Scott's African Adventure

Day 3

This day started early. Our driver showed up really late. The Ethiopian Operations is a huge complex on the airport. It seems that everything is like a compound. Armed guards with gates are at the entry of almost all “proper” establishments. Lots of guys carrying AK47's.

We got to the operations center and the 8 students were waiting outside. The classroom is small and not what I would call a classroom. It is more like a meeting room. It would do the trick though.

These 8 guys are all really good guys and make me feel comfortable. I am working on getting the names figured out. Porters bring snacks and fresh coffee every couple of hours.

Lunch was interesting. It marked the low point of the trip so far. Jonathan was a little behind working with the next set of guys. So he stayed at the operations center while I was taken to the “club”. Another heavily guarded compound. The “club” is a resort kind of place owned by Ethiopian Airlines and is for the soul use of the pilots of the airline. The cafeteria style food was spicy. I got into a conversation with some off duty pilots so I didn't get to order for myself. I really felt out of place. I didn't feel threatened, it was more like everyone knew I was not part of the crowd. The chief pilot took good care of me and everything fell into place. This is, however, when I started to feel like crap! I am not sure what it was but I was not in a good place. I think it was a combination of The strange food, high altitude, very strong coffee, and being really tired. I managed to get through the last part of the day, and as soon as we got back to the hotel I went to sleep. Slowly my stomach settled and I slept good. I woke up around 0430 but felt much better and decided to use the time to catch up on my blog entry and do some other work that needed to be done. It looks like I will be working on my day off. I am going to be teaching the International IFR course. Jonathan has to fly to Kenya for some FlightPath buisness.

Posted by Scott at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I slept a few hours on the flight to Rome. I missed the pizza dinner. When we landed in Rome it was pretty cloudy and rainy. The stop over was a crew change, and fuel stop. It took just over an hour.

I was soo tired on the next leg, but I was also hungry. I slept for two hours and had a nice breakfast. The rest of the flight I spent with my face glued to the window. I saw the Sahara Desert, the Nile river, and lots of desert. Northern Ethiopia is very pretty. Lots of mountains and canyons.

We landed and I saw the most peculiar thing. There were men sitting in the grass next to the RW. About every 1000 ft. I will have to ask what that was all about.

Getting the visa was easy, and checking into the country was simple. I changed out $100 USD for 12,548 birr. I have no idea what that will get me. People here are very helpful. Almost too much. A fellow who insisted on calling me brother carried all my bags to the hotel shuttle. I gave home a white bill with a 1 on it. He didn't think was very good. Told me it was about a nickel in USD, so I gave him a bill with a 5 on it. I was going to have to figure this money thing out.

The ride to the hotel was interesting. Only a little bit like Mexico. I think there is a lot more people here. Everybody honking there horn, lots of people standing around. A woman begged for money at a stop light. No sign holding here.

The weather is cloudy and about 70.

The hotel is heavily guarded. I look out of my balcony over a shanty town of sorts. Lots of donkey's making lots of noise.

Internet is in the room but I will have to pay for it. I think I will do it a couple of times during my stay for a day each. I will need to transmit my pay stuff and up date this blog.

I was suppose to go to the training center, but I got in 2 hours later than planned and I wouldn't have had much time for a tour, so I will hopefully meet up with Jonathan for dinner, and get some of that squared away. I will be able to relax once I have made contact.

The coffee I had on the airplane was really good. There is a coffee maker in the room, but it is instant and not very good.

I am tired, but not as bad as I thought I would be. I will be able to stay up till tonight.

I met up with Jonathan. We sat down in the bar and talked over a few beers. It seems the folks around here eat really late. So, around 2000 we sat down in the nicest restaurant in the hotel and talked over dinner. It was a buffet style dinner and was pretty good. I had some “Nile Pearch”, it is the local fish.

Johnathan is a good guy and will be easy to work with. He is one of those “You stick close to me kid, I will take care of you!”. Thats good for me. I am certainly a fish out of water here.

I got back to the room around 2130 and fell immediately into a deep sleep. Then as soon as my head hit the pillow I rolled over and was wide awake at 0330. I guess this is part of getting use to huge time change. This brings us to Day 3. My first day on the job.

Posted by Scott at 08:22 PM | Permalink

Day 1

The flight to Dullas was crowded and bumpy. I was sitting in a window seat next to a linebacker! So for 5 hours I could hardly move. Luck for me, Mr linebacker dude slept and snored the whole way.

