It is mid-week Wednesday night or should I say early Thursday morning, I have really procrastinated on writing my blog because I have been extremely busy all week. It is 3:30 in the morning and I feel like I am staying up to finish an English essay that is due in a couple hours lol. Except this is better because writing these blogs is way more fun and I get to write about anything and everything (well almost :D). Anyways, another great week has passed and to this day it is exactly 2 weeks since graduation!!! It seems almost unreal that my fellow classmates and I have already graduated. I can honestly say that it still has not hit me that high school is over nor has it occurred to me that this fall we will all be young adults attending college. It is crazy how time seems to fly by especially when you have something to look forward to. In my case ever since my sophomore year in high school I have been counting down the years before I would be able to attend Embry Riddle. Now that it is here it feels great but at the same time I am slightly nervous, in my opinion it is the fear of the unknown. I know what to expect however it is an experience completely new to me and most of us, which is why it is just a little nerve racking. Even though this week was pretty busy it sure has been a great one so far. After a whole week of helping out on a 100 hour alongside with an Annual inspection on a Cessna 170B with my buddies we sure are happy to be done. It was a great experience and I could not be more thankful to Daniel Wotring and Brian Lepkowski, those that made all of it possible and always give me great opportunities around the airport. While working on the inspection all week I was looking forward to Sunday afternoon because I was taking a really cute girl on a surprise date and flying her out to Catalina for lunch/dinner 😉 Sunday came along and I was excited the whole day, until I called the weather briefer and found out that there was pretty bad overcast at approximately 3000ft from the coast all the way to Catalina. I decided to go anyways and if it was overcast all the way to Catalina I would change my destination airport. We ended up taking off and flying above Seal Beach Vor and the overcast had become worse. In my opinion it looked so bad that Catalina was below IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) minimums. I contacted Socal and diverted down to Palomar airport southward by Oceanside. However upon our arrival there Palomar was reporting clouds at 1500ft, visibility 6 with mist, with a westward movement of clouds. After hearing that I cancelled landing intentions because I did not want to land there get lunch and get socked in by the overcast. So we finally diverted north east bound up to French Valley where we ate lunch. Lunch at French valley was really good as it is at most airports. It sure was a great flight and I am pretty sure I was not the only one that liked it aha 😉 Even with all of the zero G’s and steep turns, Emily the girl I took with me agreed that she liked it, she sure is brave for flying with me hahaha jk. Afterwards we went for some ice cream and hung out. It sure was a great day and even though we could not go out to Catalina it still ended up being fun, at least we got to fly VFR (Visual Flight Rules) on top. Monday came along pretty well besides the fact that my mom made me wake up at 7:00 to get blood work done for my annual checkup, oh it was horrible getting up so early. Afterwards, I was busy getting ready for my trip to the Czech Republic, so I ran around buying clothing and supplies and then I also stopped by the airport to hangout for a while with my buddies and relaxed. Later on that day Emily surprised me and took me on a surprise date. It was a lot of fun, we ended up going to an El torrito on a pier and afterwards she showed me some really cool spots around her area. It was so much fun (: Tuesday was a great day spent at the airport, getting ready for Czech, hanging out with friends, and then later we spent the night eating at TK burger and walking down main street and the pier. Finally today went by really quick I packed all of my stuff or should I say Emily packed all of my stuff haha but we got it all packed up and then we went to the beach just before my departure to the Czech Republic tomorrow morning. I have to say that I am really excited for the Czech Republic. I mean all of my family and some close friends live there and every opportunity I get to spend with them I enjoy. It is almost 4:30 in the morning now and our plane departs in about 8 hours so I really have to get some sleep. Goodnight everybody and thank you for reading my blog. I will post new blogs whenever I can (sometimes it is really hard to get connected to the internet because not everybody has a computer over there) and keep everybody updated on my 5 week journey throughout the Czech Republic.

Dear Reader,

I would like to start off my first post by saying thank you to Doug Dickey, Sara Bofferding, and the Admissions office, alongside with everybody who has given me this great opportunity of becoming a student blogger for ERAU.  

