Forwarning: This week will be journaled backwards as I have just now found internet access. I am sitting in the crew room many hours before my first assignment. I was one of the lucky ones who was given a three day trip to SFO!! I fly out tonight, have a 21 hour layover and then red-eye it back. Total time gone is 35 hours although I will have been away from home much longer than that. My roomate M and I took the fabulous NJ transit in this afternoon since she hadn't been to the airport yet and to have a few hours of sanity and alone time.
Looking around the crew room and watching those who seem like they are old hats with this whole process. I wonder if they had to take the bus in or where they are off to. Our class, which we have ran into at least ten of them so far, stick our like sore thumbs. No one is wearing the blazer, skirt, and floppy tie, oh no, they have since cute, cool uniforms.
So, some stories thus far....
I arrived in EWR on Monday and was greated by my new roomate and a sandwich in the baggage claim area. My other roomate was right behind me from the West Coast. We gathered up our many bags and headed off to see our apartment. It needs some love, I won't lie to you. The neighborhood is amazing, small town USA, very safe and friendly. I really expected our place to be really nice since the family of our roomate, N is pretty well off. Everyone knows that I am a clean freak and that bathroom does not make me comfortable. I won't even use the kitchen because that scares me as well. I managed to get the bigger room because I am one of the lease signers. It's strange to start over again because I have already done that in life and worked my way up to a great place, now I am back at the mid rung again. Okay enough about the place were my alarm clock indicated it was 83 degrees at 2300. We dumped off most of our bags and went to check in at the Ramada mostly because I missed seeing everyone and I didn't feel comfortable staying at N's house, I needed some me time. My roomate at the hotel was this adorable girl from training so we got along perfectly for the couple days we were together. Back to the airport to pick up our other two roomates, hotel, and then we headed into the city, It was great first night, welcome to NY evening. We had dinner at Sushi Sumba and then dessert in the East Village.
Base orientation was comfortable because all the naive FA's were together in one room asking all the questions we needed. Our instructors were a kick in the ass and we quickly learned how much more lax everything is up here in EWR. It is going to be great flying out of here. Training was two days long with a visit to the Starlight lounge (courtsey of the Ramada at the airport) in between. C, B and I decided after our nap, to get dinner downstairs. That was all welll and good but I forgot to pack clothes other than the ones I wore to training. So I borrowed some pants and a shirt from C. The shirt I borrowed was the most boob-a-lious shirt I have ever worn. Whatever we were just going down stairs. Needless to say after dinner and the endless beers, the jutbox music, our tap was...nothing. The bartender, Ritchie (total Jersey) was in love with us.
The next night was not as exciting as the two previous but we sure tried to make it be. We got ten peeps together and decided to take the shuttle to the airport and have a nice dinner. By the time we pulled it together and make it the airport, our nice restaurants were closed. Long story short, we ended up taking the train to another terminal only to end up eating at Burger King. The ladies we not so helpful and snapped at the majority of us until the drag queen in our group snapped right back.
Thursday was moving day. We were greeted at our hotel at 8:30 sharp by the roomate who needs a whole 'nother blog about his stupidity. We head to the apartment and have to unload all of his stuff. Why he didn't have his room set up with his five days off previous is beyond me. So off to IKEA we go, we can't go the closer one because of the "riff-raft" that would be there. Who gives a shit, we are not there to socialize. We pick out our beds, dressers, and things to make our life easier but of course we are under a time crunch because the cable guy is coming in the middle of the day. We make it back in time although our driver thought it would be fun to take a wrong turn into a really bad neighborhood. So then we haul all of our stuff through two doors, and up narrow stairs. We decide to tag team the beds and get them put together. Five minutes in and I am pooring sweat. A few hours later another trip to IKEA is in order to get our mattress and lunch. The need to be quick is upon us because we want ol' knucklehead to leave before rush hour so we can go out to the city with the other girls. We get into an arguement, ie him whining and us saying no, to the point that he thinks that some one needs to drive home with him to switch the cars and have dinner with his parents. At this point and time we haven't gotten our beds together, have no sheets or towels, and nothing totally put together. He wants to go the farmer's market and then puts me on the phone with his mom to pick out veggies because he doesn't know how. I offer to drive to IKEA because he is tired of driving, and we get our mattresses. Another quick stop to BBB to get textiles and off we go. The whole car falls asleep on the way home so it was a good thing I was paying attention on how to get home. (p,s. has come in handy the nights we have gone to the city and had to take a cab home as well!) We are back after our lunch at IKEA and putting together our beds, sweating once more. N is whining around the apartment and getting in our way. He started putting this damn coffee table together the one he thought was more important than his bed until I yelled at him about it. Finally after telling us that we need to draw straws to figure out who is going to his house with him, he gives up and leaves. We had beer and tp on the way so we jammed to get ready and headed into Manhattan.
It was our first experience with the path and it went well, we headed into Times Square to meet some friends. It was so great to watch the excitment of the two who had never been to NYC before. We got NY pizza and headed to the Blue Fin, a nice lounge in the W Hotel. We absolutely had to get a cosmo and quote lines from Sex in the City. C and I love, love it!! We ended up staying there until midnight, when they kicked us out. While we were out each of our phones rang and not a single one of us picked up. Finally our friend, P answered. It was him. He claimed to have locked him self out, so he proceeded to drive all the way into the city in his pj's to get a set. C and B met him outside and made light of the situation and then said if he wasn't in his pj's he should come in. So what does he do? Changes in the car and comes in long enough to tell us that we are hanging out with ugly people. We told him to go home. Later we find out that he "found them in pants pocket". It was all a lie and we wanted to know where we were. The night in Manhattan progressed into Soho and we hopped all over to bars until 0400. We took the path back and then a cab, arriving home at 0500.
Friday is a story in itself so I will pick up on my layover in SFO.
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