A Perfect Potion For Sleep

A little while back my blogger buddy Robyn of Girl On Raw asked me if I would write a guest post for her, about maintaining a healthy lifestyle as a flight attendant.

Of course I said yes!!! I could pick any particular subject, so I chose one close to my heart, Sleep!!! You can read about my tips for managing your sleep over at her blog.

As a complement to this post, I want to share with you my latest discovery for helping in a good night's sleep. Recently while shopping in Sydney's Queen Victoria Building, I found the store 'Perfect Potion'. There's an outlet in Brisbane City, but I had thought it ws a stand-alone store. Nope, they've got them in other places too! Perfect Potion aims to make beauty and lifestyle products using organic and natural aromatherapy ingedients. I've used some of their oils before but never the face & body products.

I used to like In Essence travel roller balm but thought I'd see if PP had anything different. I tried a few different products before I saw "Cool It Quick Fix". It's a blend of rosemary, peppermint & lavender designed for use as a quick "pick me up" when you're feeling stressed or tired, including to relieve those yucky tension headaches.

So far- I LOVE IT!!! I recently had gone 3 days without sleeping well and was feeling really rushed & stressed on a flight, to the point where I just knew I'd have trouble sleeping on demand when it came time for the rest break in the crew bunks. I took my Cool It with me and put some on my temples and wrists. The peppermint is really soothing (and has a bonus side effect of helping with travel related nausea) and I don't even remember falling asleep. For the first time, I slept solid for the whole rest time without waking up once.

TT gives this the FA seal of approval!

The good news is, Perfect Potion have an online store & you can also follow them on Twitter and Facebook!

(This post was not sponsored by Perfect Potion and is my personal experience & opinion only, individual results may vary.)

Homey Hotels

Amongst the flight attendants on Twitter, we've often had the conversation about hotel habits, little rituals that we have to make ourselves feel more at home while we're on the road (or in the air, more like!)


All of us have our favourite ways of relaxing, and it really depends on what kind of person you are at home. If we love our comforts at home, chances are we want to be comfy when we travel. If we don't 'need' a lot at home, generally we're light packers. I tend to swing somewhere between the two, depending on how long I'm away and what kind of trip I'm working.

If it's a leanover (very short layover) then all I'll want is comfy pyjamas,

my iPod and maybe a good book, adding a mini hot water bottle in winter or cold destinations. (You can pick up ultra-cute crew-themed tanks & pj's at theJet Line Clothing site.) If I have longer, I might bring a 'going-out' outfit, a couple magazines

and my beauty kit to do my nails and a facial while I watch a movie in the hotel. Sometimes I'll bring my little computer, and work on various things, or just watch tv. Nights where there's nothing good on, I'll try to write a few blog posts so I don't get too far behind.

Anyway, back to hotel routines. I already made a post back in the early days of my Blogger page on this, but what the hey, it's one of those topics that flight attendants never really get tired of!

First thing I do when arriving in the room, is to do a quick check of the room to make sure that a) there's nothing/no-one funky in there and b) make sure it's up to standard and one of the rooms on the crew list (they meet requirements for noise, light, amenities and so forth) Once the room checks out ok, I'll unpack my stuff. Pyjamas go on the bed, ready for sleep time. Book, iPod, torch & water go on the bedside table, along with the travel speakers and eyeshades.

In the bathroom, I unpack my toiletry bag, I'm a bit OCD in that I arrange all the items out in order of use so I don't need to think about it too much for an early bus time in the morning.

I also make sure the towels are handy and put my shower gel (Body Shop Satsuma) on the bathtub. If I have food that goes in the bar fridge. If we're staying at a hotel with mini bar facilities, I'll check out what they have on offer (and whether their prices are a rip off or not. If so, I go buy that from the supermarket down the road if there is one ;)

If I don't have a lot of time, I'll usually iron my uniform as soon as possible, and hang it in the closet along with the shoes and make sure all the badges and so on are pinned on, so I don't leave any behind. If it's daytime, I'll generally head out into town for a look round or to get food, order determined by how hungry I happen to be. On a leanover, especially a daytime one, I'll probably be getting right into pj's, popping on my eyeshades and music and nodding off to sleep as soon as I can (sometimes aided by a herbal sleep aid)

Sometimes the hotels we stay at have a nice pool or gym, if the weather is good enough (or the pool is heated) then I'm definitely there! Otherwise I'll go for a walk or at least get outside in the fresh air and sun if it's out.

Oh and I always have my slippers in my bag, because you never know who or what has been on that carpet before you! :P

What do you do to feel more at home in hotels- candles, room sprays, BYO pillows? Tell me! :)

In Transit.... and I Laviated!

