And yet another day

It got a little more interesting today. We talked about different alcohol we offer to our guests on board the aircraft and drinks that we can mix with them ... to bad we had no practical on this one hihihi.

Service

Today we have classes because we are making up for the next Thursday which is going to be a new years day so we'll have long weekend YAY !!! But it doesn't change the fact that it's saturday and we are sitting in class... ouffffff.... we are all exhausted. A lot of us went out on thursday so now we can feel the lack of energy hihihi. Anyway... today we had first day of Service, and it was pretty boring stuff, all book related and nothing practical. We talked about guest relations, communicating with them and other stuff. No wonder that most of us were falling asleep hehehehe. But somehow we managed to get thru the day .. Big success hihhih

Aviation Health Training is over... and we got our Rosters for January

YAAAAAAAAAAAAY !!!!!!!!
the day went unbelievably smooth. 100% on my Written test, 100% on practical assessment ( The instructor said that in longest time she did not see CPR done so well :D ) .... I'm surprising myself more and more LOL.
I got Excellent feedback from the instructor... and that also made my day .
But... the news of the day :
ROSTER FOR JANUARY: Damascus- turnaround
Dhaka- 24 hours layover
3 day standby- anything can happen hihihhi
Bombai - turnaround
and last but most important : TORONTO - 50 hour layover !!!!!! YYYAAAAYYYYYYYY
I'm extremely happy !!!! I always wanted to go to Toronto..... and I just can't believe that I got it on my first month of flying !!!!!!!! OMG... I need to celebrate... so I better go out tonight !!!!

Baby anyone???

yeah..... birth on board... the main topic of the day !!!
Let me tell you- I decided to adopt after seeing video in class.
First ... you can see the WHOLE thing on the video. From dilation of the cervix to the alien-like-looking baby coming out and finally- the most gross part of it - delivery of placenta. BLAHHHHHHH. Why the birth could not be more pleasant looking ????
Anyway, tomorrow we have a big 50 questions test and CPR practical assessment and real case scenarios in the mock-up. But since it's Christmas today.... we did not study , just went out to the restaurant for a nice Lebanese dinner... yummmm... it was amazing. If you are ever in Abu Dhabi, I highly recommend Lebanese Flower Restaurant... you won't regret it !!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

WEEK 5: Aviation Health Course

Pretty much today we received the intro to the whole course. What's interesting that our trainer: Matthias told us some things that for us, Westerners might be a little shocking when it comes to legal aspects. So..... here in UAE as Cabin Crew , pretty much you can't give First Aid to anyone except in-flight. Which means that if you see a car accident or whatever happening on the street etc. we can't do anything more than dial 999 for Ambulance !!!! Can you believe that !!! We WILL actually go to jail if we help them.... because if that person dies while you are doing First Aid- you will be responsible for their death !!!! How sick is that ??? And if they don't die, you will go to jail for touching them ! Yeah...
And if you have a Pax on flight and she or he refuses for you to touch them in case of medical emergency... it's OK.. you just leave them alone even if they die.
Very different from what I knew before.
Later we also talked about medical equipment and how to communicate in case of emergency.
This stuff is sooo extremely interesting. Can't wait for more !!!!

First day in Uniforms

We all look fabulous in our uniforms. I could not even recognize my batch mates in the morning in the cafeteria because we all look so different hihihi. Now finally we all feel like part of Etihad family. The only thing we are missing are the Wings ... but they will come in 3 weeks. We had a test on Aribus 320 ( and it's family) and it was hard !! 5 people in my group did not pass it so they had to retake it the next morning. I got 96% so it's not that bad. We all were in shock that we did so bad on this exam since everyone told us it will be an easy exam, so we did not study for it as much as we supposed to. But the truth is that it is the most confusing exam of all airbus family. the problem with it is that you need to un-learn most of 330 and 340 and re-learn it the new way keeping in mind that 320 family has about 4 different types of aircrafts so we need to know all the differences between them.

