Still no internet. Still no landline. Still on days off. Yep, that’s right, life here in Al Barsha ticks away all too slowly. I have remedies though. DVDs and a neeeew phone. I’m now able to receive emails on the go. Efficiently. I have a full qwerty keyboard, so typing isn’t an issue anymore. Yeah because – previously – with the usual cellphone keyboard mumbo jumbo I looked like a dork trying to send an absolutely normal/short text message. It took me ages. A simple “see you later” would end up something along the lines of : “heie uuefh lertre”. In other words: useless. That’s why I didn’t really bother with text messages that much. Since I bought that kinky Nokia E71, I have discovered that not only does it have better reception, it’s also becoming a joy to write text messages or emails.

I’m being the real couch potato at the moment. Watching episodes of Extras and The Office. I love Ricky Gervais’ stuff. His humour matches mine in many ways. I like making fun of the world. His dry, witty, and always spot on lines make me crack with laughter. I just got the Christmas specials and I have to say, they’re brilliant.

Rewind a little. It’s nine o’ clock at night before I was supposedly bound for Dusseldork. I’m at Crew Briefing Center doing the usual syphon over their internet connection and as usual checking my roster for any changes… And I wasn’t surprised.

They had simply and abruptly scrapped my DUS trip for some Can Use nonsense (CAN USE means what it means. I’m basically available at their will for any flight or duty at any time, I cannot leave base nor can I leave my flat). I scored 3 full days of can use. All of that without notifying me what-so-effin-ever. Yeah just like that, no phone call, email, text message or nuthin! So thankfully I checked because I would of turned up in CBC (Crew Briefing Center) at 5 in the morning the next day all happy jubbly bubbly for my Dusseldorf and then been told that not only I was off-loaded for no given reasons but that they had replaced my duty with some kick arse home standby from 10am to 6pm. Again, they didn’t call me or email me or text me to notify. Nope. Nada, Nicht, NOTHING !

So yeah enjoyed more internet at CBC, because I knew I had a few more hours of sleep to play with. And then got back home on the crew bus. Went to sleep and woke up at 9.30 the next morning.

Just in time to prepare my suitcase for an eventual layover, very unlikely for a standby at 10 am, just because all the cool layovers leave prior to ten. But you never know. So got a good balance between hot and cold clothes to play around with. and then started to iron my uniform. It’s close to ten by then and need to move my duvet and pillow over to the living room for the rest of the standby.

“But why ?” you might ask. Well. Since I moved into TECOM building in Al Barsha, they haven’t installed the landlines, nor internet and the mobile phone reception is close to nil all around the flat (that includes my bedroom) except, the couch and half the living room (the half closest to the windows). The wall are so thick here it’s virtually impossible to make a decent phone call without being forced onto the balcony and subsequently dying of dehydration by the end of the call (remember I live in the desert, and it’s mid-summer here).

So yeah, I basically pitched my bedroom in the living for the duration of the standby, waiting endlessly for a call.

I got it in the end. It was around one o’ clock in the afternoon when someone from the Briefing Desk decided to let me know I was being pulled out for a frickin’ Beirut turnaround. The pick up was due at 0215hours. Well in time for a 1700hours departure. The flight itself wasn’t as bad as I thought. It was busy of course. Overbooked. But we made it back safe, sound and sane. It was quite long though. a full 12 hour shift, plus roughly 3 hours of standby).

The good part is that we arrived after midnight, and it is compulsory for them to give me a day off after so many hours worked. So checked the rosters again and was greeted by an extra day off out of the 2 already rostered before my Singapore – Melbourne trip.

And I’m here now writing this little blog post, along with a cold beer and some tunes flowing in the background.

In other news, I’m starting to get flooded with Laviator Pictures from around the world and it’s hard to keep up. I will get through them thought but never realized it would pick up so fast. I might have to setup some automatic photo upload thingy before I get overwhelmed with heavy pictures in my inbox. The latest come from two new bloggers out there. Dairy Air and Flying ACE. They recently started their Flight Attendant blogs… Check out the links! Oh and by the way, there’s an article on MSNBC talking about Laviators and my blogger pal HEATHER who started the whole thing : click here and the rest of the Laviators are below :

I’m starting to be in need of a chill out holiday in Paris. I miss the city. And the fact that BrotherOfSodwee is coming back is bliss ! I haven’t Skyped mum in a while and she called me late at night the other day to catch up on some gossip ! Goes to show when you have no internet, not only does it affect you but all those who are used to have you spoil their Facebook wall and clog up their email inboxes.

But that’s about it for now. Gonna play a little more with the Sodberry (yep, you heard me, I nicknamed my phone!). Speak to you soon peeps. More laterz…