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Published: November 30th -0001
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It's been a long few months since Mike dropped me off in Calgary, Alberta. July 3rd saw the start of the next chapter - a new job and a new way of life for the time being. After 3 months of unemployment I started Flight Attendant training with Westjet, a Canadian carrier. It saw me returning to days of old, when one dosses down with others in slightly different living conditions. My friends Miriam and Chiemi, who also worked at Harmony, arranged to stay in the same house as me. We each had a room - they had bare rooms with no furniture apart from a lone bed and I had the junk room. A bed surrounded by boxes and various forms of "stuff". However, one advantage is that it was cheap and close to our training centre. Calgary is going through a period of continuous growth and rental charges are high, especially for the standard of accommodation that you get for the price. We were lucky enough to find our new abode through a friend from Harmony.
Mike left me early on the 3rd as he had to drive the long road back to Vancouver. I was alone in
the house for a few hours and waited for the girls to arrive so that I had some company. Chiemi appeared first and was aghast at the sight before her. A bachelor pad. The kitchen had plates and dishes everywhere, the fridge was full to bursting. The bathroom was not entirely clean and the basement was particularly messy. Ed the owner lives upstairs and downstairs was his lodger Jordan who had his two girls visiting every second weekend so their toys and clothes were everywhere downstairs.
Miriam soon arrived and we took advantage of our friend Sujata and her car and did a bit of grocery shopping and grabbed a bite to eat. We set up our rooms and met our new room mates before heading to bed for the night. Thankfully, the arrival of us three in the house meant that the boys took more of an effort to tidy up and put things away.
Training was hard for the first few weeks. We didn't have much time off and any day off we did have was spent at Calgary airport trying to sort out our security passes. However, it was great having Miriam and Chiemi around.
We helped each other study - this was not a hard thing to do as it is hard to get around Calgary without a car - so every evening was free!!! Where we stay is out by the airport so not close to much. In the first seven days we had five exams so spent a lot of time sitting at the dinner table questioning one another and trying to get things to stay in our heads. We managed to find a little family run restaurant at the top of the road where we would go for dinner every so often. Right beside the restaurant was a liquor store and we found that a bottle of wine or some beer helped with our studying efforts!!!
The first couple of weeks were spent mainly in the classroom. After that we had three days of drills. The run up to our drills saw us spend time in fields, surrounded by gophers - shouting evacuation commands at the top of our voices. People driving by must have thought we were mad!!! However, it worked and we got through our drills with no injuries.
We met a lot of new friends at
training and were lucky enough to be taken on a few trips. Even just going to Canadian Superstore (Tesco/Safeway type of place) was a huge adventure for us. A visit to the mall was great and we even got an evening in Downtown Calgary - well, an hour anyway. We stopped for a quick drink before going home so that we could get sleep before class the next day.
The last few weeks of training were not quite as hectic and we managed to get home for a few days every now and then. On August 11th we had our group line indoc flight. Westjet took a hundred of us poor trainees up in an aircraft and carried our various skills and situations for us to observe - after this we were nearly qualified. Just a follow up flight to do and then we are official flight attendants.
As August 11th was officially the end of training, we had a few new recruits for our crash pad house. Quite a few girls from Harmony were looking for a place to stay on days that we need to be in Calgary before or after flights. Another four girls came
to join us and we took over all the rooms in the basement. By this time Jordan had moved out to a place closer to his work. We had a great evening of celebrating. Drinks in the house and then out on the town - dancing at a few clubs in Calgary.
The next day saw my follow up flight. I went to Calgary Airport nice and early and met my line indoc coach Suzanne. She was absolutely lovely and through conversation we found that we know a lot of the same people as she used to work with a lot of my old colleagues at Harmony. So we had a great few days together. I passed my line indoc, even surviving having a medical occur on my first pairing which was a bit hectic. So I'm now fully qualified and officially up in the skies again.
I have just come home from a four day pairing which saw me make my way across the country as far as New Brunswick.
So that is how life has been this summer - a bit different from what we expected!!!
Until next time, take care.
Lots of
love xxx
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shafiza cassamali
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harmony girls taking over WJ.
Hey ladies, sounds like your surviving YYC and congratulations for becoming an F.A with WJ. I wanna wish you girls all the best and good look on your new adventures.