Voglio andare a Roma.

I got back from a short 3 day trip to Amsterdam this week. Nothing exciting to report there. I didn't even leave the hotel.  :-( We arrived at a weird time and left at a weird time. So it was hard to find a good time to sleep and go out and do stuff. Next month though we have 4 days trips there that I am hoping to get. I really want to go for a bike ride in the countryside!
This post however isn't about Amsterdam, it's about Rome! One of my coworkers on my flight to AMS just returned from a week long trip there and was showing us his photos. Love at first sight! Of course I'd seen photos of Rome before, I mean, hello, the Colosseum, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain! But something about his photos were just amazing. I thought to myself what a great place to spend a few days in October. It won't be to hot or to cold. Hopefully there won't be crazy amounts of tourists everywhere. Things might be cheaper. So I'm looking into it. Emailed a couple of friends that have been there/lived there and asked their opinion. I picked up a Rome Lonely Planet City Guide at the library yesterday. I'm looking through Trip Advisor and CouchSurfing to find plans.
If you're looking for something to do in October and what to go to Rome, let me know!

Honolulu, Guam and a Funny "Chicken" Story

I’m on the last stop of my 8 day trip. Honolulu. Talking about ending with a bang. Honolulu is an amazing place. On one hand you have the buzz of a big city, complete with traffic, buses, people everywhere and food anywhere you turn. On the other you have the beautiful beaches, mountains, waterfalls and history. The temperature is a normal 80 degrees year around. I don’t think there is anywhere else like it in the world. And the people, so diverse! There’s Hawaiian (duh), other Pacific Islanders, mainlanders, Japanese, Filipino, I even met a fella from Belarus here once. Who knew this is what you find thousands of miles from any major piece of land. Here are some other cool facts about Hawaii:
~Hawaii is the only state that grows coffee.
~From east to west Hawaii is the widest state in the United States.
~The Hawaiian Islands are the projecting tops of the biggest mountain range in the world.
~There are no racial or ethnic majorities in Hawaii. Everyone is a minority. Caucasians (Haoles) constitute about 34%; Japanese-American about 32%; Filipino-American about 16% and Chinese-American about 5%. It is very difficult to determine racial identification as most of the population has some mixture of ethnicities.
~The island houses the world's biggest telescope and more scientific observatories in one place than anywhere else in the world.
It's a sweet place.

More recap on the trip thus far.  I spent 2 nights in Guam. Both were fairly short lay overs. 13 hours and 1 hours. So I wasn't able to get out and explore to much. I was able to hang out with about 8 fellow crew members for dinner one night and with a fellow Seattle reserve on another. That was a intersting night. After a trip to the store we came back with some locally distilled Mango flavored vodka. Big mistake. That might be the most disgusting thing I've ever put in my mouth. Parents, do you want you kids to never drink? Make them try this stuff and I am sure you'll have no problems. It was terrible. Looking back I should have known better. And mixing it with mango and peach nectar probably wasn't a good idea either. Live and learn.

I spent the last night in Narita. Well, technically I spent last night in a 767 coming to Honolulu, but you get the idea. Ran into another flight attendant friend there and we had dinner and hung out for a bit. I regaled him with my tell of what happened on the flight up to Nartia from Guam. Let me share with you all too.
This sweet, young Japanese mother flags me down to ask me a question during boarding. She is sitting in her seat with a baby, maybe about 2ish years old and her husband. The baby is eating animal crackers. On them are printed the names of what animal they are. The mom holds one cookie out and asks me, "How do you say this word in English?" The word? Cock. For just a second I was taken aback as the slang use of the word is much more common than the use that it was here, on a chicken animal cracker. What could I do? I pronounced it for her and explained that it was a male chicken, but that the word rooster was much more common to use. I didn't feel it was my place to explain to her right there in the middle of the aircraft that in American slang it also mean penis. I walked away with that lost in translation feeling again.
What else, what else. I don't know if anything can top that story. This will be a good time to finally take that nap I've been needing all day since I'm going on 27 hours awake, with a 2 hour nap in there sometime.