Hello to everybody reading my blog. My name is Petr Stepan Jr., somebody is constantly telling me that I spelled my name wrong (I think I know how to spell my name I tell them haha) I was born in the Czech Republic on October 1^st, 1992 which is why Petr is spelled without the second “E”. I came to America or more specifically to California with my parents in the fall of 1996 when I was almost 4 years old. Everybody has a purpose in this world and my parents came here with the hopes of providing their only son with a galaxy of opportunity to be able to do whatever he so desired with his life. However I was not the only determining force in the decision to come overseas. The web of opportunity and success is incomparable to that in the Czech Republic. My mom Stephanie and my dad Petr are two of the most hardworking people I have yet seen on this earth, failure to succeed in this world is not an option in their eyes, nor should it be in any of our eyes. Their hardworking characteristics over the years has put them where they are today as two successful individuals who have their heart set on the right things in life. The Czech Republic is a fairly tough country to prosper and to pursue one’s career goals in, which is why we live where we do today in the “Land of Opportunity “as so America is called. I have high ambitions and goals for myself, some that I have already achieved, others I will yet strive to achieve. This world is full of opportunity and of course new doors open up as our careers progress, our transition from high school to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University will be only the beginning, and a key to the “Land of opportunity”. I have not yet fully planned out my future in detail nor should anybody, we should all know what we want and go after it. Having a direction to guide us is the safest bet; however so much is yet to come our way it would be almost unrealistic from day one to know what somebody wants in detail. Over the years I have come to this; I am open minded to anything that comes my way, however if there is something that has heart and has my name on it, it is flying. My major at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University will be Aerospace Engineering and my minor will be flight. My dream job would be combining the field of Engineering and Flight into one area and becoming a civilian contracted test pilot for the military or for any experimental agency/corporation. As a side job I would love to be a CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) and help young ambitious pilots as myself come closer to reaching their goals and attaining true happiness. High School is now over, a new segment of mine, in conjunction with my classmate’s lives is about to begin. The years where we will build strong lifelong relationships that will help guide us throughout our careers are about to begin. Good luck to everyone and I hope to see you guys on campus in the fall please comment my blogs and let me know if there is anything I could improve.

My Favorite Birdie the Marchetti SF260 🙂

Finally, after weeks of hard work we got to take a break over Memorial Day weekend. We went to Grapevine Lake in Texas. It is a massive man-made lake. We tried for about an hour to rent a boat, but it was booked with the many people there having the same idea. So all that was left was a jet ski that holds 3 people at a time. Which would not have been a bright idea with an 87-year-old lady with us. I would have loved trying it though, because of the speed they can go. 🙂 But we got lucky because a group cancelled, so we actually got a real boat that could hold about ten people. We only had four~ Mavis (87 year old woman), her daughter Annette, the granddaughter Sade who is my age, and I. I took a handful of pictures, when I was not operating the boat of course (which was about half of the trip). After the lake we went to eat at a restaurant for lunch and then got some cold stone afterwards. We then went and walked around a park with a pond and fountain in the middle. It was pretty. Here are my pictures I took:

An island with a park in the middle of the lake

Me operating the boat

Sade operating the boat

Sade and I, the lake looks green.

Captain Cassandra- All I need now is a hat 😉

SADE!!!

Look at the beautiful lake behind me!

HAHA- random picture of a buyou

Right before we had to get off.

This was a fountain at a park we went to afterwards for ice cream

Isn't the walkway gorgeous??

You can't see the steps, but I almost tripped into the pond taking this picture!

This summer so far feels like one long, hectic, fun-filled weekend!  I am working for my dad’s CPA firm as a receptionist, I’ve been helping my high school volleyball team in workouts and camps, I’ve been helping coach my little sister’s softball team, and I’ve been catching up on all the news here in the White Mountains of Arizona!  Unlike many of my classmates at Riddle, I’m not taking any summer classes, so I have time to catch up with my family and to work.  It’s definitely pretty nice to be able to take things easy after a tough semester.

Here are all of my girls on my sister’s softball team.  Gosh how I love those goofballs!

