Back from Zürich

Met up with a friend of mine Stepan in Zürich. He is my ex colleague who moved to Switzerland after resigning a month ago. I´m really happy for him that he made the decision to move back to Europe. I´m looking forward to the day when I take the same step.
We chilled over some wine in his flat and I ended up sleeping on his couch. In the late morning we went for a bike ride around Zürich lake. A perfect european summer day..

Now finally a couple of days off. After that I don´t even know my schedule for next month. July is a so called Reserve month for me when I will be mostly on stand-by so my flights will be assigned a couple of hours before departure. It´s not that great but what to do...

Stepan didn´t want to be on the blog so this is all i got from him

Found some Finnish chocolate. I find it funny that they are importing chocolate into a country that is known for their "worlds best" chocolate. I guess this just proves the fact that the best chocolate in the world comes from Finland.

Zürich

Back from Nairobi this morning and off to Zürich in the afternoon. Not much time to rest in between flights. Happy to go to Europe in the summer again though!!

In Nairobi

Arrived yesterday in the evening. Had dinner with the crew and watched some world cup football. Slept for about 12 hours. I don´t know why but I always sleep better on layovers.
Tonight we are leaving back so will just relax and watch some more football before pick-up.

Here are some pictures from my trips this year

No matter where in the world I go this is still my paradise!

Monaco



Houston


Capetown



Maldives

Tunisia

Dar Es Salam

Mauritius

Greenland

Nice

Casablanca

Pompei, Italy

Beijing

Snus heaven Sweden

Brisbane

Auckland

My first North Pole expedition

San Francisco

UAE

Back from a short flight to Pakistan

Today was a day when I seriously felt like quitting my job. It just felt like too much to handle. I won´t go into details but that´s how I felt. I´ve been having this feeling a little too often lately so I guess it´s a sign of work exhaustion. Tomorrow I´m off to Kenya for one night. Will dedicate my time there for eating, relaxing and sleeping.

Slightly misleading

I find it funny how misleading the cover pictures are on this menu. The name is funny as well considering what they are really serving.

You see this picture and you think wow they serve great Italian food...

Wow they have great salads as well...

Then you open the menu and see this.........

10 good things about the hot weather(around 40°C)

1. A good excuse not to leave your flat and watch TV all day(maybe not that good in the long term)

2. A good excuse to why you are tired all the time..

3. If you decide to go out for a run you don´t have to run as much as in the winter because you feel tired earlier.

4. The running track is never crowded.

5. You sweat a lot which is good for the skin.

6. You can switch off the water heater in your flat because the "cold" water coming from outside is warm.

7. A good excuse to spend your days in the well cooled malls and cinemas

8. You can dry your laundry outdoors in a very short time so you don´t have to use the clothes dryer, which is good for the environment.

9. You don´t feel like using the Sauna that often which saves electricity.

10. Can´t think of a 10th thing.

Off to Tanzania

tomorrow morning. Last time I was in Africa I got a major food poisoning so better luck this time..

Fredag eftermiddag

Lyckades i går att motivera mig själv att gå ut och springa i hettan. Det var inte så tungt som jag kom ihåg från senaste sommar. Kanske för att det var kväll och solen hade gått ner men det var ju ändå typ 40 grader...
Senare på kvällen var jag och åt med en kompis på min favorit franska bistro. God fransk mat som alltid. Det var meningen att vi sku kolla Frankrike-Mexico matchen på en belgisk pub men det var helt fullpackat så vi kolla matchen i stället i en lobby på ett hotell. Matcherna visas inte gratis på tv här som i europa utan man måst betala extra för att se matcherna vilket ju är synd.

Idag sov jag sent som vanligt på en ledig dag. Läste en gammal söndags HBL på soffan och försöker nu att kolla på Tyskland-Serbien via www.anywheretv.fi men min internet hastighet är alldeles för långsam perkele...

Fredag är den lokala helgdagen i den här delen av världen vilket betyder att alla köpcentrum är propp fulla av människor och speciellt fulla av lokala tonåringar som har ledigt från skolan. Det påminner lite om finska vappen i centrala Helsingfors men enda skillnaden är att de här tonåringarna inte är berusade. Jag tycker inte alls om att vara ledig på veckosluten just på grund av att alla köpcentrum och restauranger är så fullpackade.

I kväll blir det högst antagligen joggande vid beachen och kanske fotboll på något hotell igen.

Stranden där jag brukar jogga

Jag har visst glömt att tvätta bilen på några veckor...

Düsseldorf und Köln

Back from Düsseldorf. Slept only 3 hours before the flight to DUS but forced myself to go out straight after arriving at the hotel. No excuse to sleep when the weather was so nice. Took the train to Cologne with 3 other crew members. Felt good to be back in Cologne where I used to work in the year 1996 and 2000. Feels like my second home town. My cousin is from there as well so I´ve spent a lot of time there when I was younger. Met up with a German friend of mine that I got to know in 2001 when I was an exchange student in the northern part of Germany. Was really good to see him again after so many years.
Had some pork schnitzel and Kölsch for dinner at the Rhine river.
I don´t usually buy food on my trips to bring back but this time i just had to buy some fresh tomatoes, salad and meat. It´s just so hard to find good produce in the middle east.

Today trying to get back to exercising after my cold which i still can feel slightly. Will try to motivate myself to go out for a run at the beach later. Don´t know exactly how many degrees it´s outside but it was 39C last night at midnight when we landed so probably around 43C now during the day. The next couple of days I´m off.

