Arrival in Dubai...Training...so far...

Sorry for the delay...Internet is not exactly practical here...so to continue where I left off, so boarded that amazing A380 plane and boy was I amazed by the size of this big whale in the air...to beleive and understand me one needs to live it...flight was smooth and I made sure the cabin crew knew I was a new joiner, so I was treated to a tour of the super jumbo and first class section is just amazing...FIRST CLASS as it should really be, mind that I was in a economy seat for a long 12 hours, but with their IFE system I was pretty much entertain the whole time. Arrival in to Dubai was quite a shock to me, more then what I anticipated, the culture the way of living its just so strange to me ! I will get into details later on as my internet is limited, oddly enough I have access on my blackberry, chatting away on msn with my buddies. Training is fun, the facilities are second to none and thats a fact ! I am amazed everyday ! For all you wannabes Emirates and life in Dubai is or can be what you make of it ! For sure I miss my home a lot...but dwelling on it will definetly make your adaptation harder...

stay tuned for more...

Leg 1 done...

Finally I boarded that silly American Airlines plane to LGA (La Guardia Aiport), with a 45 minutes delay it was almost like déja vu all over again...the plane was full, we left at 2pm and landed at LGA at 3pm, now to pick up my luggage, 2 in total with a combine weight of 50 kilos, I was happy that they had trolleys. Next stop, Bus transportation to JFK (John F Kennedy airport), only waited 20 minutes for the NY Transport Service bus which was outside the baggage claim area, after paying 13$ USD for the ride, off I was to JFK. I must say, traffic in New York is crazy, I don't know how they do it, it's not my first time here, but always baffled by the traffic here, and the place is humongous ! Speaking of big, JFK is one hell of an airport , I thought LHR was something, with it's 7 terminal buildings it took the driver almost half and hour to drop everyone to their respective terminal, and of course I was the last one to be dropped off at terminal 4. By the way the plane leaves for Dubai at 11pm ! so I have to kill a good 6 hours, boarding being at 10pm, can't wait to see that...saw the A380 parked next to a 747 from Singapore airlines and British Airways, quite impressive, so is my seat number 73G, and that's only the third section out of 4 in the economy cabin (check out www.seatguru.com). Lazy as I am I opted for fast food to keep my stomach busy for the next few hours, always different menus at McDonald America then Canada, almost feels like 2 different countries on seperate continents ! Anyway last time I asked an American where Canada was the answer was not pretty...no offense to my American readers ! and finally, I almost came down with a river of torrent waters on my face, all the feelings of leaving Montreal (my home for the past 7 years) came gusting in my mind, felt like crying like a baby, and already miss my baby ! my bouzou !

leg 1 down...leg 2 to go ! stay tuned...:)

E-ticket (Part II and hopefully the end)

I finally got that e-ticket with, you would guessed it American Airlines, oddly enough this time I was routed YUL-LGA JFK-DXB with 8 hours to kill in between, I will be so tempted to go downtown Manhattan to wash my eyes with some window shopping ! But with 50 Kilo of luggage with me I doubt it....So far what I've learned from this whole experience is that you don't have any control over what is to happen , getting Final Interview, Golden call, Final Approval (well that last one if you are in good health would doubt you would not get it). Last night I was set to call EK again, but decided to trust them since I had already emailed them and they called me on sunday advising me there would be no problems. In this case I guess patience really is triumphant. I'm already plotting how I will be writing my next post...

Stay tuned :)

Breathing again !

Finally got a call back from EK and will now be joining on the 19th of december. They say I will have the same itinerary , but all fingers crossed that I don't ! I advised them to put me on an earlier flight as the last one left me with no options to find and alternative airline and I only had a 2 hour time frame to make my connection in JFK. 

Feels good to breathe again lol

Still waiting !