This is Anna, Jerem and I at Jerem’s graduation.  We all played Co-Ed volleyball together when Anna and I were juniors, and he and our other friend Shelby were sophomores.  Luckily we all still stay in touch!  Shelby just got married, as a matter of fact!  She’s Mrs. Murphy now.  It’s so crazy how everyone grows up so fast.

And here is what I’ve been doing all day today.

I have been sleeping pretty much all day as a result of my ward’s twenty four hour scripture reading, causing me to miss my sleep!  We read the whole Book of Mormon in twenty four hours, and it was so much fun to see all of my church girls and to have the opportunity to be invited to help read to them.

Levi and I also decided that we are going to watch all of the movie classics that we love…

…so we’d better get started!!

This is what Landon, Levi and my dad are doing right this SECOND.

If you can’t tell, all three of them are glued to the Celtics/Lakers Finals game.

So this is basically my summer so far!  I hope that everyone out there is having as great of a summer as I am!

“To see the Summer Sky is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie- True Poems flee.”

-Emily Dickenson

Humphrey’s Trail #151, a 9 mile round trip hike to the tallest point in Arizona is certainly not for the faint of heart. The strenuous hike begins at an elevation of 9,300ft and quickly rises to the summit elevation of 12,633ft 4.5 miles later.

It is rated by a few websites as the #1 hike in Arizona. It can snow on Humphrey’s peak at any time of the year and frequent afternoon thunderstorms also present an obstacle for hikers. Signs near the trailhead warn hikers to be wary of the symptoms of altitude sickness.

This is where I decided to go hiking last weekend. Me, the pasty-white engineer who usually spends more time in front of a computer or textbook each day than I do sleeping. Yep.

Awesome collection of road signs we passed in Flagstaff on the way to the hike.

The trailhead was about 2 hours away from the school at the Snow Bowl resort in Flagstaff. Being college students on our day off from classes, we decided to leave Prescott around 9:00 a.m. I guess seasoned hikers know that you’re supposed to hike to a summit before noon. I’m from a part of Texas where you have to drive 12 hours to get to a mountain, and even those mountains are not exceptionally impressive. So, needless to say, but I’ll say it anyways, I didn’t know.

Mountains around Humphrey's Peak as seen from the Trail-head

The drive up to Flagstaff, or a many Riddle students call it, “Flag,” was gorgeous. We drove through a few national forests on the way and the road up to Snow Bowl was lined on both sides with beautiful aspen groves that seemed to sneakily steal your breath as you gazed at them, but I suppose that could have just been the altitude. 🙂

Looking up at Humphrey's Peak from the trail-head

We got out of the car after 11 a.m. in the middle of June at an elevation of 9,300ft to greet temperatures in the mid 50s. We put on our sweaters, covered our exposed skin with sunscreen, sprayed ourselves down with liberal amounts of bug spray, grabbed our between 3 and 4 liters of water each, and began our trek up the mountain.

Me at the trailhead

The hike began on what my friends called the “bunny slope” of the ski resort that had become a grassy meadow strewn with wildflowers in the late spring months. The bunny slope may not look that steep when you’re about to ski down it covered in snow (or maybe it does, depending on who you are), but when you’re hiking up it at an elevation 4,000 feet higher than what you’re accustomed to, it’s steep. I had to stop to catch my breath a few times.

We walked under the ski lift until the path broke off into the forest were we began a serious of switchbacks up the mountain.

The forest is truly beautiful. I’d never seen so many aspens together in my life, and come to think of it, I’m not sure I’d ever seen any aspen groves outside of pictures. Between the aspens, majestic pines, and wildflowers that stubbornly fought the patches of snow, the atmosphere was truly spectacular.

The conversation up the side of the mountain ranged from the complex topics of our aerospace coursework to “that’s what she said” jokes. We had a great time laughing and “nerding out,” in the company of fellow aerospace enthusiasts.

All of the people we passed going one way or another were very happy to be spending the day on the side of the mountain just like us. It was another excellent opportunity to get away from the stresses of our everyday lives through an escape to a world of beauty with a good group of friends.

