I don't know if it's bad or good...but...

[Kristie]

My husband keeps telling all of the pilots/FA's he runs into about how he went off to training and when he came back, the house was clean and taken care of and his wife worked out and lost weight...

what exactly is he saying?

oh.. and another one...

he called me yesterday from Frankfurt using his united mobile sim card, which is AWESOME - all int'l pilots should have one to talk to their wives via txt or voice on a daily basis!! *plug* *plug* *plug*...anyways, he says he got into frankfurt, saw some of the pilots/FA's that were on the paris trip i went on and the first thing out of their mouths wasn't "how are you Doug, How are your trips going", it was "where IS your wife? is she NOT here? did YOU make her stay home?".. he actually had to explain to them that i work...hahahhahaa

apparently, i made an impression such that they expected me to be there and want to hang out when i'm next in paris (which might be at the end of the month). isn't that a hoot? Nice to know people remember me fondly and considering i've been asked about, i might just go even tho paris during summer is kinda warm and sticky and of course depends on loads...

OH...AND...Frankfurt has THE hookup at the Weisbaden hotel (Dorint Weisbaden)... the chef comes in ready to please the crew by offering the local trout (which he fishes for himself, he says) to crew members for CHEAP! Doug says there's 1/2 price drinks and food for crew and 1/2 price internet as well. doug says the chef likes the crews so much that when he heard doug talking about spargel (white asparagus) and how good it is, he offered to box up the best spargel so you can take it home with you if you get it the week of the 25th. special price for crews only, you have to ask "special" too (secret handshake or something like that). apparently, the best spargel is hand picked at the market by the chef that week only (because that's the week that time that the best spargel is picked from the fields) and O.M.G. if you haven't had germany's spargel with hollandaise sauce as a dinner dish - you absolutely MUST.. it is a MUST eat dish during this time of year as it is absolutely DELISH!! we had it last year while visiting a small northern german town with friends and OMG, i start drooling everytime i just hear the word spargel!!!

story about the trout is that one of the FA's came in one day and asked if there was any of the local trout available (off the Rhine river)... the chef was so taken aback by the request of something "local" that he started fishing for the trout himself (to impress her, apparently he liked her) and has offered it to just crew every since.

looks like a trip to germany is in the works for me.. i need me some spargel and warsteiner!!

[roz]

Great story! Fortunately I live in a nice part of the world too! I had great brook trout that we smoked last week. And we get locally grown white asparagus here all the time! How do they prepare the trout? I'd like to try it!

[SeatClutcher]

Trout from the Rhine???? (or does "off the Rhine" mean NOT from the Rhine?)

I guess they'd be okay...I mean, I have seen people fishing in the Rhine and the Neckar, but UGH! I mean, it's a water highway! Ptew!

[Kristie]

I'm not sure how they prepare the trout, but i'll ask!

I was thinking doug said it was from the Rhine but now that i hear Neckar, it might be from the Neckar river as that's closer to the hotel...I'll have to verify that info

[Rebes]

Originally Posted by Kristie

he called me yesterday from Frankfurt using his united mobile sim card, which is AWESOME - all int'l pilots should have one to talk to their wives via txt or voice on a daily basis!!

I was wondering if DH should get some sort of phone card, but didn't think it was worth it with the time differences and the fact I would probably only contact him if there was an emergency with one of the kids. He emails from the hotel when he gets in, and before he goes to bed. Do you think it is worth getting? I would love some opinions!

[Kristie]

The time differences doesn't seem so difficult (as i thought it would be)...When it's 5pm in Paris, it's 8am here in AZ.. so that's a good time for us to talk (he called me bright and early this morning and talked for a good 20 minutes using Skype)..other than that, he can call me up to about 10am on any given day as that would be the evening hours out there....and If i'm up around 10-12pm, that's about the time he's landing over in France/Germany...which is also a good time to chat.

Heck, even a 5 or 15 minute video conversation isn't bad and it might be nice for the kids to be able to "see" daddy on the screen as well as hear his voice. so far, we've been able to talk up to an hour if we really wanted to.

Weekends are obviously best as far as having enough time to talk, from what i've noticed.. and with skype being only $30/year, it obviously opens up more avenues to communicate which so far, has worked really well for us.

i did find out yesterday that tmobile has, what i think is a better plan, than the united mobile sim card thingy...their overseas text messaging is only 0.15 cents per message and each country has a different calling price...like france is 0.34/minute.. germany 0.36/minute etc... so we might just stick with tmobile as our main text messaging options while using skype as our main landline option because skypes fees are in the 2 to 3 cents per 6 minute option which is SO much better (i think?).

course, we don't have a set method yet as we're still experiementing quite a bit with different times, length of conversation, method of conversation and so forth.. but when we figure out the best method etc, i'll be sure to post it!