Budapest

Only 15 hours in Budapest, Hungary and most of
the time was spent sleeping. I wish there would have been more time to explore. What a beautiful city.





























The flight back to Baltimore was empty, the whole cargo bay was the "bunk".

Time in Philly

70 hours in the City of Brotherly Love. I was lucky enough to stay in Society Hill, within walking distance of Old Town. There is so much American History in these few blocks that its overwhelming. At every turn you run into something so well known that every child learns about it in grade school. Independence Hall, The Liberty Bell, Christ Church, Betsy Ross House, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and many more.
Of all the sights I saw, the one that resonated most with me was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington square. "Freedom is a Light for which many men have died in darkness"





































































What trip to Philadelphia would be complete without seeing the Rocky statue.
Or a mad pig at City Hall. Its really a bear meant to represent the United States.














A cool surprise was running into Kieren Spain. We were hired by World at the same time, but in the past eight years I have only seen him once (Kieren made it to the big time and works for UPS now). We ran into each other in a corner grocery store. It was way cool seeing Philly guided by Kieren.

Lovely Luanda

On long flights we are required by law to have a relief officer. If the flight is really long we are required to have too crews. Houston to Luanda is one of those flights. Today the flight plan says 13 hours and 46 minutes. Anything over 12 hours and we must have two captains and two first officers. I am flying with Captain Donn Hile, and First Officers Tom Jensen, and Ross Seabrooke. Donn wanted to work the first part of the flight (so as to be well rested for the landing), which meant I would have the first 6 hours of the flight off.
I spent most of that time in the bunk. The bunk on the MD-11 is a really small bunk bed that pulls out right behind the cockpit extending into the area of the most forward boarding door. Its really like two coffins stacked on top of each other. Most of the time I don’t sleep but it is nice to relax and listen to some music.
The first class seats look much more inviting, but the In-flight Service Manager (lead flight attendant) told me when I boarded that sitting in those seats was forbidden, even if no passenger was seated in that section. Its bad when you can’t even get an upgrade on your own plane!
Most of the time around the equator you find thunderstorms. They just seem to stay in the same spot all the time. Today was no different, lots of bouncing around. We try to deviate around most of them or climb over, but some times you just have to pick your way through. Thank goodness for radar. One cool thing about flying through weather is the static discharge across the windscreen. It looks like little lighting bolts. Some call this St. Elmo’s fire, but I don’t think it’s the same. I’ve only seen St. Elmo’s fire twice and both times I was in really bad thunderstorms. It really looks like the windscreen is on fire – red, green and purple flames.

After landing in Luanda and jumping through all the customs hoops, we were escorted through lovely Luanda to our hotel. Four armed guards (AK-47s and hand guns) in a pickup truck and

two guards on our bus. Time for some sleep.

The Bunk.

Luanda, Angola on Final to runway.

Benson's Graduation

Benson graduated from kindergarten today! Not only is he a great student, but a great dancer as well.