Hiking through snow in June on the side of Mt. Humphrey

One of my friends brought his seven-month-old German Sheppard on the trip. We weren’t sure what she would think of the snow on the path, because when introduced to creeks in the past, she whimpered from the side while we swam around. She had absolutely no qualms with the snow though. In fact, she loved it. She jumped through it and attacked it and bit chunks that she threw up in the air. She was having as much fun in the snow as a ten-year-old boy on a snow day. It was really funny to watch.

We didn’t make it all the way to the top. We stopped about a mile from the summit at an elevation of 11,400 feet where the trees begin to fade and give way to a rocky summit. As the trees became less dense, the 50 mph winds began to whip at our faces and discourage us from further exploration.

The sign at the tree-line

My attempt to get a 10s time delay picture of the group at 11,400 where it was really cold (to a Texan) with 50mph winds.

Proof that I made it to 11,400ft

For the guys on my hike, making it to a tree-line wasn’t nearly as much of a novelty as it was to the girl from Southeast Texas. I considered going to a place where the air became too thin for trees to grow to be a huge accomplishment.

Elated with what I still consider a victory, my trek down the mountain was less like hiking and more like frolicking, and I began to pride myself on being the comic relief of the trip.

A picture of the approaching rain clouds as we hiked down the last bit under the ski-lifts.

I learned a lot about mountain hiking on this trip and my appreciation for the rugged beauty of the west only intensified in strength. I’ll return one day to make it to the summit, but until then: Humphry’s Peak 1, Kerianne zilch.

Hiking is a very therapeutic activity.It allows you to walk away from your stressful student life of homework, projects, midterms, professors, and those annoying kids who always break the curve on the test.

I don’t think it’s possible to be stressed on a hiking trip, because you leave the stress behind at the trailhead to relax with a few good friends. It doesn’t matter what you believe, hiking is a good rest for your mind, a good exercise for your body, and a good refueling for your soul.

When you leave your everyday life behind for a few hours it makes you feel all around healed.You can admire the beauty of the natural formations around you and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that you get from a really long hike.

Bell Trail 13 is an 11 mile round trip hike that runs parallel to Beaver Creek, close to the Verde Valley off of I-17.About 4-4.5 miles down the trail, the creek gives way to a breathtakingly beautiful natural swimming hole.

Here is the website for the trail: http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino/recreation/red_rock/bell-tr.shtml

I heard about this hike from one of my friends on campus and it presented an exciting challenge to me.Armed with a 4 liters of water in my camelback, some snacks, and a ton of sunscreen, a couple of my friends and I began the hike.Between the three people on our hike we carried about 12 liters of water in at the beginning of our hike.

On this particular Saturday we were experiencing a bit of a heat wave, and though we hadn’t really seen temperatures above the low 80s in Prescott, we faced temperatures in the upper 90s on the hike.Being college students that don’t like to get up super early, and having gotten lost on the way to the hike, we began our trek close to midday.

Most of the hike runs up on a hill off to the side of Beaver Creek, so there isn’t much shade and the sand path and rocks around it heat up and begin radiating heat back at you.The hike out to the natural swimming hole was pretty intense.We climbed down to the creek a few times to cool off for a while before continuing on our hike.Throughout the hike we had to continuously drink water trying to keep up with the water that we were losing to the dry hot air through our skin.

By the time we got to the swimming hole we were absolutely exhausted and between the three of us we only had a liter and a half of water left. But seeing the beauty and experiencing the cool crisp water of the pond made the hike totally worth it.We stripped down to our swim suits and jumped in.

This is me treading water in the cool, clear pool of the natural swimming hole on Bell Trail #13.

There were several places in the swimming hole where cliffs over deep water provided safe places to cliff dive. I’m a bit of a chicken when it comes to heights, so I jumped off of the smaller four-foot cliffs while my brave hiking companions leaped fearlessly from the twenty-foot cliff into the cold water below.

20 foot cliff that my friends dove from.

The water in the swimming hole was pretty clear, and much colder than the outside air.Jumping into the water felt like a total shock to the system.The guys I was with kept laughing at me when I continually surfaced very dramatically in reaction to the cold after jumping off my four foot cliff.

The landscape around the swimming hole.

Looking down from the 20ft cliff at the swimming hole.