It has been 2 days since my missed attempt to join EK. I am now technically living out of my suitcase since I have no idea when I will be leaving. I have all sorts of negative ideas filling my head, every small thing irritates me, and I am hating more and more my behavior, but it is so easy to find an excuse, AMERICAN AIRLINES lol . I had hoped to get a call yesterday morning thinking that the meet and greet people there would have noticed that I am missing and try to contact me ! That is so puzzling...At this point, I better enjoy my time working there...I have invested to many brain cells burned by stress. The funny thing is which is somewhat positive, once I'll be finally on that flight to DXB, I'm sure I will forget all of this jigsaw adventure to get there. Just thursday night at YUL all the past 7 weeks of waiting seemed like a day ago, the brain is really a powerful thing, able to erase the not so good things when a good one happens. Yet we has humans seem to dwell on the bad for so long... hopefully I will not fall into that vicious circle. I guess to have more we must become more, as my mother puts on her msn status ! and it translates in that brain of mine as to have more one must be patient lol 

Unbelievable !

I just arrived back home from YUL (Montreal international airport) , I was suppose to connect in JFK (New York International airport) via American Airlines and then DXB (Dubai International airport) via Emirates Airlines, the flight was scheduled for departure at 7:25 PM, I checked in at 6pm and the flight was showing a delay of 30 minutes...I cleared US custom (because in Canada you clear them at the airport) and went to the gate, gate 79, it was quite busy so I went and sit at the adjacent gate , gate 81. At 7:05 Pm which was the boarding time for my flight, I look up the monitors and see the really unexpected: CANCELLED. I rush to the gate and advise the gate agent that I have a connection in JFK and I can't miss it, that did not change anything for them as they were somehow giggling at my fate. Next step was to ask what was to happen to me as it was the last flight out to JFK for the day, she said that American Airlines responsibility is only to transport me from YUL to JFK and that I should contact my travel agent for my continuing flight to Dubai (Sweet of them!). Still in shock of what is unfolding, I rush to the mountain of paper work in my bag to find out that I don't have one single number to contact EK, so I decide to go online and try to find a number on their website, I got the reservation office number which is open 24/7 and they told me to contact the office on sunday and they will give me a new joining date. At this point, I'm frustrated and tired ! I really don't understand how American Airlines cancels the flight saying bad weather when an earlier delayed flight to JFK was leaving.

I really don't know what to make of all this, always knew traveling was stressful but this experience tops it.

Winter wonderland one last time !

Surprise surprise once again the weather network got it wrong, after announcing big snow storm for the week end which was a no show, we woke up this morning under a blanket of white powder and it's already evening and it is still snowing and -10 Celsius , but they are announcing rain as the temperature should go up to 7 Celsius !!! That will be pretty all that snow blended with the all the rain EEK !!! But I am enjoying it as much as possible, since I don't know when I will see snow ever again (not sad about that). I took out my camera and took some pictures for those of you who live in tropical weather paradise.

Check out my pics  SNOW STORM

3 days to go, what I have been up to !

The past few days have been what you call in good Quebec french "Cochon" which means PIG lol. I have been having a diner party one after the other, and I somewhat went to an anorexic looking guy to a pregnant women about to deliver, it's crazy how you can eat something that tastes so good and gain so much fat, and eat something that is so good health wise and feel so dry lol I guess it's one of those things in life where man is put in front of a continual and infinite amount of choices all with there consequences but with equal or unbalanced amount of satisfaction. Last night I drove about an hour and half to go to my Ballroom school year end gala, obviously it had to be windy and snowy, once I got back home, after being stressed all night because I was doing 2 group routines in front of an audience, and driving in bad weather (did I mention it was -15 Celsius) my arms were hurting like crazy, one would think that I was lifting weights for the first time. About 3 weeks ago I thought I would have an unlimited amount of time to get ready for my desert adventure, and now that I'm down to 3 days, I feel like I'm stuck, I wake up everyday and it is as if my brain is not able to command my body, I'm even more lazy then before, my body does not want to move, is it a panic attack ? But I'm pretty sure it is the cold weather, you just want to become a bear and stay in your cave all winter. So with 3 days to go, I think I'll make an effort and start organizing my move !

