Toothless and Toronto

For those of you checking back here religiously will have noticed (and commented) that I have been slack, once again, in updating The Flying Kiwi. Truth be told, its because I haven't really had much to write about... Until now.

The legs are all better, but to knock me while I was down, it was also a fine time to remove a wisdom tooth and leave me gappy. Always trying to be sick-day thrifty (I'm not sure why, as when I was at school I didn't mind having a sick day here, there and everywhere) I decided to use the same period of Sick Leave from my leg surgery to have my tooth extracted. They like to discourage us from flying for 5 days after oral surgery, so using the frequent-flyer surgicial shopper card that I should probably have been issued by now, I went in for my third medical procedure in 9 months. I have to apologise to everyone for not receiving a profit share this year. The company says it is due to the Global Financial Crisis, but I happen to believe it may be because of the Dh80,000 (NZ$40,000) medical bill I have racked up in the last 12 months. Thank you Emirates! I am grateful! Really.

Almost two years on, I have finally returned to Toronto! On Wednesday last week, the first rostered A380 YYZ flight appeared on my roster, allowing me to wing my way back to Canadian fabulosity. Why-Why-Zee is simply amazing, everything you could ever want in a city and more. Having days off, and with nothing else to do, Adrian hopped on staff travel and came with me, for his virgin Canadian adventure. Having him there, combined with quite possibly THE best combination of crew from across the cabins, we began the festivities upon touch-down! Daniel's wedding venue of next year became our dinner venue of the first night. Located in the Distillery District, The Boiler House instantly accommodated our table of 11, juggling a few things around and finding a home for the hungry crew we were. Wine aplenty, divine food galore, the wedding venue gets the BIGGEST tick from us all!

A spot of shopping the next day saw the wardrobe restored with a splash of Abercrombie and Fitch (here I was fretting about the lack of availability now that New York was taken from us so hostilely), and a new pair of jeans from Armani Exchange. With the approval of Eric the changing room assistant, we all purchased something, because at the end of the day, "what would Eric do?" If Eric liked what we put on, we liked what we put on. If Eric didn't eat all day, then we didn't eat all day. Quite possibly the fantasy of us all, Eric was inspirational to our entire layover, and potentially our entire lives henceforth!

A short water-taxi ride over to Toronto Island in the Great Lake Ontario, we discovered nature untouched in the middle of this bustling city. No cars of any sorts are allowed over here, just bicycles, geese and clothing-optional beaches! Only having an hour to spend on the island after we had spent a little too long salivating over our aforementioned Armani hottie, it was evident we would need to head straight for the beach! Without looking too perverted, we made our way to the waters edge to question why exactly people would want to go skinny dipping in water so cold, in the broad daylight. I guess though, when its all you've got, you do it, and you do it naked! Eh?!

That night was also our First Officer's 26th birthday. Yes, just 3 months older than me, the reality check was enough to make me stuff myself into depression with a crateful of Tim Hortons donuts, but no, Eric wouldn't approve, so instead, we hired a stretch limo and toured Toronto's finest spots for 2 hours, drinking Veurve Cliquot like the glitteratzi that we are! Leaving us to continue our festivities into the wee small hours of the night, which evidently turned into 3am before we knew it.

Not feeling too revolting the next day, surprisingly, we perked up bright and early and made our way towards the cinema to see Brüno, a movie that will never ever be shown in Dubai. No amount of censorship editing will ever allow it to pass by the Municipality, which is a shame, because it is freaking hilarious! The 'gay Austrian fashion icon' travels to America to became famous, stumbling across Paula Abdul, a swingers party, straight-converting pastors, Middle Eastern powers-that-be, redneck Alabaman's in what is quite probably one of the funniest movies of the decade!

But, as all great things come to an end, so do layovers... The flight home was tolerable except for the dragon in 7K, who, evidently would probably find something to fault in a plain white wall. Horrendous.com! Alas, at the end of the day, we just need to sit and ask ourselves; What would Eric do?