A Spanish Quasi Holiday.

So much going on the past few days, there just hasn’t been time to blog. On Aug 5th I took the red eye over to JFK to work a flight over to Valencia, Spain on the 6th. There was a lovely 50 hour layover that followed. Then back to JFK on the 9th and Seattle after there. I got back to Seattle at 8pm on the 9th, meaning I’d been up almost 24 hours. Then there was one day off and a call to go to Asia on an eight day trip which is where this post is coming from. At the moment I am careening down the highway in Osaka, Japan on the way to the airport to go over to Guam. I’m pretty excited as it’s my first layover in Guam. Plus a fellow Seattle FA is going to be there as well. So it should be a fun layover. Speaking of first time layovers I have to tell you all about Valencia. If you have been reading my blog, or know me personally you will know that I have an obsession with Spain. I love it there, want to live there one day, ect. ect. This was my first time in Valencia though.
A little back ground on Valencia:
It’s located on the Mediterranean, on the eastern coast of the country. It is the 3rd biggest city in Spain. It’s a little industrial. They speak Valencian in addition to Castellano. They are known for paella, a seafood and rice dish.

The flight over there was a nightmare. Not because of passengers really, but because the plane that we take over there is falling apart. It really is a miracle that we stay in the air. Everything was broken: video screens, audio for the movie, lavs, seats. We didn’t have enough meals, people were sick. It was just a rough flight. But then we landed and were in Spain (cue heavenly sounding music here). Everything was great in an instant. After a 5 hour ‘nap’ I hit the beach with some fellow FA’s. August is vacation month in Spain and the beach was packed. As beaches go its wasn’t spectacular. The water was kinda brown with sea stuff in it, ie, seaweed, sticks, pieces of unidentifiable things. Not like the clear waters of Cozumel. But what the water lacked the people watching made up for.
Spanish boys are fine fine fine.


The next day was spent sightseeing. Valencia seemed very spread out to me. Where we stay at is across the street from the Ciudad de las Bellas Artes. Which is a very cool museum complex that has an IMAX theater, a science museum, an Aquarium and a . I walked around the outside, but didn’t go into any of the museums. I had to save my Euros. From the Ciudad there is a great stretch of park that wraps around the east part of the city. This is an excellent place to go for a run, a bike ride, or just enjoy being outside for awhile. Once in the city center Valencia might remind you of any other Spanish city with its plazas and windy, crooked streets that you can get lost in. Stroll past the bullring that is next door to the north train station.


Visit the Mercado Central which has everything from meats to fruits and veggies to breads. A popular item was fresh squeezed juices. Yum, mango and melon. Delish. I was able to help a lady out who was struggling to communicate with a woman at the bread shop. She didn’t speak Spanish and the woman didn’t speak English, or French, as it turned out the lady was from France. That was a cool experience, translating for the French lady.

If you are in most any Spanish city you have the chance to go to a cathedral. I’m kind of a ‘once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all’ type people. But I was told the cathedral in Valencia was a little special. It claims to have the actual Holy Grail. Eric Idle and Dan Brown would be disappointed.



So I thought I’d check it out. Yep, just like any other cathedrals, except there was a gold cup on display. But I was glad to go up the tower there as it had marvelous 360 degree views of the city. That was way worth the 2 Euros to check out. Also in Valencia is the Lonja de la Seda, an UNESCO world heritage site. With its twisty inter columns and checkered board floors it’s worth a stop on your way to the market.

By this point in the day my feet were barely working any more and it was time from some dinner. Sadly, I got back to my room and realized I only had 4 Euros left so it was leftovers from the night before and off to bed.
As a city Valencia didn’t impress me too much. Malaga, as a southern coast city, is at the top of my list still. But, my heart still belongs to Santiago in the northwest. Te quiero a ti Santiago.