E-TIcket and Visa !

I just love the time difference between Montreal and Dubai, 9 hours and a 12-14 hour flight depending where you are departing, west to east is shorter. Once again woke up to a waiting email in my mailbox, this time the final piece do this crazy adventure to getting inside one of the biggest airlines in the world has arrived.  But sweeter then all the sugar in the world, is the fact that I will be flying on the amazing A380 from JFK to DXB...this really is the icing on the cake.

Final Approval...Yipidi doo daa Yipidi Yeah

I woke up at 30 minutes past midnight and felt an urge to look at my blackberry and see if I had any emails, and there beholds 2 emails, both from EK, the first one telling me that I obtained final approval and the other one advising me to resign (well I'm not employed). I will be receiving my e-ticket and visa 4 days prior the date of joining which should be monday. Excited, yes I am !

Now I can finally start organizing my last days in Montreal , but with the cold weather, most likely I will just be separating my wardrobe and give away the clothes that I won't be needing for the next few years, keeping only some warm clothing for the cold destination, and obviously I don't have that much summer clothes, oh well, shopping spree is in the air lol (but where is the money ?)

Credit cards, Customer service, eye test, snow storm !?!?!

There is nothing more unenjoyable then waking up mad as hell, it's like having ate a whole cake with lots of butter-sugar-vanilla frosting the night before...I mean poor customer service just make my adrenaline rush. It all started this morning when I received my credit card statement and not a new credit card since it expired in november ! So I called the customer service and thinking it would be a 2 minute call, I was very calm and collected lol So the nice lady says : I see here that your renewal was declined by the credit department. That is not something I wanted to hear, considering I pulled my credit report last friday and it was in very good standing not to say excellent. By now she had transfer me to the Famous credit department, and they tell me that if we declined you it has to do with your credit, so I ask him: What about it ? and he says that he is not in a position to tell me (LMAO), in my head I' m going : Oh REALLY God.....t !!! So I ask for a supervisor , and get the same treatment, now, here is where I get upset to a hot volcano boiling point, I have been a credit underwriter for the past 5 years and I know how it works, so I tell them that I need a logic reason to why you declined/refused my renewal, all I got is : Sir, it's your credit !. He tells me to contact VISA because they are the ones who take the decisions ! I tell him that when I applied it was with the bank and on my statement it does not mention VISA customer service but The banks customer service...so finally I get his name and call customer service again (Kerwin is a name I will never forget!). I'm on the phone again with customer service, and this time they seem to have found their brains, the nice lady says that it really does not make sense and gets a competent guy to look at the file. Backtracking, I had told Kerwin that my card was compromised last month and I was reissued another one, and would that not have caused this issue, brilliant as he is, he goes: No, it's my credit !. So, it was indeed that incident and someone in the fraud department forgot to unblocked the reissue scheme on my account. The weirdest thing is that I inform them that I spoke to Kerwin and he was insistent that my credit was the cause, well, they tell me they don't have a Kerwin in their department. Just goes to show you, when ever you have a situation with a company and you know you are not at fault, INSIST INSIST INSIST.

Now, this morning I also woke up to an email from EK (IATA/ICAO code for Emirates Airlines) telling me that my medical forms are incomplete, to have my doctor fill out the EYE SECTION. About that, when I went for my medical, she told me that she can only have me read something (called Sneller test) and that was it, so Tomorrow I'm going to an ophthalmologist for a complete report ! The good thing about that email, I'm relieved to know that my file was not forgotten as they requested that I confirm that I will be able to Join on Dec-12th.

Interesting enough, it's getting warm today and last nights snow and ice is already melting ! I guess mother nature is delaying it's wrath.

Emirates Fleet !!!

Snooping the internet and this is what I found, making me even more excited to join ! I can't wait !!!

Afternoon walk and Mac store !