Compression Stockings and Bathroom Vodka

A little less than a week ago, I underwent round two of Operation: New Legs, having the faulty little (or not so little, as this case was) veins removed from my left leg to provide me with pain-free, throbbing-free, and bulging-vein-free legs again. Back in September 2008, I had Endovenous Laser Surgery performed on both legs to remove Varicose Veins which had formed, rather grotesquely, at a relatively young age. I was told, repeatedly, whilst I was in hospital the first time that I was far too young to be having my veins removed, that it is something for old ladies to suffer from. You can therefore imagine the surprise when I turned up to the American Hospital on Monday to have another set removed on my left leg, to find several of the same staff in the Operating Room recognise me again and question why I am such a faulty example of veinal plumbing!

I did a bit of digging around, and have found out there are several types of occupations that, due to long periods of time spent on your feet, encourage Varicose Veins to form; teachers, nurses, chefs, hairdressers and flight attendants. Apparently, quite common in cabin crew, the amount of time spent walking around, bending up and down, combined with cabin pressure from the altitude is a recipe for problems to occur, quite a lot earlier than perhaps what may have occured later in life. Left untreated, and depending on the amount of reflux in your veins (backwards flow of blood), the pooled blood (what you see on the outside as 'varicose veins' or bulging veins) can form into a clot, which can then be life threatening.

The Doctor knew when he did the first operation, that I would probably need a follow-up procedure to close off the Short Saphenous Vein in my left leg, but until the first operation had been done (where he closed the Long Saphenous Veins in both legs) he would not be able to see the extent to which the other vein would be suffering. Using ultrasound technology, he could then see the vein had dialated to close to 1cm wide, which is about four times the width it should have been, allowing quite a severe amount of reflux. So, more laser surgery, more anaesthetic, more beige compression stockings, and another two weeks off work!

Part of the post-op care plan that I am on, I have a cocktail of 5 different medications to take each day for a couple of weeks, and a part of this medley is a self-injection to help thin my blood. Once I was discharged from the hospital, I realised that I wasn't given any sterile wipes to prep the area to inject, so the kiwi inginuity in me tells me to make do. Henceforth, I have a lovely bottle of Finlandia Vodka sitting on the bathroom benchtop for me to use the alcohol to steralise my tummy with! I can assure you, this is the only time I will allow booze in the bathroom, but I know that if the self-harm thought of injecting myself gets to much, I won't have to reach to far to forget the pain!

I really should probably stop flying one of these days, but I figure that it is a job that I love doing, and I don't think I have many veins left in my legs to deform, so I don't see the harm in flying for a few more years yet!

Bahahahamas with a splash of Frisco!

When you are forced to rethink your muchly publicised holiday plans of spending more than a week of sun, sand, and summery cocktails in Mexico because someone decides to declare a Swine Flu pandemic, you are swiftly required to make some important decisions in ones life. Do I still go beachy? Do I want to go tropical? Do I still want to go somewhere warm where I can continue to work on the tan that I have been slowly building over the last month? Yes. Important decisions to make.

So the decision was made, quite unintelligently I have to admit! It was a case of opening up JetBlue's routemap on their website (remembering the wonderful staff travel deal they provide us with) finding somewhere we could fly to from New York (where we were easily able to get to from Dubai), and then seeing which destination best suited our schedule. Nantucket? No, just sounds wrong. Charlotte? Jumping to stereotypical conclusions, sounded a little redneck for us. Nassau? Where? The Bahamas. Satisfying our beachal, tropical, and temperatural requirements, and also having a slight novelty factor of being out-of-the-way for a traditional New Zealand tourist, it was chosen. Five days in The Bahamas, followed by four days in San Francisco.

