Right.
On Thursday the main man/woman up there decided England had had enough of greyness, opened the skies, and lo' and behold: It warmed up.
Something of an Icelandic summer's weather in England, over 18°C (well, that's actually better than an Icelandic summer) and sunny.
I of course had to escape that day to work (albeit in the evening so I could enjoy some of that unusually warm weather) to Damascus (where the weather was equally as lovely), then came back on Saturday to an absolutely roasting London (you know, like ast least 22°C... hey, I'm Icelandic after all).
There must be something wrong with me, as I'm now somewhere (voluntarily) where it's a tad bit cooler, well, infact A LOT cooler, as in -10°C.
Aha, you guessed it, it's Moscow.

I am on 10 days' leave after all, and since I haven't got my travel concessions yet, Moscow seemed like the right place. It's always nice to spend time with the family anyway.

Oh, had my first celebrity passenger on the flight from London to Damascus on Thursday... no other than the Queen of International Journalism, Christianne Amanpour. She's like super cool, and totally the best journalist on TV ever.
Didn't get to talk to her though, as I was working down the back (hello, yes, of course she was in Club World) and she slept through the whole flight anyway.

Humm.
I've got a lousy roster for next month. Only a short Tashkent, 3-day Teheran and a 4-day Amman (via Damascus, with a shuttle to Addis Ababa in the middle of it), and a whole lotta standbys. Makes me wonder if I pissed someone pff at the office (nah, hardly). Well, if I get called out on any of the standbys I might just get one of the 5-day Beirut, Bishkek or Tbilisi trips we're starting to get in the summer. Only time will tell I guess.

Anyhow, off to collect my sister Steff, who's arriving tonight.
And I'll remember to dress accordingly...
As my housemate Paul reminded in a text-message last night: "Hope you packed your thermals. Don't want anything dropping off in the cold!".

Allora, it's been yet another month of blogglessness. Last post is dated on Jan.31st, seems like that trip to Damascus was eeons ago, which in some terms it was, but nevertheless nice.

So a month now to go over.

In February I went to:
-Teheran: a very short 3 day trip with a lovely crew though, and got some great comments from my colleagues on how well I was doing considering I was a relatively new flyer! Yey.
-Baku: another 3 day trip, although this time with a daytime departure which meant we had the whole of day two to do stuff. Wild crew, including my lovely coursemates Sophie and Rob. Stocked up on some goodies normally associated with Moscow (DVDs and CDs!)
-Addis Ababa: where I met up with my friend Sigga from Iceland who's taking Ethiopia by storm as we speak. It was great to meet her and hear about all her adventures and plans for the next few months (my crew were massively impressed by her), but my body decided to go on strike and developed a high fever and nasty cough, making me have to lie in bed for half the trip, and then fly home not working, but sitting in Business as I was just far too poorly to operate that flight. Thankfully I had a brilliant purser and crew who were ever so nice to me.

Then as I was too ill to work my next trip (which would have been a lovely 4-day Baku, buhuu) I had to report sick (my first time) and finally got better a day before my week vacation started!

Didn't really feel like I needed a vacation after spending 5 days in bed with the flu. Felt rested plenty... and the dark circles under me eyes had nearly dissappeared...humm.
On those notes, yes, I have noticed that I've started getting dark circles under my eyes, and yes, it's because of my job. You can't really expect someone with as unregular hours, sometimes awake for 24hrs at a time to look faultless at all times!
Anyhow, yes, vacation.

As my mama and my little brother and sister decided to visit New York for a week (that's a couple of weeks ago already), I thought it would be a good idea to join them (which it turned out to be), and spent a lovely 4 days with them in an absolutely freezing New York City. To my own surprise I didn't come back with an extra 10 kilos in my suitcase. In fact, I hardly bought anything. Well, except for my lovely little blue iPod mini which goes with me everywhere I go now ;)

Then I spent a lovely weekend up in the Midlands with Jay, Esther and their boys in Birmingham. A lovely Sunday brunch at the Hyatt where Holly's a pastry chef... yumm.

And then it was back to work. Tashkent, then straight (well, a day later) onto a very short Tbilisi trip.
And now I'm back in the routine, my next one being an Amman (via Beirut, with a Khartoum shuttle, sounds weird I know, and is quite hard knackering work) on Friday.

Onto other matters now.
We've got new housemates at 63 Blunden Drive now... Out of the original 5, only 2 remain, that's me and Alex.
Two lovely people have now moved in. Another BA Eurofleet hostie, Paul, and Katie, who works in BA engineering (no, not in an overall covered in engine oil, but in the office!). And I've moved across the hallway to the best room in the house, the master bedroom with my own private bathroom!
So if anybody's thinking of visiting beautiful (pun intended) England, there's space down here in Langley (only an hour from central London, mind ya!).

One thing that puzzles me about English habits.
"Doing the dishes":
This involves filling the kitchen sink with hot water, adding copious amounts of dishwashing liquid to it (nothing strange there).
Then the gloves and sponge are brought out. Yes, sponge, my new pet-hate object of the month.
All the dishes and whatnots are then thoroughly wiped and scrubbed with the sponge, to be placed dripping wet and FOAMY on the rack.
Now, this is where I have to stop. FOAMY, no wonder English food tastes rank (to all ya Brits, I don't mean to offend, but please, I did say FOAMY). Like, not only is it nasty before it's cooked, but eating it off a dish with soapy residues obviously ain't gonna help.
Obviously this is the only qualm I have about my new housemates, they both practice this weird habit.
Any suggestions on 'ow I can correct this horrid habit of theirs?

Wha'eva.