It was sunny outside today and -1 Celcius, figured that I should go for a walk and enjoy Montreal one last time before the big snow comes (first storm scheduled for this monday !).

 

That picture is the intersection near my house, you can see that the trees are dry from there green leaves.

 

The olympic stadium is just 2 blocks away and walked up to it, there is also a metro station (Viau, green line), so decided to go down and go window shopping...ended up buying a Mac Airport Express, a wonderful invention, compact and wireless network for your devices and stereo, loving it !

 

James Bond marathon, and D-13 to Dubai

OK, I never in a million years think that I would be such a lazy boy, I mean LAZY ! I think everyday I wake up around 10am , have my shower at 1pm and go to sleep at Midnight or 1am...I think when I will be flying again I will not take a vacation for at least a year (in theory lol). Now, I went to see Quantum of Solace , the latest James Bond, being a big fan of course I loved it, and to my surprise the movie network was having a James Bond marathon of the series movies, so I recorded them on my DVR  and watch 2 movies per day...it's funny how technology improved the quality of the movies , special effects and all, the last movie I watched was THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, and I was laughing my bottom all the way, if you get a chance to see it please DO. James Bond is such a womanizer it is crazy, does he not get any diseases or something jeez !

So now it's day 13 till I go to Dubai and believe it or not no news upon my final approval from EK, considering today is their saturday, by the time they open for business again I will be on my day 11 so hopefully my name will pop back up in their schedule ! On the bright side of things, and I think I mentioned this before , been reading the PPRUNE forum, and everyone is in the same boat getting news at the very last days of waiting. I have not even bought a suitcase, don't know what I will bring, buy a new wardrobe there ? I seem to be on a cloud and don't want to get off it lol

Confession !

This is going to sound crazy but hey to each their own lol I'm  addicted to television , more so to soap operas, yes you read right, I can't go a day with out my ONE LIFE TO LIVE or ALL MY CHILDREN , it seems like the more absurd the story gets the more I love it, it is beyond me and it is the worse drug lol...How did it all started ? believe it or not since I was 10 or younger, as My mother was somewhat addicted to it we always watched it together , on a plus note, if it was not for that my english would not be what it is right now, my mother tongue being french OUI OUI.

But that addiction has extended to reality shows : Survivor, The amazing race (the best!), Big Brother, Dancing with the stars, So you think you can dance!, American Idol.

The best show I think is The Amazing Race, to be able to go around the world in such short time and seing a lot is really something, I guess it relates to me as I'm doing the same thing with the career I have chosen for myself.

So in all I feel better having confessed to you....:)

Slush season has arrived !

For people living near the equator line SLUSH is when it snows then soon after it rains creating a wonderful mix of ice and water, now what's better then that lol. Now the pictures on top were taken in June when it started to be somewhat cool (15-20 degrees celcius). The pictures down are of this morning after Montreal's first snow of the season.

Why...

Why is waiting so hard , why can't I be patient ( 3 months not working maybe), why can't I decide what to do for the next 18 days, why is it so cold and please no snow storms ? I know all of this will be soon irrelevant as I will be beyond and past these questions...but danm it's long, I'm going madddd.  

So it's been a good 10 days since I sent all the medical forms to EK and no word except that they will get back to me...In the mean time , I have been reading posts on PPRUNE a forum for Cabin Crew and mostly Flight Deck Crew, and found out that EK has a new AbInitio class starting every week, which should not come as a surprise with all the expansion being planned, almost 120 cabin crews to be hired per week to fill all the A380 and B777 on order. It surely helps to know that others are waiting as impatiently as I am.

I'm off to eat some chicken wings lol 

Danger ?

