** Andrew and I went to Perth to visit some of his family and I flew business for the very first time **  I voted in the US presidential election  ** We celebrated Thanksgiving in Australia and I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner all by myself… including pumpkin pie from fresh pumkins ** I Broke my foot and sprained my ankle while trying to catch the bouquet at Bec and Olly’s wedding  **

 

**  I spent my first ever Christmas away from my family and friends… but got to spend my first Christmas ever with Andrew  **  I got HOOKED on the best book… Twilight. Seriously, I couldn’t get what all the hype was about, but now I clearly understand how those nerdy kids read Harry Potter in a day. I read Twilight in 2 1/2 – and I hardly EVER read **  I bought a Wii! YAY. This also means I get to cross one more item off my 101 list- #72. buy a wii    **  Andrew got me a WiiFit for Christmas and I’m anxiously waiting for my foot to heal so I can balance on it and have some fun!   **  Andrew got promoted to Captain with his current job   ** I spent New Years eve with Andrew at Cremorne point watching the fireworks over Sydney Harbour- which is exactly what I’ve been wanting to do for the last 3 years. **December 

 

*** This year we went to 4 weddings, plus got invited to 2 more that we couldn’t attend. I made new friends and got in touch with some old ones. Some had some babies, some lost loved ones, some found love, some lost jobs, some had successes. I think 2008 was financially and emotionally tough on a lot of people, let’s hope 2009 sees things turn around!!!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

PS. I give up on formatting this damn blog…wordpress can kiss my ass with its crappy text editor  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 Wonders of My World- this week September 21, 2008

While some of these are obvious facts of life, they never cease to amaze me. Here’s a list of 7 wonders of my world from the last week.

1. Flowers. How does something so beautiful and fragrant turn into something that smells like a dead rotting carcass after only a week. I had some flowers in a vase and they weren’t even all dead yet, I was simply going to change the water. When I pulled them out of the vase, I gagged. The smell was so revolting that there would be no water changing that day! I had to just throw them out. I was really torn though, they weren’t dead. I could have at least another few days of their beauty if I just stuck them back in the vase! I couldn’t do it… I couldn’t handle the chance that I might walk by one day and get a whiff of that rotting pig farm stench. So what did I do? I took the bag of stank flowers down to the trash and then walked across the street and bought some more. Now I have beauty and sweet fragrance once again.

2. Cleaning. Last week I did a deep clean of the apartment. I cleaned everything from the fridge to the toilet to my drawers of clothes. I dusted the wood blinds and all the furniture, vacuumed, windexed. I scrubbed the shower doors with soap scum remover. I felt really happy. This place was sparkling…. for a day. I just don’t understand how something so clean can get dirty so quickly! I’m looking around at crumbs on the floor and dust on the TV stand and it’s so frustrating. All that hard work last week and now I’m about to go do it all again! Why can’t things just stay clean?

3. Shopping in Australia. Now I know this is a constant wonder and I’m sure it will never cease. Between the $3.00 limes last week and the $30 lavender plant that I saw (and didn’t buy, thank you very much), I am just bewildered. How do things here cost so much? (P.S. I did find a lavender plant for $12 so that was much better). As Andrew would say, “we just get screwed here.” I have to agree. We do. Our latest challenge is finding a small, cheap patio table. Just a little bistro table with a couple of chairs. There are thousands of apartments in this city with balconies, surely it should be easy to find such a table. But nope, it’s not. Not… At… All.. Our last resort is ikea. We’re hoping good ol’ Ikea will come through for us.

4. Cults. Yes, I said cults. I’m reading a book right now titled, “Not Without my Sister” and let me just remind you all how CRAZY and messed up some people can be. The story is told by 3 sisters who explain the years of abuse and neglect they faced as members of “The Family.” I can’t even believe I just found an official website for this crazy group of nutjobs when I did my google search. I feel so sad for the people who get sucked up into this nonsense. Why can’t they just join normal religious groups??

5. Cherry Vodka. This is a good wonder of my world. My amazement here stems from the fact that somehow, Skyy has managed to make vodka taste SO DAMN GOOD. How is it possible? My concoction of cherry vodka, lemonade and real lemonade was way too delish. For the Americans out there, I’ll translate- that is cherry vodka, sprite and crystal light lemonade.

6. Australian Idol. I’m just going to say it… Australian Idol sucks compared to American Idol. The people in the top 12 here wouldn’t even make it through the second round in the US. Do people just sing better in North America?