Our trip was planned so Adrian would return from a six-day work trip from Sydney and Auckland at 6am, we would spend all that day repacking his suitcase, relaxing and preparing for the holiday before flying out at 2am that night on an Emirates flight to New York. As things tend to not always go to plan, especially with this holiday, a instinctively checked the booked load on the JFK flight we were planning to go on, the night before Adrian was to depart on his long work trip. Uh oh... EK203 had been downsized, and what was meant to be a 354 seat B777-300ER with 250 passengers booked on it, was now planned to be operated by a 262 seat B777-200ER. It was too risky to try and 'hope' we would get on, when we had paid a substantial amount of money on hotel accommodation for when we arrived. Another important decision had to be made, Adrian was going to have to try and pack for his work trip, AND a two week holiday in the one suitcase as he would be landing from Sydney, and then running straight back to the airport again for the Emirates A380 flight to New York 2 hours later. No rest for the wicked!


Arriving 14hrs later, we had a night booked at a daggy JFK airport hotel so we could catch an early flight to Nassau the next morning at 7am. JetBlue came up trumps, we were checked in for our Carribean island getaway and took off with no worries on our minds.


The Sheraton Cable Beach Resort was to be our home for the next four nights, nestled on the shores of the most stunningly bright blue water I could ever have imagined. Our room wasnt quite ready when we arrived (we were there by 10:30am...) so we were able to use the resort in the meantime while it was spruced up by housekeeping. We had booked ourselves a 'resort-view' room, so upon exploring, we had decided that our room was probably going to overlook the kids-club or restaurant rooftop. We were finally allowed to checkin, and as we were taken further and further away from the reception, our room finally appeared on what was facing the opposite side to the resort grounds. Great. We were going to overlook the carpark or something equally as unpleasant. We swung the door open to a huge room, with a GIANT bed, sliding door onto a little balcony, and a view that was completely unobstructed of the Carribean Sea. The sun was shining bright, reflecting off the water, we knew we were in paradise.

Nassau itself was originally a pirate-town, now though, it is a tourist playground for the rich and famous. Cruise ships arrive daily, dropping hoards of Americans on the wharves for a day. The original (since copied by Dubai) Atlantis Resort is here. The sun-seekers head to the beaches, the adventurous head out on boats to go diving and snorkelling, the gamblers head to the pokies to spend their life savings, the kiwi-boys head on a self-drive mission. Hiring the scariest rental car we have ever driven for a day, the Hairy Canary circumnavigated New Providence Island, the main island where Nassau is and over 80% of the population. Whenever we found a beach worth stopping at (we literally could have stopped every 5 minutes) we would take the stolen hotel beach towels out and laze about before driving on to the next gorgeous location. Snorkelling one day, we were buzzing about over some coral when I looked down to the seafloor (only about a metre deep) to find a huge stingray floating along the bottom. As I saw it, Adrian did too and before you could have time to let out a little pee in fright, we both swam away as fast as we could! I am sure it was harmless, but we weren't eager to find out!

Foodwise, the Bahamas could have perhaps done a little better. But this is a colony of islands, and anything has to be imported. With that said, the sealife becomes dinner, especially Conch, which is the meat from inside the most beautiful shells. Not really ready to munch on the guts of a shell (it is apparently nice), we were more happy to sip dacquiris and eat the culinary fare that we knew. San Francisco (Frisco, to me and Adrian - we like to think we are now locals) was next, and there would be plenty of gourmet food to chow down on there!

Flying back up to New York and then straight over to Frisco, transcontinental for 6hours, we met up with our friends Amy and Neil, from Dubai. We had left Neil in charge of organising some transport the following day, as we were all very keen to go up into the Napa Valley, home of California's wine region. In true American style, the 8 seater stretch limosuine turned up at 11am to begin 7 hours of winetasting. Our own driver, tinted windows, glam-factor aplenty, we will no longer settle for anything less! We saw five different wineries across the day, ate the most amazing lunch at a rustic cafe in Napa, drunk enough wine to make even the hardened boozehags proud, and fell asleep about 20mins before arriving back at the hotel!