Alas, my hour long ride to the airport in Osaka is about to come to a close. More on my 8 day adventure in Asia later. Have a lovely weekend all! Get out there and go somewhere!

One is the Loneliest Number

Here I am in Valencia, Spain. There was a problem with my room am patiently awaiting a new one whilst trying to stay awake. Ugh. This is my first time in Valencia. So far the day hasn't been super. The flight over was so hectic. There was so many problems: Most people audio for the movie didn't work, we were short 4 meals, the bathrooms were acting up, we didn't have all the supplies we needed, on and on and on. Then we get to the hotel and I have a smoking room. I hate to be a pain, but ew. I am having to wait until they clean another room. :-( I suppose it's a good time to blog.
Occasionally on a layover, or just a trip in general, I will get this over whelming feeling of sadness. It doesn't happen often, thank goodness, but when it does it sucks. I asked a friend if they ever felt that way and they said sometimes they felt lonely and that maybe it was loneliness I was feeling. I thought about that and decided that maybe they are right. This job can promote loneliness. We spend half the month in hotels, alone. And usually this is great. It gives you time to yourself, especially if you have a hectic life at home. But occasionally you just feel lonely. You are all by yourself in a foreign city. It's a weird feeling. I bring it up because I have that feeling today. Why? I wish I knew. Maybe it was the hectic flight, maybe its the room mess up, maybe its the sleepiness. I just don't know. I guess everyone gets lonely sometimes, even us travelers. More to come from Valencia later.

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.”
– Freya Stark

Lost in Translation, Again

This week I was in Narita again. I made my routine trip to the supermarket to stock up on supplies. Lately that has been a chocolate croissant, which is usually still warm from the oven, some sushi or tempura fish, milk tea and assorted junk food items. This time however I thought I'd look for a beer to bring back for someone I know that enjoys a good brewski. I personally do not care for beer so I am somewhat dumb when it comes to them, especially when most of the label is in Japanese. I knew two things though, 1. Fuse, (whom you might remember from my last post) likes bitter beer and 2. Strong hop flavor. So, I'm standing in the beer area and to my right there is beer, to my left there is beer. I am clearly in the beer section. I decided that I was going to try to find a very Japanese beer, i.e. one that had no English on it. I spied just what I was looking for, a bottle all in Japanese except for 2 words "hoppy beverage." Sweet, I thought, the one words I can read say that this is a hoppy beer. Great! I get two as there were 2 different types. I pay for my items and head back to the bus stop to enjoy my croissant and what turned out to be banana flavored milk, which was pretty tasty. As I am sitting there a fellow FA comes up to me and we start comparing purchases. I pull out the beers and start telling this story. By chance I happen to look at the bottle top and it says, in English: Beer Flavor. Uh-Oh, that didn't sound good. So when we got back on the bus, I asked two of our interpreters who had came to the mall too to tell me what in the world I had bought. They too were somewhat perplexed. "I think it's some type of soda," one of them said. "I think its something that you mix with a type of liquor we have here in Japan," said the other. "We are pretty sure it isn't a beer, even though it has alcohol in it, but also sugar." They had no idea what it was. So now I have two bottles of this unknown substance that I am going to cart back to the states with me. They are sitting in my kitchen, I am afraid to try one myself. Fuse seems pretty courageous, I think I'll stick with the original plan and give them to him to try. After explaining what they are of course. I couldn't be that mean. So much for foreign drinks. This weekend I go to Valencia, Spain so I think I'll be safe to bring back a bottle of wine. That can't get to confusing, can it?

Random Fact: The first known use of the expression "India pale ale" comes from an advertisement in the Liverpool Mercury newspaper published January 30, 1835.
Random Quote: "Give me oysters and beer for dinner every day of the year, And I'll feel fine, I'll feel fine." ~ Tin Cup Chalice, Jimmy Buffett