Happy New Year!

Bye bye 2010!

...and one last picture of my last flight this year.

BCN-LIS / CS-TTO / "Antero de Quental"

6 degrees below zero @ Frankfurt

Walking through the streets of Frankfurt under light snowfall; everything is white; you need to stop at Starbucks and drink some coffee to get warmer; while at Starbucks you start listening "and since we've no place to go... let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!":

You realise it's almost Winter and Christmas Time! And it's so beautiful to see...

Airbus A320-214 CS-TNV "Grão Vasco"
Frankfurt Airport

euroAtlantic @ Brussels Airport

euroAtlantic's  Boeing 767 flying for Brussels Airlines, October 2010.

Boeing 767-300ER CS-TLO

It departed some 20 minutes later operating flight BEL203 to Banjul via Dakar.

Returning from Budapest

Adding a new destination to the blog... Last September:

Control Tower @ Budapest Airport (Ferihegy)

MALEV Boeing 737

HA-LOE

CS-TTD "Amadeo de Souza Cardoso" #1 engine

PSU - Passenger Service Unit

Reaching Spain?

Business Class

Nice view over Madrid - Barajas Airport

Madrid

Tervetuloa!

I'm again in Helsinki. I arrived yesterday in the early morning after another easy flight. I can only remember the first time I dealed with finnish passengers when I was at Luzair. We were doing flights to Air Finland(*) between Helsinki and Bangkok or Phnom Penh and before those flights I was afraid they would drink alot and give us some hard working hours. But the Finns are in fact one of the most civilized passengers I ever saw. Yesterday, more than 95% of our passengers were Finns.

This time I was assigned to work in Business Class. During boarding I could remember some words in finnish and tried Tervetuloa with some nice looking girls. They smiled and replied kiitos! Other passengers would reply obrigado in portuguese. I really had some fun during boarding.

After a very long sleep I left the hotel and walked through the very same places I was a year ago. But this time alone and with much colder temperatures. However I'm still amazed with the beauty and fascination of this city.

Today I'm going to visit Kiasma and I will leave tomorrow afternoon. The weather forecast indicates a maximum temperature of 4ºC for today! Brrrrr Unfortunately, no snow...

(*)Now they have really nice colors on their planes!

Helsinki 2009 - Day 1

More than a year has passed since I was in Helsinki, in September 2009, and I promised to tell you about that layover in this blog. It was really a nice 5-night (long) layover with my friend António and also with a very nice crew.

Let me see what I still remember....

We arrived at the hotel in the early, early morning and after check-in the crew dediced to wait for the breakfast that was to be served in less than one hour. After that we were all tired and went to sleep already with daylight.

When we woke-up we were hungry and went out to eat something and get a little glimpse of the city. The weather was far from sunny but at least it was not too cold. The first thing we saw was the Kaisaniemi park nearby our hotel.

Then we found a McDonalds at Helsinki's Forum shopping centre. After "lunch" we continued our way down Mannerheimintie Street on foot until we reached Helsinki Market Square (Kauppatori).

Kauppatori

Near Helsinki Senate Square we found some brazilian guys who talked to us.

Helsinki Senate Square

Helsinki Cathedral

Uspenski Cathedral
(Eastern Orthodox)

We had dinner at an italian food restaurant (which in finnish they say ravintola) and returned to our hotel. Before sleeping we were already planning the following day!

Crowne Plaza - Helsinki

Kiitos (for reading this post!)

Copenhagen: take-off @ Kastrup

Last month I had two night-stops at Copenhagen. The first one gave no opportunity to get out of the hotel because we arrived late in the night and departed the following morning.

I came back as a passenger so I could take these photos:

A319 CS-TTA "Vieira da Silva" @ Kastrup

Nice reflection on the jetway

After take-off

View from seat 3F

Over the clouds...

And finally I could enjoy a nice hot meal and have a rest until arrival at Lisbon

The second night-stop I had more time to visit the city but I was so tired that I just slept all the time at the hotel. I really wanted to visit the Dansk Design Center, but it will have to wait for another opportunity.

Copenhagen was the hightlight of last Up Magazine issue (September).

I AMsterdam

I arrived in a rainy Saturday night (in September) but that was not impeditive to have some fun in the streets of Amsterdam and do some bar-hopping. We even found a portuguese guy who recognized our language in one of those bars and we paid him a shot (was it a B52? can't remember).

However it seems Amsterdam night life is not that great anymore... A bar magnate who owned 85 cafes and bars committed suicide due to unpaid bills to Heineken and many of them closed....

Next day we had a nice lunch (for me it was some kind of pancake), we had a walk through the city,

Amsterdam is almost all about sex!

and then I suggested to my friends (that were there at that time) to visit the Sex Museum. It was really a good time we had!

Marilyn Monroe @ Sex Museum

Before everything closed at 6pm I went to Kalverstraat street and Magna Plaza. A sweatshirt from Energie brand caught my eye. But I saw the price and went away. Then I started to think to myself:

"Come on Andre, you know you would never buy such a costly piece of clothing when you lived from your monthly pocket money... but now you earn your own money and you don't even spend it all most of the months"

So I went back to the store and I did buy the sweatshirt.......

@ Kalverstraat street

"you are not igual" @ Desigual

And finally a nice view from my hotel room during sunset. Next day I had a long journey until Copenhagen with a stop in Lisbon!

@SID with "Gil Vicente"

Aeroporto Int'l Amilcar Cabral

A320 wing

The moon...

CS-TNN "Gil Vicente"

TAP Portugal beautiful tail

A320 cabin

@RAI with "Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro"

Aeroporto da Praia

CS-TNT