Rainbow after the rain

Hello dear blog. Seems like I'm here again to share with you yet another awful flight story. I just came from three toxic legs, Ruh-Jed-Ruh-Jed. See? What could be more toxic than that!? To think the aircraft was 777-200 with 3 configurations! Wah! Terribly exhausting. It could have been an easy pairing if this 3 sectors were inexistent. Nonetheless at the end of the day I repeatedly tell myself of how much I love my job, how fortunate I am to have it, and I consider it as the best job in the world.

After this stressful domestic schedule, or might perhaps month, off I will spend my days off with my family in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! How fun is that! It's the first time for madear and our eldest sibling Sheila and also for fadear after how many decades (3 perhaps?). For sure they will enjoy as much as I always do each time I have a layover there. Baby bro and I were there on the 2nd week of December last year. We sure did have a blast!

This time we will also travel to Singapore for a short tour. I suggested to my sister that we should as well hit that target so as to save time and money. Instead of letting them again fly Zam-Mnl then SIN the next time whenever that may be.

I prefer multiple trips so as the entry and exit will only be once, right? Like what the three of us did in my vacation last September of 2014. Bff, bro, and I traveled to Mnl, Boracay, Iloilo, Guimaras, Bacolod, Bohol, and Cebu in a span of 12 days. Pretty cool, eh? Tiring, yes. But worthit to the power of 10! Hopefully I can come up with a separate blog for that.

Getting back to how this month is, all I could ever say is, it had been jampacked! The start was quite bad because of this heavy snowstorm in JFK which resulted to our tremendous delay. But afterwards everything turned out to be fine. After JFK i had 5 days off, which were the back to back legalities of my JFK and LAX. I spent 2 days snoozing and the rest stuffing, mmm... Then LAX 77 hours layover woot woot! Of which ended so shortly because I did not program my sleep so i spent it mostly, of course, sleeping. But i sure did enjoy the chilly sunshiny weather! Love love love. Two days off afterwards, an easy overnight pairing. A day off, then this 4 days pairing. And fahaynally, another days off. Yeay!

World, you are oh-so-good to me. Thank you! God, Your love is the best of all! 

SV 023

Hiya all! Been on a hiatus from writing despite checking my dashboard every single day. Bummer. 

I'm trying to figure out how to post personal photos here from my tab. I can easily do it through my lappy of course. I tried url-ing (sorry for the term) my photos but my tab crashes right away the moment I browse that specific photo. Waahhh.... :(

Alright so moving on, last Feb 2nd (JFK/NYC time) was the scariest moment of my life. Due to the bad weather (snow storm) most of the flights in JFK airport were cancelled, as twas in the news all through out. While at the hotel I was really hoping ours would get cancelled, too, so we could enjoy a few more hours in the hotel. But something else took place, something fearful. 

What was 40 mins ride from the hotel to the airport (and v. v.) became 2 hours to be exact. We were already hungry by then! After passing through the immigration we just found out our aircraft was not yet at the gate. Sigh! Pacifying a noisy tummy sure is a herculean task so off we wandered around looking for something to eat. Good thing there was a hotdog stand as it was the only food available that could make one full. Now here's one thing I learned, always bring cash! As they are only in cash basis. Thank goodness I kept some dollars with me because usually as cabin crew we are used to spend all the cash we have before the flight back. Or sometimes with 33 hours layover such as this we only rely on our credit cards.  

After the hotdog stint who knew we were bound to wait for so long. Deym. Our aircraft was just at the hangar and they had a difficulty towing it to the gate because of, once again, the bad weather. When they finally did it, next thing was de-icing it and this, too, takes a long process. Our schedule for take off was at 8:30PM (JFK time) but we already boarded the aircraft at 9:30PM. Le sigh... We closed doors at 11:30PM. So that was it? WRONG! The worse scenario is yet to come.

We went on and on at the runway while they kept on de-icing us. By on and on I mean by the hours! The captain tried his best to take off but the weather just wouldn't cooperate. The runway was full of ice, blocked ice actually. We already started the beverage service with Kitkat chocs. The pax were of course somehow fuming mad. Like who wouldn't?! :(

They've gone mad and that's understandable. But have they thought about us, hello. After the long hours of waaiiitteeennggg, we still had a 13 hours flight to beat. How about that. :/ 

At 03:00AM (imagine?!) we were already about to take off. The First  Officer announced, "Cabin crew, please be seated for take off." That was a sign of relief. But hell NOOO! After two minutes the captain announced, "Supervisor, to the cockpit." Waahh... So what could be wrong this time!? Next thing I noticed we were going back to the gate. Twas a rejected takeoff. 

The runway wasn't ready for take off obviously and our cockpit crew members were defying the odds. Scary... We were the only aircraft in the runway going round and round. They had to stop the aircraft's engine so the captain went out and checked what could have gone wrong. Then off we went with our take off attempt again. Twas soooo deym scary. For us at the back, we already prepared ourselves and the cabin for the emergency evacuation, just in case. We cleared out everything, secured every single scattered item, and prepared ourselves emotionally and physically. 

Me and my Sri Lankan colleague were already in tears. We held hands. Prayed all the prayers we could as we were preparing for what might be the last take off of our lives. From 9:30pm of getting on board, at 3:30am (?!?!?) we finally had our successful takeoff. What was a tearful moment  turned into an applauding one. Yey!!!!!!!

As we were already taking off I could see that we were the one and only airline at the runway. JFK airport is so huge but at that crucial time it turned out to be a deserted snowy arena. Kudos to the captains for doing their best. Undeniably they are so deym good. Saudia cockpit crew members are indeed one of the world's best. They truly deserve the four stripes and a star. Big thanks to my colleagues as they were hardworking and dedicated. Especially to our Supervisor and Purser who kept their cool the whole time. :)

Pax were a bit behaved except for some who were teeny tiny bit rude and sarcastic. But can't blame them though. 

I got 5 days off afterwards. Back to back legality of JFK and LAX. Woohoo.  The first three days were spent sleeping. I was busted out due to exhaustion that all I could ever do was sleep, sleep, and sleep. After being awake for 5 hours I'd sleep again. My body just switches off by itself. I guess that's how exhausted I was. No make it, drained.

Now here's what I learned from this, 

1. Always have some loose cash of the country's currency you are in. When I say always, I mean always! Sometimes cards just won't work and rushing to the next ATM is next to impossible.

2. Drop by at Target after having some breakfast and grab some food. I did the former but not the latter. Le sigh. Grab something to munch and drink. A food will always come in handy anyway.
3. Most important of all, never again to bid for JFK flights during the peak of winter. IAD sounds much better and not to mention LAX. 

This gotta be my first time to blog about how bad my flight turned out. Forgive me but I just have to blog this out!! My apologies as I wrote something negative after the hiatus. Hoping for a much better entry next time and hopefull by then personal photos are included.