When I arrived at Dullas, I was hungry. Of course almost everything was closed for the holiday. I did find and empty but open TGI Friday's however, and had a great burger and beer.

My plan was to stay up all night, so that I would be sleepy enough to sleep on the flight. I should tell you now that it is NOT in my gene's to SLEEP on an airplane. For some reason I have never been able to. It does not matter where I am sitting either. I shut off the MythBuster marathon at around 0300 and woke up again at 0530.

I arrived at the airport and walked up to the ticket counter with all my stuff. I packed pretty well considering what I was gonna be doing. Lucky for me I will be wearing a uniform while I am teaching. Anyways, I had a large duffel bag, a 35 pound computer bag, and my guitar. I was going to try and get away with only checking the duffel. The customer service lady said “no way”! I was allowed only ONE carry on, and IT could only weigh 20 pounds! Now what was I going to do. Her idea was to put all the computer and projector stuff into the duffel.....no, I don't think so. Then her supervisor came over and saw that I was in business class, and I guess that was enough to allow me to take 2 carry ons! Lucky me!

I was granted access to the “First Class Lounge”. This was very much a treat for me. I have been lucky enough to sit in First Class many times, but you really have to be a “first class” kind of person to get access to the lounge. It was very nice. Stocked with food and coffee.

I wondered down to the gate about an hour before boarding time. I met several parents who were part of a huge adoption group who are headed to Africa to pick up a new addition to there family. All of them were very nice and extremely excited.

Customer Service Announcement – “abudaba......dabutaruan....ru agutan......ertaba........lestgitchy........taco(yes I heard taco)......15 minutes..........alla.....addis.......aruntaba......blah something or other.”

This came after we had been standing around waiting to board the now 2 hour delayed flight!

I could tell something was up by all the moans and groans from the 200 people standing around me.

two hours and 30 minutes late. I am now sitting in seat 1A. The seat next to me is empty. I am drinking my second glass of orange juice and eating a light snack. I have chosen the salmon for lunch. The menu says, “Grilled Salmon Teriyaki, Served with Sauted Bok Choy and a Climanto Basmati Rice”. This is the 3^rd of 7 courses. I could get use to this buiseness class thing! Oh yeah, they also gave me one of those cool little bags full of goodies.....socks, blindfold,.....toothbrush.. Very cool!

I think it might be a bit early to have a real drink.....but wait. I am zipping across time zones every few hours, I think I could have a Baily's. MMMMMM, I can smell the salmon. Ang I wish you were here.

We are at 31,000 feet, and just above the clouds. Looks like the crew is zig zaggin around weather. I can't see the coast line below, but the inflight map shows us just over Cape Cod.

The head flight attendant is in full traditional dress. I was given the steak by mistake. I am not one to complain, and I am glad I didn't...it was very good. I am enjoying a glass of red wine from South Africa....Gary and Robyn, it is very good. Oh, and it's only 1030! Ok, really it's late afternoon in Italy.

The 767 must not be ETOPS..That means Extended Time OPerationS. Our route is taking along a “safe” route around the North Atlantic. What this means is that this airplane has not been equipped to fly for long periods of time should an engine fail. Mostly it's a fuel issue.

I have decided that I am going to try and get some sleep after the cheese cake. They keep bringing stuff.

It looks like I will be getting into Addis about 4 hours later than scheduled. This means I won't get any time to shill before I meet up with Johnathan to get a run down on the training facility. Tomorrow is going to be a loooong day. I will arrive around noon in Addis. If my calculations are correct, that means it will be around 2100 hours Seattle time/scty time.

Posted by Scott at 08:20 PM | Permalink

I woke up this morning unemployed! For the first time since 1988 I am unemployed. It is kind of a scary feeling.

I am less than 24 hours from departure. Ang made a wonderful "early" ThanksGiving dinner. The boat smelled Soooo good.

I am all packed. I have my tickets all set. I finally got the student handouts that I created. They look pretty good. Sorta like Zak and Ellie. I sure had a hand in creating them, but they sure didn't get there looks from me! 

I am not really nervous, just anxious.

Tomorrow, I will get up 0430ish. I am not too sure about all this "revenue" passenger stuff, so I am going to be early and make sure I have everything covered. 

 Next update should be from Addis. I may step off the airplane in Rome and see if there is a quick connection, but probably not. My main hope now is that I can find free internet in Addis.

Oh, i guess I should mention....before anyone freaks, that my unemployment is only until Dec 12th. 

Posted by Scott at 04:22 PM | Permalink

Well, a week to go and still there are some pretty big things that I have still to accomplish.