Uniforms pickup

The day has finally came when we are going to pick up our uniforms. We received all of our uniforms and bags. a lot of stuff... it feels like Christmas LOL.
We got: 3 skirts, 1 trouser, 2 jackets, 6 shirts, 2 belts, 2 hats, 2 veils, 2 scarfs, 3 aprons, 2 cardigans, our travel suitcase, trolley bag, beauty bag and 2 pairs of shoes. and the best part is: free dry cleaning !!! LOL
I'm lucky enough to live in the building where the uniform store is located so Dry cleaning pickup is downstairs, just need to drop it one day and pick it up the next one. This is just making our life so much easier. Tomorrow we have an exam from 320, but after receiving the uniforms I'm sure no one will study for it :) at least I didn't hihihi... I was trying my new uniform :P

Double Take and a Big 100% mark

Wow... can you believe the amount of exams we have to do ??? It's getting pretty tough. Today we had an exam from Airbus 330... and I mean EVERYTHING that has to do with this aircraft.... not easy. But ... I made it- 100%, a big day to celebrate :)
Later we also had practical evaluation and guess what - also 100% ... YAY.... Double the fun !!!!
So far, up to date we had already 4 exams. I made three of them on 100% and one on 94%.... not bad at all !!!
Today we got the info that on Tuesday we are going to receive our uniforms ... YAY ... this is the best news because we all are sick and tired of wearing white and black all the time LOL
After the class finished I went home, packed my stuff and hit to Dubai for the weekend ... It's going to be FUN !!!! Oh.. by the way... remember when I told you that the taxi from Abu Dhabi to Dubai cost me 300 dirhams... yeah... this time I took a bus and it cost me only 15 dirhams... big difference huh ??? From now on I'll be taking bus only.... or at least until I buy my own car, which will be soon I hope.

lot of studying

Uffffff...... slowly running out of energy and have not more space in my brain for all the info that we need to memorize for tomorrow.
Today at the academy we did a lot of theory so the day was drugging itself. And the thought of tomorrows exam did not make it any easier LOL. But I'm staying optimistic.... maybe because I know that I'll pass it with at least 80%.
I never give up... so even if I need to study the whole night... I'll do it.
So I better cut this post short and start studying ASAP... wish me good luck !!

First Serious Exam

ouffff.... I'm so glad it's over. We all stressed out for this exam, but after all it wasn't that bad. Todays first "big" exam was about General Safety which includes everything we talked about the whole past week and some of the things from this week ( Decompression, fire fighting, emergency evacuations, turbulence etc. ).
All of my group passed it with only one girl getting 100% mark. We had 30 multiple choice questions and one diagram to fill in. Our passing mark was 80%. I got 2 questions wrong, so my final mark was 94%... not bad at all!!! Later we went to the Hangar area to have Airbus Familiarization. And let me tell you... it was awesome. We could play with a lot of stuff in the cockpit, we saw how to go down under the cabin to our bunk beds and all the cool stuff that you'll never know about if you are only a passenger. Really... a lot of fun !!!

First "little" exam on Dangerous Goods.

Day by day I'm liking this whole experience more and more. Don't get me wrong.... there are some bumps along the way... but the positives are out weighting the negatives so it's fine with me :)
Today the day passed so fast... maybe because we had some practicals. Later in a day we had a quick class for Dangerous Goods and right after we finished, we had an "exam" from it. Only 10 multiple questions... so you'd have to be super dumb no to pass it LOL. But off course we don't have dumb people in out batch, so we all passed LOL.
Tomorrow we have a very important Exam from General Safety so after we finished at the Academy we all went home and study.

Survival

Yeah ... today we talked about survival equipment and all this fancy stuff that supposed to keep you alive. LOL. The best part of the day was the practical slide evacuation... just imagine 16 adult people acting like kids on the playground ... pretty funny. Later we went to the stimulator to practice our "planned evacuation" drills and that went really well! By "planned evacuation" I mean when there is enough time for the cabin crew to get the cabin and the passengers ready for emergency landing... like securing things, letting passengers know how to behave during crash landing and how to evacuate. Once again, very.. very interesting stuff.
Other than that, not much more happened today.

WEEKEND Part 2

one word : SHOPPING.... went makeup shopping with batch 302 and Aommer to Marina Mall... spent like 600 dirhams on just 4 things ..OUCHHH... Later I joined my friends at batch 302 to celebrate one of their B-day at TGI Fridays..... it was fun !!! Came back home late... study for about an hour and that's about it !!!

WEEKEND

total bliss...... jacuzzi, sauna, TV and laziness..... thank God it's Friday !!!

Freezing and wet !!!

The day was very nice, we did not have a lot of theory, more practice, but of course we got to start the day off with the Quiz. First we got to do our fire fighting practice in the fire stimulator. It was really good and fun, but too bad that we got to do it only once a year :(.Later we went back to the "door" stimulator where we got to practice emergency situations with commands we'll be given and commands we'll be passing to our passengers like : "Bend down and hold your knees"- in case of emergency landing or a crash also " Seat belts-off, leave your things and come this way " and " jump and slide". We need to SCREAM those commands on top of our lungs .... pretty funny when we first did it, we made a lot of mistakes and we were saying stuff like "slide and jump" and "come your things" LOL. Almost at the end of the day we went to practice ditching ( jumping into the water from the raft, surviving in cold water and getting back on the raft). The water was FREEZING.... not kidding.... but it was just so much fun !!!! I'd love to do it again LOL.
At night me and some of my friends went out first to the restaurant called Hemingway's ( did not like it much ) and then later on we all went out to the Ocean's Club. I met few people from my batch there, so I joined them and we had a really great time dancing and hanging out. Later we changed the clubs and we went to Saks ( which is next door, on this same floor) and we stayed there the rest of the night up until about 3 at night. FUN night !!!