Once you climbed out of the water, it didn’t take very long for the water on your skin to evaporate and the breeze to become warm again.We hung out at the swimming hole till close to 6 p.m. when the sun was no longer high in the sky and the air began to cool a little.

I brought a $7 Disney Princess backpack from Walmart on the hike filled with extra supplies and my friend and fellow Aerospace Engineering Senior, Justin Gross, volunteered to carry it for a good portion of the hike after I started struggling with the heat.

Although two of us brought towels on the hike, we didn’t actually need them.We soaked our clothes in the cool creek water before hiking out and by the time we made it to the car again we were all completely dry again.

When I spend so much of my life being mentally exhausted from my studies, being physically exhausted after a beautiful hike was a satisfying change.The feeling of accomplishment that I walked away with was amazingly uplifting, as was the general sense of awe that I felt at the swimming hole.I’d definitely do this hike again, but I’d start way earlier in the morning on a day that wasn’t quite so hot.

I elected to take summer classes at Embry-Riddle for the first time this summer. I don’t have any exams this week, so I’m taking the opportunity to catch up on my blogging. My main motivation for taking summer classes was that I’ve reached a point in my classes where I couldn’t take any more courses at a university near my home, and taking classes this summer would mean a less stressful senior year.

I’m taking 6 credit hours this summer with Linear Circuits Analysis and Advanced Engineering Math. This will leave me with 14 and 9 credits for my last two semesters.

So are summer classes easier or harder than classes during the regular semester? Well, the answer is both.

On the one hand, summer classes run at a much more elevated pace than classes during a regular semester. What you would normally learn over 16 weeks is covered in only 6 weeks. So the way you study is different. You have to do your homework every day or you’ll get lost and pretty soon you won’t have any idea what’s going on in your lectures. The positive side of the faster pace is that you are usually fresher on topics for your exam, so it’s a bit of a trade off.

On the other hand, you only have classes 4 days a week and without overloading yourself with classes or extracurricular activities, you have 3 days off a week.

There are some students who do still have extracurricular activities like the Jet Dragster Project, NASA Space Grant Research, or in my case Newspaper. There is a lot of paperwork and organization that needs to be done over the summer to make sure the newspaper runs smoothly the next year, starting with our Orientation issue that has to be organized and printed a week before orientation.

So my weekly schedule is basically as follows:

MTWTh – 2-6 hours of homework, 0-3 hours on Newspaper, and 3.2 hours in class (which usually averages out to 8 hours/day),

FSa – Camping, or hiking, or hanging out with friends,

Su – 5-8 hours of homework/studying, then recovering from FSa

During a regular semester, between a full course load, and extracurricular activities, your average engineer gets very few days off. Once the engineering student reaches their junior and senior years, it is not unreasonable to expect that they will not get one day off for a month or more at the end of the semester, and by the time you’re on Christmas or summer break, you really need it.

From what I’ve experienced and what I’ve heard from other engineering students, it takes about a week for us young college students to recover from our semester, so if you can avoid work for the first weeks of your school breaks, you’re much better off. We were given a week between the end of Spring ’10 finals and the start of Summer A ’10 classes.

Actually having weekends during the summer is an amazing gift for an engineering student. I have taken the opportunity to engage in outdoor activities as often as I can, and it is these activities that will be the focus of my summer blogs.

Here is a glimpse of what my summer schedule and weekends off have looked like so far (detailed blogs to follow for select events):

Last Final of Spring Semester: May 6

Hiking to the top of Granite Mountain: May 7

Seeing friends graduate: May 8

Summer Classes Start: May 13

Camping at White Horse Lake: May 14 – 15

Hiking to Sycamore Canyon: May 15

Going home for my father’s 50^th Birthday Celebration: May 20-23

Hiking in Sedona: May 30

Open House for printing company that prints our University paper in Tempe, AZ: June 4

Hiking Bell Trail #13 at Beaver Creek: June 5

Hiking Humphrey’s Peak: June 11

The rest of my summer in Prescott will probably look something like this:

June 18 or 19: ? Hiking to the base of the Grand Canyon, maybe?

June 19 or 20: Recovering from my “grand finale of the summer” hike

June 25-28: Studying for and taking Summer A Final Exams.