I am waiting for a box to be shipped to me from a printer in Canada. This will be the 24 binders of "Student Handouts" that I was tasked with creating. I will have to load them up into my bags and check them.

I am still waiting for confirmation of my tickets on Ethiopian Airlines.

I need to get my "Travel and Evacuation" insurance. This was something I didn't know I needed but found out that I should get it. I am not really big on insurance, but I figured this might be a good idea. just another expence that I wasn't expecting.

I finally got the cobra thing figured out. I found out there are some ways to get out of paying for it in my case, but I felt it was smater to just pay the reduced rate and keep the family covered over the two weeks while I am gone...instead of taking the chance. The scoop is....I have until the end of January to "elect" to use the Cobra insurance. But I will be back at Horizon and re-insured before then....So why pay the $1200 to keep my family insured while I am gone!? UUUUUURGH! It just doesn't make sense? I can elect to use the insuance AFTER the fact.....(if no body needed insurance while I was gone.....then I could decline)But I didn't want to put too much grey matter into it, so I am going to just pay a reduced two week rate and not bother with the lapse.

I needed to get a full copy of an Aerosim program that will allow me to teach FMS to my class. Finally after many e-mails, we got that all nailed down.

I went out and got some new clothes. Thanks you GoodWill!

I started packing today. Warm weather clothes. I am not taking very many shorts. I am not sure what skin I can show or if there is some African rule about a Fat White Ass and Latitude and Attitude T-shirst sitting by the pool!

All I am waiting for now is the final tickets and some pay stuff.

I still need to do a few things around Ghost to make sure that Ang doesn't have too many things to deal with while I am gone, and that will be it!

Next post should be from Wash D.C. The night before I catch my overseas flight.

Bye for now

scty
 

Posted by Scott at 08:49 PM | Permalink

Counting down now to just a couple of weeks. There have been a few developments that I thought I would mention.

I still haven't gotten this visa thing taken care of. Normally this would be easy. Fill out the application, get money order($70), get PassPort photo taken($12), obtain a letter from the company that is sending me(not so easy), and send away for a few days. The letter from Avianco was the sticking point. I was limited on my time frame because I couldn't just send my PassPort away for a week. I need it to fly. So time passed by and I didn't get the letter. I e-mailed several requests, but it never got done. Then, the time came when I didn't have time to send it away. Hmmm. Well, I called the Embassy and asked them if I really needed to send my PassPort with the application. It isn't very clear on the guidelines, but alas, I needed to send it in. I probably could have worked out an arrangement with Horizon to fly in and out of Canada with a letter or something, but I still never got the letter from Avianco in time.

So, now I guess we are going to get the Visa upon arrival.

I am still leaving on Thanks Giving, but because of the schedule of Ethiopian Airlines, I will spend a night in Washington D.C.. The messed up part of this is that I was originally going to be arriving in Addis in the early evening of Friday the 27th. I would have been able to stay up a little bit and go to sleep on a somewhat “normal” Ethiopian schedule, but now I will arrive in the AM on Saturday the 28th. This means that my “orientation/acclimation” day is going to be tough! I guess I will have to get some of that coffee they keep talking about.

So, all of this flying is going to be new to me. Not because I don't fly, but because I am going to be doing this as a “regular” passenger. This is very new to me. So I enrolled in 3 millage plans. Air Canada, United, and Ethiopian Airlines. This could be a cool thing if I do this enough. It's a little strange boarding an airplane and having to act like a real passenger......I have rights!

I am on my way to Toronto for a meeting with the president of the company that is sending my to Africa. This meeting is to hand off some AV equipment that I will need for the training. I am getting some uniform pieces too. I suppose there will be some paperwork to be filled out as well.

I have been working on some presentation stuff for the topics I am going to be teaching. Mostly just copy and paste stuff. The subjects are things I know pretty well. But what I don't know is how my delivery methods will be received. Normally I teach by the “firehose” method. Meaning, that when the students get to me they have already been through extensive training. They are expected to know certain things. I run them through the sim training to get them up to speed on how to fly this airplane, and in some cases....how to be an airline pilot.

I adjust well, however, if needed for different types of students learning abilities. This time I think I am going to have to really take my time and deliver this material on a plate with a spoon.

This meeting that I am attending in Toronto should be interesting. If I feel good about the outcome, and I am not left with more questions than answers, then this is going to be a grand adventure!

Posted by Scott at 01:26 PM | Permalink