I was thinking a lot these days, how safe is it to be blogging on the internet. Ones identity could be easily stolen from all the information available, not to mention FACEBOOK, where do we draw the line between virtual and real ? Why can't we go back to the old age of writing and sending by courier  (I'm delusional I KNOW). I think deep down I'm trying to find a reason to stop my blogging addiction while I can, but I know it has been triggered by the 3 months of unemployment that I have been maintaining so well ( recap: 4 job offers and turned down 3). So now I'm trying to figure out if either I'm desperate for attention or it's just in my head lol...Attention never hurt no one lol I know some people who are terrified to even have an MSN account, they view the internet like the son of satan lol (maybe exaggerating, but that's the feeling I get). I think the title should have been CONFESSION OF ON THE COMPUTER. LIfe is so different in a develop country then a country that has nothing. When I lived in Haiti, I was always going out and socializing, in Canada, I'm always home, on the internet, chatting, watching way too much TV (and that's another dangerous topic to come). While you get to communicate with the world, Life seemed so much simpler with out it...I guess the more you know the more you think, thus comes the headache lol or maybe the more information you have access too the crazier you get lol who knows ? 

I must acknowledge that some bloggers out there are really good, and it is a real talent to publish in such artistic way your life adventures. And maybe that's where the inspiration comes from and makes you forget all the dangers, because anything in life can happen you never know when it will stop. So I will be and keep doing what makes me happy and what I find pleasure in.

PROBLEM SOLVED. :).

OUCH OUCH OUCH is all I can say !

Hopefully today was and will be the last hurdle I physically needed to overcome...Did I mention that I am required to take 11 vaccines , yes you read right 11 (Eleven). My day started out , and boy what was I thinking, by eating only 2 toasts and heading out to the torturers office. I thought it would be easy to just go in a clinic and get butchered, but no, first Clinic des voyageurs I went to I needed an appointment, it felt kind of strange because there was not a cat in the office, oh well, the secretary told me I could go to the hospital and they have a clinic there with no appointments. Well, the catch was I would have to wait almost 3 hours to get serve, and that’s exactly what happened. I must thank my Mother for having me take the Hepatitis shots while I was living in Haiti, that saved me from taking 2 shots, so down to 9, and also I already at Varicella so another shot down, so in all only 8 shots to take. So, after my 3 hours of wait on an empty stomach my name got called, and the hell started, 2 shots on my right arm, one on my left and 1 shot on both legs....I really really felt like crying like a baby...ah the suffering...but wait, I can not consume any alcohol in the next 8 days because I opted to take my Typhoid vaccine orally instead of injection, that means a pill every 2 days in the morning when I wake up.

To move or not to move (my blog that is)

Check this out  Going for it !

Modern Secretary !

I thought the interview process was something...boy was I wrong...after a week of running around Doctors office and Laboratories I finally got my results...Yes yes I'm fine as a newborn baby, thank God ! So now the task was to email all the paper work , reports to EK... thus begins the adventure in office work lol...spent all night scanning and emailing, remember there is an 8 hour difference between YUL and DXB (time zone, its a 14hour flight) , so started scanning at midnight and finally went to bed a 2am only to wake up with a message saying that my files are to big !!! Eeek and double eeek...so this morning took my time to understanding the scaner and how it works, mind that I never scanned something before lol...So finally managed to scan in PDF files instead of JPEG (I will not explain lol) and the email went throught, so now have to wait for tonight when Dubai wakes up to find out if it's OK and hoping for a sooner joining date. Oh next step I have to go get a battery of shots....tripple eek time a million !

Medicals Medicals Medicals

As happy as I was to get a call from EK, I just spent a day going around town finding a good doctor to get all the battery of tests required done, my aim is to join sooner then dec 12th...will see...after being poked for blood I though they would open my heart open too, in order to make sure it works perfectly, anyway, manage to do all my tests, and should have a review with the doc next week, then scan and email to EK. In other news, I resign from small fries airlines lol and boy it fell good, even if EK said not to quit your job, but I was only in my first week of training...will see lol.

OH MY GODDDDDD

Just got the call from EK, joining date Dec 12th or sooner if I can rush my medical....OMG...I feel so faint...