7. Andrew’s roster. Over the next 4 weeks, Andrew is scheduled to work as many hours as I work in one week (and remember, I don’t even work full time). I think he literally is scheduled for 7 days of work or something. So if he doesn’t get called in on his reserve days- he will have a WHOLE lot of free time on his hands!

I wonder what this week will bring?

A Work in Progress July 24, 2008

So my geeky forum is still a work in progress… BUT… it’s up and running! Woohoo. I still have a lot to learn and things to modify but I figure I may as well put it out there so people can start checking it out!

Like I said before, 99.999% of you will have no interest in this forum whatsoever- BUT, if any of you happen to stumble upon this blog (or even read it regularly) and know someone who is dating or married to a pilot, please please please pass along the following link.

www.lovemypilot.com

The girl who runs the ex-pat forum I’m a member of said it took her forum years to really take off, so I have to be patient. At least it can be a hobby and something to keep me busy (not that I really need to spend any more time on the internet). Yay nerdy Elsja!

A New Project July 22, 2008

I’ve started a new project. I’ve migrated into uber geekdom by starting my own nerdy online forum. I’ve been inspired by my other geeky Americans in Australia forum so I decided I’d create my own place to waste time online! It’s still a work in progress, but it’s coming along. Unfortunately I’d say 100% of my readers (all 10 of you) will really have no interest in my nerd club whatsoever. That is because it is tailored to people who are dating or are married to pilots. Hey… I didn’t really have any other topics that I could think of. This will take the time I waste on the internet to a whole new level. I don’t exactly know what I’m getting myself into here… but hey- it can be a hobby of sorts. I even bought a domain name. Now I just have to find people who actually want to join!

I’ll let you all know when it’s up and running. I don’t know why I’ll let you know since none of you have any interest unless you date a pilot. But still… I’ll let you know. Just because.

Ok you can all start making fun of me now.

Get Ready OC… June 20, 2008

For some Qantas pilots to invade your cities. Qantas just announced that for the next 3 years, the official hotel of all their pilots will no longer be the Sheraton in downtown LA… it will now be the Newport Marriott. Quite a long trek from LAX… but who cares?? Do you know how excited this makes me?? Well… this means that when Andrew starts flying internationally (and if he flies to LA), he will now have a free shuttle that will take him within 15 minutes of my friends and family! Really it won’t impact me much- but it’s still exciting.

AND… this also means I can hop on a flight with him and we can go lounge in the Marriott pool during the summer!Â

I hope the slutty fake boobie barbies in Newport are ready for some Aussie pilots to take over their bars. Seriously… if all the OC hobags knew what was about to be coming to them on a regular basis, they might just wet themselves ! They just better not think about messing with my pilot!! I’d have to kick some fake blonde, fake tanned ass!

Leaving on a Jet Plane May 9, 2008

Well, this post tackles two topics, both regarding flying.
First of all, we’ll be flying to Maui later this evening!! YAY! This will be the first trip andrew and I are taking together on a plane in the entire 2 1/2 years we’ve been together.

Airports are usually full of sadness. I’m always saying goodbye to someone. It used to be Andrew all the time and those days were HARD. Now when I travel I’m saying bye to Andrew or my family and friends. It will be SO nice to go to an airport for the first time in years and NOT have to say goodbye. Instead we’ll be saying ALOOOOOOHA!

We’ll be staying with my sister and the kids so it will be great to see everyone… Andrew hasn’t seen them all in a year and a half!
We’ll be flying Qantas… which is ironic because soon, someone I love will be actually FLYING Qantas… yes… actually flying the plane (or at least hanging out in the cockpit!)

That’s right! Andrew got accepted into Qantas! He’s been flying for Qantaslink (Eastern) for the last 9 months but his goal his whole life has always been to fly for Qantas on the big jets. Well a few days ago he found out that he’s been accepted for a Second Officer postition. It’s actually way less work and responsibilities than he has now (which isn’t necessarily a good thing) but it’s a lot more money and holds a much better future.

He probably won’t start until December or so but at least he’s in line! He had his interview and Sim test 5 weeks ago and he wanted to keep it a secret from everyone. He was supposed to find out within 3 weeks and this week was #5, so you can imagine how agonizing and stressful the last few weeks have been.

Who knows… maybe one day Andrew will be the one flying the plane to Hawaii!!