Hello blog people!

I'm currently cooling my heels waiting for my next flight in Changi Airport, Singapore. While I've travelled here in my FA life many a time, it's the first time I've a) been a passenger and b) had so much time to look around. Visiting Terminal 3 is also a first. While it's new and shiny, and has heaps of cool stuff like free baggage trolleys, koi fish ponds, a butterfly house & free foot massagers, most of the shops are too ritzy to buy anything from.

So far my airport purchases include an inflatable pillow (regular shaped ones made my neck hurt on last flight), a Kinder Bueno bar and a br/unch of spaghetti with a glass of OJ. The restaurant has free internet for patrons, and although I bought a meal I'm definitely getting a vibe of 'hurry up'from the staff. Too bad, 10 bucks should get me at least an hour of surfing :P And it's not even busy!

Flight here was pretty good. I was surprised by a couple of things. Got given an amenity kit, which actually contained only socks and a toothbrush (not even eye shades on a red-eye flight!). Good thing I BYO all that stuff!

The other thing I found unusual is that on SQ, the seatbelt sign coming on doesn't actually seem to mean anything. It came on 3 times during the flight for turbulence, and while the usual PA was made, the FAs continued to walk around doing work. I figured maybe it just applied to the passengers, but then quite a few got up to use the bathroom or rummage in their overhead bags, and went unchallenged by the crew!

Ok, I'm still getting looks, so I better cut this short. Next flight up is on the mammoth beast of the skies, the mighty A380. Let's see if it lives up to the hype!

PS- I laviated!!!! :D

PPS- Singapore Girls are even cuter in person. All so pretty. In-charge of economy seemed a tad grumpy though, maybe she was just in a rush and not grumpy?

The Glam But Exhausting Life of Cabin Crew... Plus Recurrent!

Ok, so my life isn't ALWAYS glam, but sure, some of the good things about my job, most people would consider 'glamorous'.

Glam- Wearing a nice uniform & having people look at you in the airport.

Not Glam- Wearing said uniform over a 6 day trip & having to wash bits of it in the sink (because hotel laundry is waaaaay too expensive to use on a daily basis)

Glam- Getting to see all sorts of interesting and cool places

Not Glam- Spending all of your layover in those interesting sleeping because you're so darn tired.

Glam- Serving in First & Business class, with all the high rollers, and using REAL glass, people!

Not Glam- Having to clean up the mess you'd be astounded to know people in Business & First class make.

Having said that, the good still outweighs the bad in my job, so until that changes, I'll stay. I've had some pretty good crews over the last few weeks. One flight, I flew with a guy who I only knew through other cabin crew friends, and who also regularly popped up on my Facebook updates & news feed. I knew he had made the switch to my airline, and I was glad to see his name on the crew list for a particularly icky red-eye flight. We had great fun, even managing to take a few happy snaps on our break. He's a real character, and so fun to work with. Plus, we are both single, so having fun scoping out boys for each other :P

My onboard managers have been really great too. Usually, they are a bit of a mixed bag, but lately all of them have either been brilliant, or managers who I really get along with. I wasn't feeling so great on a recent flight, so for the return leg (it was a turnaround) the supervisor let me take care of the premium passengers on my own, and went to work in economy on a cart. (Unheard of in some crew bases!!!)

I really enjoyed doing this, it reminded me of my days as a cabin senior, which sometimes I do miss. We also had a really good chat about our careers & he gave me some advice. Our company is shuffling some crew to new basings, and he said that he was hoping to stay as is, because he is settled where he is & enjoys living there. I hope it works out for him, he is a really lovely guy and someone who is a pleasure to fly with!

Had to make a trip to the doctor, as I started feeling dizzy and just generally blah. I figured either I was low in iron again, or tired. Turns out I was tired. Really didn't want to call sick as I needed my hours, but I had to, as I figure my health is more important than losing a day's worth of flying pay. It was nice to have a rest, and while I'm not 100% yet, I'm good enough to fly and I feel much better than I did.

I should mention during this whole process that I was in the middle of recurrent emergency training, so the added stress didn't help. I always freak out before SEP, but I needn't have worried; I got 100% on every test except one, where I got 98%, plus I did well on all of the practical assessments.

I even had to play the supervisor in one scenario, as there were no supervisors doing SEP in our group. It had changed a bit since the last time, as the company has had some new safety procedures in place, but it was good, as they make things much easier to remember and clearer what to do when there is a problem. Always a source of confidence.

The most interesting part I think was decompression, as we did this during ab-initio training, but they changed the simulator since then & it's much more realistic now. We had to simulate explosive decompression and the noise of the explosion scared me so much I actually jumped, even though I was expecting it!

