The problem with blinking!

So the problem with blinking I have found is that at one point it is January, and then you blink and it's July. I can't believe it has been that long since I last updated by blog, that's forever, so much has occurred since that to write it all would take the next year. lol. However here is a brief re-cap of all that has been happening. 

My first overnight: In February I had my first overnight in . . . Lanzarote!! First image that comes to mind is hot weather, bright blue skies, and beaches right?? We had grey sky and torrential rain. 

So the story . . . We were doing a Lanzarote flight (ACE) and the weather was sooo bad and we got hemmed in by thunderstorms (we could see the lightning outside the aircraft) so we couldn't land in ACE so we diverted to Gran Canaria (LPA) and re-fueled and waited a little while for the storm to pass. Well they decided that it wasn't moving but to give it a try anyway so off we went again warning the passengers that if we couldn't get in we were going to divert again and have to disembark. So off we went and you can guess we diverted to Feurteventura because ACE was still closed. We then got told that we were to disembark the passengers and leave them there (on the wrong island) and go back to Bristol empty. However, it took ages to disembark because the passengers were refusing to. We then went off again empty and were told to try ACE one last time since we were

going past it. As you could guess we got in this time but didn't have enough hours to go back toBristol because we would of been flying too long. So we had to overnight. However, it wasn't all as glamorous as you may think since we didn't get to our hotel til 00:30, we went to get something to eat then had be at leaving for the airport at 11:00. However it was a pretty cool experience and oddly enough we felt like real cabin crew lol. And we got to stay in a 5*hotel. :) 

Dublin: For my birthday, me, Laura, Mum, and Lucas went to Dublin for the day which was really good. After a meeting for work, we went to the Titanic expedition, and then (window) shopping on Grafton Street. It was really good spending the day looking round another city and fun that we could spend just a day in another country. I love the fact that this is possible in Europe because we're all so close geography wise. 

America: So work assigned me a week of Annual Leave for the first week in April which I was not allowed to change. As I didn't want to twiddle my thumbs at home for a week and there aren't many places I wanted to go to just for a week, on my own because all my mates were still in Uni, I decided to book a second week off and I booked my ticket to AMERICA. I literally booked the plane ticket 10 days before I went. I was sooo excited to be going back to America to spent time with all my Uni friends. I've been missing living in America since I left. I spent 10 days in Utah first, spending lots of time with Megan, Craig, Rob, Nadine, and seeing a lot of people from my BYU ward, my friend Katie from Teriyaki Stix and I met her baby Naomi. It was sooo good to have some closure on BYU and just bask in the Utahn-ness off it all, went to conference, temple square, shopping, and ate at lots of places I've been missing. 

After 10 days in Utah I spent 5 days in California with one of my old roommates Anna. It was so good and the weather was perfect temperature. We went to the beach, and Disneyland, and shopping in a huge mall. I also got to see Downtown LA which was awesome with the walk of fame and the Hollywood sign (which you could barely see because of all the fog) It was so fun to see another culture within the USA. 

Volcanic Eruption: On the way home from the States I flew LAX to Minneapolis, and then from there to Amsterdam and then I was meant to fly to Bristol from there. Everything was great and after hearing all about the fantastic weather England was happening I was shocked to fly over a black cloud when we went over England. After landing in Amsterdam I got told the flight to Bristol was cancelled. With no other information, and they weren't rebooking any

 flights. After finally finding out that they had closed

 UK air space I decided to try and drive home 

since I was meant to be at work and we wouldn't know when air space would open again, and I would need to be back in time for work. So I managed to rent a car and drove from

 Amsterdam to Rotterdam to Gent to Lille to Arras which is as far as I was allowed to take the car. Because I had gotten stuck in traffic and lost in Rotterdam I had missed the last train to Calais which is where I wanted to catch a ferry. So instead I stayed the night in Arras. At that point all the the ferries and trains were fully booked the next day but luckily Mum and Dad were in France as well and Dad and siblings came home early and picked me up on the way home, and Mum  had to come home on the Monday via hire car and ferry. In the end though air space was closed for 6 days . . . could of had a nice holiday in Amsterdam lol. 

To be continued . . .