Days spent wandering the streets, soaking up the springtime sun, eating our way from restaurant to restaurant, it is no wonder I was able to put on a bit of the weight I had lost through the stress of replanning the Mexican extravanza that never happened! Flying home, we decided to go back to Dubai with Air New Zealand to London and then on the EmiRAT to DXB. It was over too fast, but memories that will never be forgotten!

The Top Ten: New York

As I say farewell to the great city of New York, at least for the time being, I felt it appropriate to offer a final send off with my Top Ten New Yorker Moments to share with you all how I will miss this place.

Emirates has decided that, for now, the Super-Duper Jumbo Jet, the A380 is better allocated to a city pair that has regularly higher load factors than the current situation we are facing with New York. In these global times, it is smart business sense to do so, it is just sad for those crew who knew this place as a second home, as we say so long. NYC is on the outer, but as a result, we are in fact picking up two destinations, Toronto three times a week, and a daily service to Bangkok. Two of my favourite layovers, two very different cities, and two very different customer types!

But these musings aren't about whats new, so without further interruption, here it is;



The Flying Kiwi's Top Ten: New York (in no particular order)



ONE: Central Park, no matter the season, no matter the reason, a stroll around, through or to Central Park is always one of those treasured memories to savour. Plonked in the middle of the tantrums of New York City's bustle, this oasis is a haven to relax, watch the most fascinating people live their lives, find the hidden gems that you didnt see the week before, uncover yet another movie location from your favourite film, and simply let your worries float away.

TWO: Breakfast at Café Metro, on the corner of 7th & 54th. Yes, you have to be there before 10:30am, which is never an issue for this time-zone-crazed traveller, and yes, you probably won't understand José the Mexican chef who is preparing your food. But the Granola Parfait (a fancy name for yoggit and moosli), the fresh OJ, the French Toast with Strawberries and an Everything Bagel with Bacon, Tomato and Cream Cheese are beyond heavenly, and a great start to the day.

THREE: Wholefoods. Columbus Circle's basement hides a gem that I discovered nigh on a year ago, the organic, wholesome supermarket that is Wholefoods. Everything about this place is fresh, clean, green and fabulous. Momma's Chicken and Rice Soup in the winter, Blueberries by the kilo (or pound as the case may be) in the summer. I salivate at the thought, and become depressed at my inability to have access to these treats.

FOUR: Broadway's Theater District. It is no surprise that The Flying Kiwi is partial to a musical or twenty two, and having these stages no longer on my hotel doorstep will be a challenge and a sacrifice. Having seen a good number of the current theatrical offerings, I do feel, though, that I have been very fortunate and have seen enough to last me through these tough times!

FIVE: Paper thin walls of the crew hotel. Ok, no, when trying to sleep in the afternoon for a 20:30 pick-up, and listening to the hotel cleaners talk about which type of chilli con carne they are going to make for dinner is not ideal, but its kind of endearing, and it was New York. It came with the territory, and I might (just might) miss it now!

SIX: Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge. Such a wonderful skyline, Manhattan really knows how to sparkle on a clear day, and this is one of my best memories in this city.

SEVEN: Bath and Body Works. This store is a clean-freaks porn-shop! Foaming Handsoap, Antibacterial Sanitiser, Scented Massage Oils, Fragranced Candles, so many things to love, so many things to buy, and so so affordable. BBW, goodbye my friend, I am well stocked now, but don't fret, I will be back as the supplies run low. Somehow!

EIGHT: The Subway. It could do with a scrub down, and it could do with losing a few of the hobo's, but all in all, the most efficient, frequent, and affordable way to get around the city.

NINE: Summer. Endless days of amazing weather. Sunshine, Blue Sky, just hot enough to know its hot, but not too hot that you swelter.