So this is training...AGAIN !

Ok, so day 3 of training for the second time this year and for another charter airline, boy the newbies can have questions that don't make any sense, I don't even remember being so distraught at my first training, jeez louise. I had my first dance competition over the week end in Quebec city, got 2nd place, I was in shock, I was sure that I stunk like a skunk lol...back to training, I am amazed on how much I retained from my previous airline experience, I know the answer to everything lol and there I thought I was the worse FA ever...

So now I am still waiting for EK to call...week 2...every morning I wake up looking at my emails hoping to have something, at least yes or no, just so I can move on with life, is that too much to ask, the thing is there is a time difference of 8 hours between Dubai and Montreal, so I'm guessing that by 8am Montreal time, offices in Dubai are already closed ! Oh well, I still am lucky to have been Hired again by another airline, even if it's a dot compared to EK (I should not be so grumpy) oh well lol...Tomorrow day 4 , and cannot wait to see what comes out of the newbies mouth...

What...second place ?

Life just got weirder, I have been taking dance classes, Latin International, since my unemployment status, my teacher seeing how I was in the studio all the time, proposed to me to do some dance competitions, well obviously I said yes being bored as I was. Well last night was my first ever competition and boy was I nervous, shaking and everything, I messed up in so many places...but the shocker...I got second place...what is going on, maybe we actually see our selves in such a perfectionist point of view compared to others watching us ! My dance partner keeps saying that she went to see a medium who told her that she would finally meet her perfect partner to help her achieve a competition and winning goals...GOD...does this mean no EK for me ? I think that's what made me more in shock when I heard the announcer saying our names for second place...Is her medium right ? Anyway tomorrow starting my training with small fries airline, hopefully the newcomers to the business will keep me entertained with their naive questions lol

So 1 week dowm 2 to go for EK to let me know if they want me or not...eeek

And the wait starts

It's been a crazy day (screening) we were about 40 or so and ended up 17 after a 10 hour day of interviews, tests , you name it...I am so nervous, more so that I am so close to having my dreams fulfilled times 100. A lot of things are popping up in my head, what will I bring , how many luggage etc...Do I really really want to do this, move ? AGAIN ! Hell yeah, my philosophy has always been that you only have ONE LIFE TO LIVE (and yeah I'm addicted to that soap opera, my guilty pleasure). 

Let's recap what I did in 2008 :

Jan - Go to Airline interview out of nowhere

Feb- Got the call, oh my god I'm freaking out !

Mar- Still working my desk job, and can't wait to bail out

Apr- Last days at Desk Job, oh my god again, it's coming true , I'm gonna be working in the air

May- 5 week training, who would have thought it would be that intense.

Jun- First pairings, Paris, London, Vancouver, life is sweet.

Jul- More awesome Pairings and gosh I love this JOB

Aug- Started good, loved Glasgow, but who would have seen it coming (only the owners), The airline folded...snif snif...I knew it was too good to be true my job snif snif

Sep- Trying not to be too depressed, but turned down 1 job, but a desk job, nice conditions, but got hired by another airline, yeah, but no international i.e. Europe. OH, and went to preselection and passed for the BIG AIRLINE.

Oct- WoW, is the only thing I can say, I would never imagine in 2008 I would get opportunities, not by 1 but 3 and maybe 4 airlines . WOW. Got to Final interview with the biggest one. Fingers , toes are crossed.

Round 3

So finally the day has come to really know what my future will hold in the airlines business...feel like it is destiny...but only time will tell...

Here I go...

After reading so many blogs online, and having a bit of too much time available these days, I said to myself why not... Well right now I'm unemployed as my previous employer folded as so many birds in the sky...but it was an interesting year , working 5 years at a desk, and unhappy, going to the airline interview in January and to much surprise getting it...had a blast, Paris, London, layovers were great, and I miss being in a plane a bit too much...but now I'm on a waiting pattern as I applied with a really big bird and everything seems to be going well...