Coffee Capers

As a flight attendant, I've poured my fair share of tea and coffee. This in itself lends to some interesting observations about both passengers and crew.

1) If you say "tea?" they ask for coffee. If you say "Coffee?", they inevitably ask for tea. Whatever it is that you are NOT carrying, is what you will be asked for.

2) One can go the entire cabin without actually speaking the words 'tea' and 'coffee', but merely miming them, because most people are wearing headphones anyway. No-one has ever noticed! :)

3) If you are sitting in the aisle seat, and are not having coffee/tea, please lean back so that we may pass the hot beverage to the person in the window without risk of dropping it on you! The same goes for when working on laptops- please do not hold your cup over the laptop because I'll just have to ask you to move it anyway while I pour.

4) When I bring the extra milk that you asked for, please don't then tell me you also want more sugar. As much as I love exercise, I really don't want to make thirty extra trips on a short flight. If you must, ask the next person for it & we will love you more... ;)

5) The fuller your cup, the more turbulence there will be.

6) if you want to have ten cups of coffee, by all means do so but it's probably not a good idea on a 40min flight... hehe... especially when trolleys are out and you can't get to the bathroom very easily.

Ok I know that was a quick post, so while you're here go say hi to Tam, a really cool blogger from Qatar Airways. She has a great blog with lots of interesting posts about training and layovers.

Checking In & Taking Off

It's me, I'm back again! Phew, busy few days, so not much time for Tweeting... noticed I dropped a few 'followers', guess I'm not chatty enough for them! :P

Aside from a couple of flights I also had to go do a bit of training, nothing bad just routine stuff. It was ok though, as I got to catch up with FAs that I know in other bases, and also meet some new ones who were cool.

Speaking of meeting & cool, I once again got to hang out with Mel of Tampax Towers while she was back in Oz. We had only a short visit, but managed to fit in browsing in Borders bookshop, eating sushi & teriyaki chicken in DJ's food hall (mmmm, yummy!) and of course Gloria Jean's (apparently they're evil, I wass reminded of this random posting someone made on my blog awhile ago, which we laughed about)

Also being both flight attendants, and girls, we even managed to shop a bit. Mel got some goodies for her dad, and I to-ed and fro-ed over a skirt which at first looked a bit hideous but then I actually liked. Mel's sage advice was to think about it and not buy it on the spot. (I went back later & bought it- hehe!) Hope you had a good flight back to Dubai, and have fun on your holidays!

As if one meeting wasn't fun enough, I also had dinner with SkyHighBoy, we had a nice walk around Darling Harbour

then stuffed ourselves with food. Oh and of course made a detour to the fudge shop. I got Choc Macadamia, and SHB being the foodie he is, couldn't resist the sampler, so he could get as many flavours as possible!

The train ride back to the hotel was interesting, let's just say Sydney is full of some strrrrrange people on the train! But it was ok, not scary at all & still quite busy that time of night with people going home from work or out with friends. Managed somehow to still shop, by going to Woolworth's to buy water & cereal and walking out with new foundation (?)

I probably won't be around much, if at all before my vacation, so I leave you with the following picture... enjoy & be good!


And before I go, make sure to stop by and say hi to Fe, a new blogger and soon-to-be FA who is joining Etihad Airways in October. Welcome to Blogger Fe! =D

(All photos (c) By Traytable 2009)

Week's Wrap-Up

I've been a bit slack again (I blame the disgusting weather) so those posts are gonna be a little bit longer coming...

The winter PJ's are out, the heater's been cranked up, and all the crew are complaining bitterly about the rainy weather, struggling in from the crew carpark looking like sad wet seagulls caught in a gale. The dryer in the bathroom has been working overtime as we struggle to maintain uniform, hair and make-up to company standards. Needless to say, it's only kind of working.

The incidences of medical problems has gone through the roof. Whait is it about cold weather-does it make everyone depressed and thus more likely to get sick?

Amongst all that, I managed to have an awesome meet-up with both SkyHighBoy and Vanishing Point on my last Sydney layover. It was awesome, one of the first and one of the more recent bloggers I have known, got to meet, and of course there were stories & gossip galore! The weather was a bit funny but I had a great time, and I hope they did too. Poor SHB was still waiting back for an answer to his mystery allergy, but still came out to meet us. (I think he was getting a bit sick of being off work huh). More on the adventures later.

And in news today, Yemenia Airlines have lost an A310 off the Comoros Islands. It's always a sad thing to have a crash, but I think even more so as this has been a very sad month for aviation. Hopefully they can get to a cause as soon as possible, and more quickly than AF447, as it's quite close to shore this time.

For my faves, if you haven't already, check out my 'Laviator' pics on the Galley Curtain blog!! =)

Another Week Goes By...

I'd love to make an exciting post about what's been going on, but truth be told, there's not a lot happening at the moment. Work has been really REALLY slow, and I've found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. Ok, so I squandered the first bit of free time by sleeping in and watching lots of cable tv, but I'm planning to make use of being home on reserve and hardly ever getting called out to fly.