Mami, Parichat, Slil and Marco

Der Dom

The Germans are so strict...

Schweinehaxe

My favourite spaghetti ice cream

Back from Sudan

Had a flight to Sudan and back today. Crew and passengers were behaving well so it was actually a pleasant day even though both sectors were pretty full. We were delayed for about an hour out of base. All preparations for boarding were done when we had to change the aircraft due to "operational reasons". Don´t know exactly what the reason was. Anyway, so we had to move to another aircraft and do all preparations all over again. We were all hoping for the flight to be cancelled so that we could go home and have the rest of the day off but it didn´t happen this time.

It was actually very close that I would have taken my first sick day today in about 5 years. I was so weak the day before the flight from a cold i got during my Australia/New Zealand trip earlier this week but after a good nights sleep i felt fit for fight again.

Now I´m in my flat relaxing with a glass of Riesling.My next flight is to Düsseldorf tomorrow. It´s so nice to get European flights in the summer, no matter if it´s raining or the sun is shining. Main thing is that the air is fresh!

Demo and Chez Dominique

If you like good looking food check out some new pictures on my other blog Passion for food

Back from Brisbane

with a cold. Flight back was a killer due to the flight time of 14 hours and 14 minutes. Luckily no medical drama this time though.
It was a great 4 day trip all in all because of the nice atmosphere among the crew. It really makes a difference when you have a good set of crew no matter what happens on board.

You can really say that the summer has arrived here in the middle east when it´s +32C at 05.30 in the morning. You can imagine how hot it is in the middle of the day.
For me that means two days indoors in front of the computer and the TV recovering from my flu and from the jet lag. Will watch the final episodes of Lost and maybe some World Cup football even though i´m not such a big fan of football. I used to watch the World Cup when players like Rudi Völler and Jürgen Klinsmann were still playing. That must have been like 1990? The sport that´s closer to my heart is Handball.

Auckland, Brisbane and Korean food

Was in Auckland yesterday for 1 night. The flight there was really easy and took around 3 hours. No drama this time. Was so messed up with the time difference in Auckland (+12GMT) that i slept most of the time there. Wanted to rent a car and see something around and outside Auckland but maybe next time instead. I was surprised how cold and windy it was there though. Went for dinner with the crew down to the harbour for some Surf&Turf on a hot stone.
Arrived tonight back to Brisbane from Auckland. I feel sick after the cold and windy weather in Auckland. Went for dinner to a Korean restaurant in the city. I think it was only the second time in my life that I've had Korean food and I'm really impressed with how good it is. If you like spicy food of course... Was gonna catch a movie in the city but all the last screenings are at 21.30 so i guess I will end up staying in the room watching the Simpsons on TV.
Tomorrow it's the last flight of the 4 day trip. It's a 14 hour flight so need to catch up on as much rest as possible.

Brisbane

Finally in Brisbane. The flight was long and busy. Flight time unusually short though. Only 13 hours when it normally is around 14... What made the flight busy was that we had 4 medical cases in total of which 2 were crew members. It's not unusual to have medical cases onboard but to have 2 crew members being sick on a flight is uncommon. Had to call Medlink twice on the flight which i've never done before so for me it was a good learning experience. Medlink is a company based in Arizona that offers medical assistance to the crew inflight. We have 3 options how to contact medlink from the aircraft, 1. from the cockpit, 2. from the phones at the passenger seats or 3. using a device called Tempus. On todays flight we used both the phone at the passenger seat and the Tempus.
All of the sick passengers and crew recovered luckily before landing.

Spent the day in Brisbane sleeping after the flight and then walking by the river with my Ipod for a couple of hours. The weather was nice. A temperature of 11C in the morning and around 20C during the day. Tomorrow off to Auckland early in the morning.

Back to work depression

I´m back to the desert after 3 weeks of holiday back home. It feels sooo tough to be back after such a nice time with friends and family. The weather was awesome which not always is the case. I have unofficially decided to move back home within the next 18 months but you never know..
Back in the days in elementary school after returning from the summer holiday we always had to write an essay "my summer holiday". Here are some of the highlights from my summer holiday 2010:
Spent some father and son quality time with my dad in the summerhouse relaxing away from all people. Slept late, ran and walked in the forest, went to the sauna frequently and just enjoyed the fresh air and the midnight sun.

Spent some time with my cousins family at their summerhouse. Some sauna of course and took a dip in the +15C sea water.

Had dinner with some friends at Demo resturant which was really great. Will later post some pictures on my food picture blog. Also took my parents for dinner at Chez Dominique which is ranked as the 23rd best restaurant in the world.

Became a "father". My best friend had a baby girl a month ago and I had the honor of becoming the child´s Godfather. Now i have a good reason to move back home because i have some responsibility and need to be available for the child..Right?

Talked on the phone with a childhood friend of mine who I haven´t seen or talked to in over 20 years. I felt really happy about that because he was a good friend of mine when i was around 7 years old. Hopefully i can meet up with him on my next visit.

Tomorrow I´m off to Brisbane and then onwards to Auckland.


Here are some summer pictures:

Forest on a plate

Thunder approaching

Sauna

A view from the island of Suomenlinna

A red building on Suomenlinna

It´s 23.20 and still this bright outside.

The village by the summer house

Summer on a plate