Jakarta, Monday, 1997-03-24
Hello, My Love,
Well, hopefully you're sleeping peacefully at home after an enjoyable weekend.
There's inconvenient news here. The line I got is the worst possible for what we want to do, and their intention to let us rebid got limited to the Jeddah based crews only. So, at the moment, I have 3 X-days on April 7-9, 6 XX-days April 10-15, and 3 X-days April 16-18. We'll just have to play the situation by ear as we go along. Let me know as soon as you receive your passport.
At the moment, they're taking all X-days, but that and everything else could change rapidly. I leave tomorrow, Tuesday at 15:30 Jakarta time (00:30 that morning your time) for my second trip, and the captain I'm flying with is one with whom I've flown before and he is fine in all ways.
I went to the U.S. Embassy this morning and got a new passport. Strange that it should be more convenient to get a U.S. passport overseas than in the U.S. The whole procedure from the time I walked into the embassy until I walked out with the new passport was 55 minutes. They won't transfer visas from the old to the new passport, so now I've got to come up with French and Brazilian visas as soon as conveniently possible. One of the guys went down to the French Embassy here to get his French visa thinking it would be the same as it is in Tel Aviv, walk in and walk out with a visa in a few minutes. Not so here, ten days are required, thus it becomes impractical. Unfortunately, if you get your French visa in Tel Aviv, that city name appears prominently, and that prevents entry into Saudi Arabia. One captain just quickly tore out the page with his Tel Aviv French visa when he had to go to Saudi Arabia.
A couple of humorous/interesting notes. One of our flight engineers picked up a little cutie Indonesian gal in a local meat market and brought her to the hotel. Surprise, the cutie was a guy. Apparently it really freaked our guy out.
I later got more information on the incident. It got ugly. Reportedly, the engineer beat up the guy some and threw him out into the hall naked, and hotel security and Tower Air on-site management got involved. It was the engineer's fault. In Jakarta everyone knows, or at least should know, that you don't leave a bar with a gal without checking that she really is a gal. They made the engineer pay the guy a goodly sum (for Jakarta) on the spot. Hotel management rearranged rooms to put the offending engineer between two senior Tower people, and our management let the engineer know that if there was any further trouble, he would be immediately fired.
Several days later, a new Britsh first officer made the same mistake of not checking the sex of a bar pickup. His reaction on discovering the truth when they got to his hotel room was greatly different. He just laughed, paid the guy anyway, and then wrote a humorous poem about it. The poem was circulated among our group, and everybody applauded his handling of the situation and his obvious skill with words.
Going into Saudi, they were making everybody open up their bags. Behind me was our purser on the flight, a good looking blond gal. The customs inspector, a Saudi of course, merely glanced into my bags. However, he thoroughly went through her bags, taking care to handle her underwear while looking directly at her, smiling all the time. It really pissed her off, but she couldn't do anything about it, of course.
I can't remember if I mentioned the following item about the Kendara Palace hotel in Jeddah, the hotel we first went to and which all Jeddah based crews are continuing to use. Anyway, one of our flight engineers sat down to take a crap. What he didn't know was that the sewage line out of the room was blocked. Also, the seal around the toilet was bad. Things backed up, and he found his feet in his own sewage. Now this guy is a very fastidious type. I would have liked to have seen his reaction. He got up and got immediately into the tub to shower off. Another surprise, that backed up too. The Kendara is now not his favorite place to say the least.
I'm really feeling like I need to do whatever it takes to ensure that I do not end my flying career in the right seat. At this point, I'm willing to drop back down to whatever aircraft I have to to get back to the left seat. To that end, find the FCI folder in the file box on top of the table and, if they have a phone number there, call and resubscribe for me. Use the USNB credit card. Have them send the current issue as the first one if possible. I'm told it has some interesting possibilities in it. Bring it with you. In fact, look in it for a startup outfit called Indo-Pak, or something like that and email me the details if possible.
FCI was Flight Crews International. Back then they published a weekly newsletter detailing pilot employment opportunities.
I haven't found an inexpensive way to get my laundry done yet, so I've done a washing in the sink. Unfortunately, I can't get it to dry. The humidity is just too high. Hopefully, it'll be dry by my show time tomorrow afternoon.
I'm really missing you, but that's to be expected. If you have to come during my duty days, we'll still be able to take one-day tours out of Jakarta. The Bogor Temple is a major tourist attraction, a day trip to Krakatoa is available as is one to another volcano, and Jakarta itself is interesting even if it is terribly polluted, and staying at a 5-star hotel is kind of nice. I really want to sit with you for a nice evening meal in the outdoor portion of the restaurant overlooking the pool. We'll treat ourselves to a little luxury.
I ran again this morning, and my left knee objected slightly. I think I'll try it again tomorrow morning with the knee support and see how that feels.
Later, my love...your husband.