Also it got very cold, and misted all through the cabin. The rushing air noise was quite realistic (imo) and the auto announcment kind of makes your adrenaline go! Cool though, because it means if it really does happen one day it won't be sooo scary because we have some idea what it is like. We also ran the decompression simulation with some of the crew incapacitated, so not only did we have to look after our 'passengers', but we had to assist the cockpit crew with getting one of their unconscious members onto oxygen.

Of course, a lot of the gossip lately is about Air France 447, and while we don't know the actual cause, and may never know exactly what brought it down, I do think that the weather played a big part.

It was weird, knowing that while I was flyiing merrily along, doing my job, they were potentially fighting for their lives. I'm sure the AF crew did everything they could to avoid the tragic outcome that we have all seen on tv. I hope they find the data recorders soon, so that the families can have a bit of peace knowing what really did happen.

Rest in Peace, crew & passengers of AF447.

(Pictures: Slide: Google Image Search, Oxygen: Seattle Times, Newspapers: LA Times.com, AF Crew: Airfrance.com)

EDIT Media are now reporting that the first of the lost passengers of AF447 have been recovered from the ocean. RIP :(

Jetlagged & Jostled

I have a case of nuclear jetlag at the moment... it's soooo bad... been a long time since I had jetlag this bad! I suppose it's a combo of some super-busy flights, early morning and red-eye flights, and the summer heat. (I don't sleep so well in summer)

Yesterday I got in from my latest trip, the last leg of which was an all-nighter red-eye, at around 8am and I zonked out immediately. I was so tired on the flight that I started doing really dumb things like trying to pour OJ into coffee cups instead of the glass. I nearly fell asleep landing. Of course I've filed a report to the airline- most of us did. The trip we worked is not for humans!


I was so tired I can't recall how I actually got home (I drove, but can't remember actually doing it). I collapsed into bed, pretty much kicking off my uniform and shoes onto the floor, didn't even bother putting pyjamas on. I think I even went to sleep with my stockings still on, well they were on when I woke up, sooo... and naughty of all naughties, I didn't take my makup off first.

Even after 8 hours of sleep I feel like crap, went out to get some sunlight and it seemed to help a bit. Have a day off today so hopefully I'll feel vaguely ok to actually enjoy it.

Doanli posted recently about a big pet peeve of mine- 'personal space violation' (lol sounds like a speeding ticket, doesn't it?!)

Now of course on the job, I have my personal space invaded on a daily basis- I get tapped on the shoulder, the elbow, have my sleeve tugged, people getting right up in my face, not doing as I ask and waiting when I'm trying to pass by with a tray of drinks, instead choosing to push up against me and squish past in a highly personal manner! (Guys this is directed mainly at you- I do not want to feel your bits pushing into my backside as you 'pass' me in the aisle- I KNOW you do it on purpose!!!) Especially when I ask you to wait while I pass but you do it anyway. Next time you'll get hot coffee on your jewels, I swear!!!

Anyway, I digress! :P

Doanli's post reminded me of a recent time in Singapore. Normally I love Changi airport- it's so efficient- free internet, those groovy moving walkways, duty free delivered to the aircraft to save me waiting... but this time the duty free store was hell crowded, and I had 10 minutes to get all my stuff and leg it to the plane. (Of course half the moving walkways were broken on that day- sob!)


I grabbed the booze, cigarettes & chocolate, headed to the counter and lined up. Got to the head of the queue only to have some guy lean across me, waving money at the cashier like he ws in a Mumbai market and saying 'here here, I pay you now' and really getting into my personal space. (Aside from the fact he was totally cutting the line) It was so wrong, he smelt really bad and kept pressing up against me and saying 'go away' had no effect either. (Must really learn how to insult in foreign languages)


The cashier told him to queue up, but he didn't get the message. My dirty looks didn't get through either (he was practically sitting on my back, cheeky bastard) so I had to take matters into my own hands and ram him with my trolley bag. After paying for my purchases, it was impossible to leave through the exit lane so I had to do a u-turn and fight my way through Mr Impatient & all of his ten zillion countrymen, all of them also trying their luck in cutting the line! God I love having a solid wheelie bag/cabin bag combo- it cleared a path through them in two seconds flat and probably left a few bruised toes in its wake.


Well, I can't be late for boarding now, can I???? ;)

Ok I know I know we cabin crew are meant to be tolerant and all that, fine, I get it, some cultures this is ok but I draw the line at being on the fourth date in the airport queue ;P

Note- photo of sleeping crew is example only and not affiliated with any of my colleagues