Fire In Galley 6 !!!!

Beginning of the class - Quiz as usual. Got 100% on it. The quiz is pretty easy if you study as much as I do LOL (and I study only about 2/3 hours a day hihihihi).
We had our show-and -tell session of all the fire equipment and later we got to see the trainers fight the real fire in the fire stimulator. We all are going to do the same tomorrow, but for today we just had a lot of theory and a lot of info on all the equipment.
When there is a fire in the cabin we can't scream " FIRE " so we got our own signal to trigger the required responses from other crew members ... and it's going to be " I need Backup!!" and then one other crew member is going to come and help us with the fire , third crew member is going to let the captain and cabin manager know of the situation and the fourth is going to come down the passengers and give them instructions. So we got 4 people in that situation: fire fighter, backup, communicator and crowd controller. It's all about team work guys !!!
By the time we finished our class... we got like 4 different homeworks for tomorrow. First we need to learn by heart the fire fighting drill, then be able to locate the equipment on the diagram, then study for our quiz tomorrow and last we got a reading assignment.
After I got home I started learning the drill, but in record time I fell asleep. I guess they were right when they warned us that the SEP Manual puts you to sleep better than any sleeping pill LOL. But I slept for only an hour and then got back to studying.

Celebrating 37 years of UAE.

We started the class by having our first Quiz. It was pretty easy and got 100% on it but the class was drugging it self like crazy..... We were studying about emergency door, so we had a chance to operate the door as well. It's pretty fun... but soooo complicated ! Who would think that closing and opening doors requires about 10 procedures LOL. Like we need to arm and disarm the door, check all the warning lights, check for obstructions, get an OK from the Capitan, Cabin Manager, Ground Staff and at the end crosscheck with another crew member if the door is closed/ open and armed/ disarmed properly. WOW.... and it's all because by accident we can actually deploy the slide/raft if we open armed door. Wouldn't be that embarrassing ???
We also talked about decompression of the cabin and emergency procedures that we need to fallow. Pretty interesting stuff so far.
Today is the National Day of UAE, when they celebrate 37th year of the country. None of my group members wanted to go and see the people celebrating it so I called my polish friends and went to meet them up at Al Jazeera Building. Then we walked to Cornish Beach to see the fireworks. It was very nice... the people are all dressed up and they decorate their cars and ride them on the streets, making a huge amount of noise. At the park they had the men dancing and singing traditional songs and dances... it's not very impressive.. they pretty much repeat the same thing for like 3 hours LOL... I much more rather Lebanese Debkeh LOL. The fire works were very nice, they even made ones in the shape of a heart and one in the shape of a smiley face :) They were going off for about an hour and a half.
We walked thru out the beach and after the fireworks have finished I went back home.

A330-200 ( I know- it looks scary , but it's only an Airbus LOL )

We got to the point when we can have a closer look at the airplane !!!
First we started off with the definition of a flight, some basic aerodynamics and a little bit of physics. We talked about main parts of the airplane from the inside and from the outside, and later on we had a deep look at Airbus 330-200. We talked about main features of the aircraft, on how the things work, how it's builded etc.
At some point we got to go to the stimulator for familiarization ( to familiarize our selfs with the airplane ). We got to try jump seats, pilot seats, we had a look at main safety features and we got to touch and try all of it !!! It was fun... even tho the stimulator is still not finished ( it's still under project ).
Just as we did yesterday, we got our reading assignment for tomorrow as well as we have to learn all the things that we talked about today, because tomorrow we'll have a quiz from it.
After the class, me and 4 of my batch mates had to go back to the Etihad Medical Center for vaccinations... oh God- not again this messy place LOL
We arrived there at about 4:30 and to our surprise it was already closed..... but since we already had our appointments, they let us in. It took us only like, 20 min. so we were shocked that it was done so fast. After that I was trying to catch a cab for like 20 minutes with no success. I walked by a clothing store and I decided to go shopping if I was already there. I went in ,and got couple of white button up shirts for the training, since we are not going to have our uniforms for another 3-4 weeks.
Now, I need to go study again for the quiz.... ufffff....