TEN: Abercrombie & Fitch. That distinct smell you get, 2 blocks away from the front door. The queue that weaves around the corner down 56th Street to give the illusion that its as busy as sin inside (it usually is, but I maintain, the queue is simply a marketing gimmick), the half-naked model in the front door, the shop-assistants who have no idea where their merchandise is but whose only job is to dance on the spot and say "hi, hows it going" every 34 seconds, the constant "have you tried our new fragrance" everytime you purchase something, the piles and piles of tshirts, hoodies, and jeans that you always adore but can never find in your size, the pounding music which could be mistaken for an aerobics workout mix, the dark windows and dim lighting which makes you realise the colour of the shirt you just bought is in fact a completely different colour to what you had intended. Abercrombie. You will be sorely missed. Thankfully, never fear, I know where to find you in Toronto - yes, more expensive, but you are still within reach!

New York, goodbye, I hope it is not too long until we are connected once more - So Long, Farewell, Kakite Ano!

Cancún, Can't-cún.

H1N1. Swine Flu. Oinky Influenza. Holiday Ruiner. All descriptions of the latest global pandemic sweeping the world country by country, fatally taking control of the people it passes by. Swine Flu is also the cause of our now cancelled Mexican fiesta that Adrian and I were going on in one weeks time.

Originating from Mexico, to date there have been over 150 deaths as a direct result of Swine Flu in Mexico alone. Our plan was to fly into Cancún, on the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula for a week of sun, beach, guacamole and margaritas. We were staying in some gorgeous resorts that made even us jealous, one over on Isla Mujeres (a 30min boat ride off the coast), and another back in the Hotel Zone in Cancún itself. But we are not. We had bought, in a rare occurence for us, full-fare American Airlines tickets from New York to Mexico, for a hassle and stress free holiday. By having commercial tickets we weren't at the mercy of Standby Listings, meaning we were guaranteed to get there, we were guaranteed to get back - a recipe for a relaxing holiday. Who was to think though that these commercial tickets were then the cause of so much stress!?

American Airlines posted a Travel Notice on their website, offering those passengers travelling to Mexico between 25APR-06MAY the opportunity to change their dates, their destinations, or offer refunds to even the non-refundable ticket holders. Excellent. Except, Adrian and I were booked to travel on 09MAY. Numerous phonecalls to American Airlines ensued, with the response coming back that, evidently Swine Flu will be cured by the time you travel, so therefore you travel or you forfeit your ticket. Helpful.

Resigning to the fact that we were now out of pocket by US$450 for a holiday we weren't going on, we needed to relook at our plans, find somewhere that wouldnt cost a lot to get to, that still satisfied our beachy needs! Upon speaking to our good friends at JetBlue in America, we discovered an extraordinary staff travel benefit with them that is a closely guarded secret and we are now off to Nassau, in The Bahamas!

A few days after all of this has occured, the corn-field-folk running American Airlines have decided that they can't predict when Swine Flu will be over (funnily enough), and have now extended their deadline by a week and a half, meaning our tickets are included in the daterange of possibilties. Luckily, I had a New York trip for work as this news was released, and so I nipped into their ticketing office on Lexington Ave, and was greeted by your stereotypical airline employee of America. Gladys was approximately 74. She had bleached blonde hair, glasses bigger than the circumference of her face, and she had attitude. Her name badge had been extended several times over to include all the languages that she spoke, but interestingly enough, she refused to speak any of them properly with any of the customers she handled before me! As if she stole the stickers of the flags of the languages she claimed to speak, in order to avoid being retrenched over the years, she stuck them onto her badge and has been sitting in that same chair since 1942 dishing out the same surly responses to anyone who walked through the front door. Gladys. A true ambassador.

Anyway, at the end of the day, we can breath easy now, knowing that our tickets are not going wasted. While it was costly and not ideal to change them to Nassau (which we didnt really need anyway, as we can kindly fly with JetBlue for the smell of an oily rag, literally), we managed to get a refund on the Cancún tickets in the form of a Travel Voucher to use the money again over the next year. We will go to Mexico. We will enjoy those gorgeous resorts. We will just have to wait until the piggy-flu is resolved (which, according to American Airlines latest prediction will be 16MAY!)