Now that I've got my EeePC, I can do all those things I've been meaning to do, like:

* Post more here (including pic posts on my friends-only blog)
* Use my language learningg program again
* Get tax done
* Study for SEP (recurrent exams) using the online learning modules and virtual aircraft walk-throughs. (Those are pretty cool!)

This weekend is ANZAC Day in Australia, basically it's like Veteran's Day I suppose, except it's about remembering all Australian & NZ people who have ever served and died in war.

I plan to make a bigger post about that on the actual day (Saturday the 25th) which will include some pictures from the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

The cool thing is, SkyHighBoy will be in my base city this weekend, and we are planning to meet up at some point. We were actually meant to meet up last time he was here, but because the stupid courier was late to pick up my laptop, I didn't make it as he had to catch an early flight the next morning. All going well, we can have a drink or two and of course the flight attendant favourite, lots of gossip! =D


I also had a bit of a big night out a few days ago, so aside from doing housework and watching tv, I've been taking it easy. That will all change once SEP comes closer though!

Meeting Miss Mel

Hey all!

Well it's been a super huge weekend here at Casa de Tray, lots going on & I've been more social than I have in a long time! I think the rut I had got into for most of last year is over, and I'm feeling v positive and 'go getter' about this year. I've made a list of things that I want to do this year, and I MUST do them by Dec 31st. No 'try' for these few items!

Friday I had the chance to meet up with yet another fellow blogger, Miss Mel, of Tampax Towers. As she wrote, she had some leave so was visiting her home town, and I happened to be there too- so naturally, the only possible result was a meetup. Yay!

I got the train into the city, and had a bit of time to kill so wandered around trying to find an ATM. Since I was last there, everything had moved so it took me longer to find one than I expected. Finally I made it to our pre-arranged meeting point. I spotted Mel right away- there is something about flight attendants that one can see even when off-duty. (I have to add Mel, you looked Fab, I loved your skirt and yes being a details person I noticed your cute matching nail polish) :P

We decided coffee was the way to go. Mel had a place in mind which was cute, and tucked away unlike the big coffee chains, which can get too busy. This coffee spot was cool & shady, and had a nice breeze. We talked about all sorts of things- work, travels, our blogs, plans for the year, and of course boys!!! (hee hee)

Before we knew it our time was up and we had to scoot off- Mel to run arrands & myself to go to a wake sadly!!! (Hence my kind of casual appearance- I was actually packing a black dress & heels in my tote bag)

All in all it was v fun, thanks for setting it up Mel! Hope you enjoyed Cirque & that you have a safe trip back to Dub-Dub!

Next time let's try for SHB as well! =)

Meeting SkyHighBoy

So, where was I? Oh yes, after avoiding the tourists at the giant Christmas Tree in the QVB building...


I met up with SHB and recognised him immediately! (He had that slightly tired thank-god-I've-finshed-work-for-the-day look that we FAs frequently have on our faces, hee) and told me that he definitely needed a coffee after the day's events. Being my usual smartarse self, I suggested that perhaps instead of coffee he needed a big fat drink, lol... but I was kidding of course! Perfect timing though as without the intervention of our newest FA blogger, I would probably have bought up half of the mall which would not be good for my holiday fund! :S

We found a coffee spot in QVB which looked alright so settled ourselves at a table.

It's always fun meeting new people, especially bloggers and of course as FAs we bonded immediately over one of the favourite discussion subjects: annoying passengers!!! :D

The other thing FAs love to do is bitch about compare rosters/pay/aircraft/colleagues/uniforms and all that fun stuff. I must admit I wasn't my usual wide-awake self, even having had 5 hours sleep after arriving at the hotel. Soon the cafe staff started putting up the chairs which we took to be the ground equivalent of us flicking off the cabin lights and walking up the aisle behind the last straggling passengers with our cabin bags: we took the hint and left (hehe)

After a brief confusion of where we were actually headed, and wandering semi-aimlessly around we decided that still more coffee & chat was in order. If it had been nicer outside Hyde Park would have been a cool option but it looked like it was about to pee down rain so instead found good old Gloria Jean's (after a diversion via the ATM- my blance is looking decidedly sad until payday tomorrow, thank god)

The cafe was a weird hybrid of GJ's and an internet cafe/game geek hangout... we ordered and then commandeered a couple of sofa chairs upstairs. And proceeded to probably annoy the heck out of the gamers by our loud laughing at all the funny goings on we had been itching to relate!!!

All in all it was a v fun few hours, and I really cannot believe that SHB has only been flying for 4 months, he has that mix of professional yet slightly cynical that only we flight attendants have! He plainly loves what he does and it comes through (even when bitching about discussing those annoying crazy passengers!!) It was nice to spend time with you SHB, hope we can do it again sometime, and I'm trying to line up GirlOnTour when she gets here next.

So, Number #5- SkyHighBoy is added to the 'Bloggers I've Met' list. May there be many more! =)


(Ok so it's not us but it was the closest I could find)