Melissa's Flight Attendant Blog

Rain shower and loo, with lighting. Sometimes I'd have blue, pink, green, orange. Whatever felt appropriate.

The Rijksmuseum, which houses some of Rembrant's famous works as well as a few by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet. I was really bummed, because if I had arrived only 2 weeks later I could have seen Damien Hirst's For the Love of God (The platinum skull, diamond encrusted, asking price of 50 million pounds). If I get a Dusseldorf flight on my reserve I'm gonna take a train and see it.

I can't really remember what this is, I think though it's the church near Anne Frank Huis.

Shady street at sunset with the famous 'coffeehouses' everyone kept egging me to visit.

Anne Frank Huis, where Anne Frank and her family hid out during WW2 during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands. The queue was HUGE but totally worth the visit.

Concerthall

Heiniken Brewery. I didn't go in, mainly because I don't drink beer, but I'm guessing that Heiniken tastes no different in the Netherlands than anywhere else in the world.

Holtkamp, a family run business, that sold Dutch coquettes made-to order. Much better than the croquette vending machines at Febo. I must have had about 5 from this place. Mmmmm.

Vondelpark where some people go to take magic mushrooms. I was just happy having some space to ride my bicycle without crashin into kids, or getting run over by cars...

To be honest, as much as Amsterdam is a popular destination is amongst crew, I found that I enjoyed myself in Brussels more, as tourists treat it for the wonderful city it is rather than an adult playground. I also went to the red light district in AMS, and just found it seedy, brimming with sex shops and coffee houses. It did have a Vlamse fries somewhere which was alright, but walking around there and seeing girls in windows, some of which were very pretty, was just sad. I wish that I had enough time for a day trip to Rotterdam, or The Hague, but alas the downside of reserve is the inability to extend leave by bidding or swapping for days off.

So now I'm back in Dubai, with jars of Andalouse sauce, and Neuman's chocolates in tow, plus some more additions to my Christmas decoration and magnets collection. My next leave is in December and I'm already on Tripadvisor planning my next big adventure.

It started with me giving up a 2-day Malta (sob) for a Perth flight, the very flight he was going to be on. He didn't know I was coming - my intention was to surprise him during boarding, then getting him liquored up on champagne and port for 11hrs then taking him to the apartment. It didn't quite work out that way as he saw me in the terminal in PER, and then only had a glass of wine with his lunch, but he was stoked anyways. After landing it was a quick cat-nap and then off to Tony Romas for some tasty (beef) ribs.

As I'm on reserve during October I was bound to be out of the country whilst Dad was in town and on Wednesday night was pulled out for a flight to Ahmedabad. My standby duty started at 6pm, so I spent the whole day showing Dad around Dubai with the Big Bus Tour, had lunch at Mall of the Emirates and saw the Burj Al Arab, Atlantis and old Dubai where the museum and Heritage Village are. I was wrecked by the time we got home, even more so when I got to briefing as Avis 'forgot' to send a pick-up to my building for AMD and after waiting 25 minutes ended up in a taxi. The flight was non-eventful, chockablock going there and coming back was nil in F/C, 2 in Business and 60 in Economy. Was so nice to relax for 2.5 hours.

So I get home around 6.30 am, and find Dad with a red/blue eye and very swollen nose. Turns out when he had a shower that night he lost his balance and hit his nose on the bidet. There was blood all over my bathroom, in places I didn't think I'd find it. It was pretty nasty. It's been almost 48hrs since the accident and his nose is still bleeding every now and again. Took him to the hospital yesterday arvo, and the doctors believe he's got a broken nose, and they wanted to do a CT scan on him but it would have cost a truckload of money, which even though he had Travel & Medical Insurance couldn't really afford to pay up-front. Even if it was confirmed to be a broken nose, they said that there's nothing they could really do to fix it, just to take antibiotics and wait for the swelling and bleeding to subside.

So he's been in a bit of a grumpy mood since. Tried to cheer him up by taking him out to Friday Brunch this arvo for some Thai food (which was the first time he's had proper Thai food since mum had the stroke) but his heart wasn't in it. He's getting home sick, and asking me to book him on earlier flights back to Perth, but loads are packed and nothing's looking good. Even if he gets onto a flight the Cabin Crew will take one look at him and offload him anyway. Had planned to take him to the Burj Al Arab for High Tea and for the desert safari but have cancelled both, so for the next 4 days or so it looks like being quiet at home.

Tomorrow I have been lumped with the worst Airport Standby duty - 12.30pm to 6.30pm. Going to pack the iPod and load some TV shows and movies to pass the time. Hopefully I'll just get a short turnaround or even nothing at all. Whatever I get it can't beat the last couple of days of drama in the apartment, so hopefully things will look up.