June 29: Flying home to Spring, Texas.

So I am writing this on my iPod on the way back to Atlanta. Kinda cool how the Notes application can be so helpful. Anyways week two went by and it was fun, finally got my log in information so I could do my duties on my account and computer rather than have to borrow somebody else’s. I am now getting into the full swing of things doing most if my duties without asking a log of questions and not screwing it up. It’s a little weird since I sometimes take a while to get things but I guess I’m just that good, lol. Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if someone catches a mistake that I did and comes talk to me in the near future.

The best part about the week was talking to our co-workers about our trip to Madrid. They were all impressed. On how the brand new interns were able to go all the way to Spain and back and still make it to work right on time. The extra vacation day did help us to get back.

We got to hop in the simulators again so that was really cool about the second week. I’ve also got assigned a new job, which is help build training scenarios to load in the FMS for the Boeing 767ER Sim. I would have training and oversight but it would be mainly my project. It hasn’t started yet but I’m looking forward to it.

Besides that, I traveled to Denver for the weekend. It was my mom’s 50th birthday party and i couldn’t miss that. It was 60s 70s themed so it was really cool. She had a bunch of her friends over, even people that she hasn’t seen in years! We all had to dress up in that era’s styles so I went to the thrift store, naturally an hour before the party, and got some random stuff (see the picture, it says enough, lol).

Last minute outfit!

But it was fun, facing, drinking, and family fun! It’s over now. We are on approach into Atlanta and I have work tomorrow. It’s ok though, work is fun and then comes the weekend! Looking into going to the Caribbean but we’ll see what happens.

Guess where we got to go last weekend!? Not Buenos Aires, not Dublin, and not even Barcelona but we were able to got to Madrid, Spain! It was a last minute thing. Both Barcelona and Dublin closed up and we didn’t want to pay the $135 visa in Buenos Aires so we looked a lot and noticed that Madrid was open!…barely.

It was a scramble at work finding the best flight possible. We even thought Copenhagen but we were a little too late on the check in so we still decided to take out chances with Madrid. We were at the gate hoping for a seat until a huge storm hit and delayed the flight. This meant that people that were flying into Atlanta were in holding patterns making them miss their flights and some seats opened up for us! We got coach class, which was fine, but man it was, a long 8-hour flight.

Anyways, we finally get there and make our way to the nearest information kiosk to learn on what there is to do around the city, and also to find our hotel. Since I am the only one that knows how to speak Spanish out of out intern group, I had to be a sort of tour guide for all of us. I haven’t spoken Spanish like that in a while and Spain has a different dialect so it knew it was going to be a little tough.

I walk up to the lady and actually did a pretty good job! I did stutter a bit but was able to communicate like a regular person. I was happy! Anyways, we found what we were looking for and now the trip from the airport to the hotel. We climbed on the correct bus but due to my infinite wisdom, got off one stop too early. I felt really bad since it was my fault but my group was really chill about it. We made it to the stop where we connected with the subway (metro in Spain) and got off at the right stop this time. It was a 10-minute walk, but nevertheless, a nice one. It felt like I was back in Colombia as the streets looked really similar to where I grew up.

We get to the hotel, got our room, and damn, it was nice! They only thing is that they were smaller. For a second I thought I had gone to Tokyo instead of Spain. But then again, I don’t think Europe has the obesity epidemic as Europe does so that’s probably why the rooms were smaller. Nevertheless, the room was very comfortable. We quickly showered and went straight out to the middle of town.

We got off at the Plaza del Sol where we found a place to eat fast since we had not had anything to eat in hours. So we find a place and get drinks and French fries or so we thought. Lady brings us some potato chips. So there we were, drinking sangria and eating potato chips. We looked ridiculous. After some good laughs and constant making fun of people, we walked around the city and stopped at some nice stores then walked over to Plaza Major where we saw a lone bag in the middle of the square with a Spiderman in it.

This was sketchy because we thought it was a bomb or something but it wasn’t; it was something worse. It was a fat guy in a tight Spiderman suit. The most disturbing thing we have ever seen but we still had to pose with him just to remember the moment.

After our superhero encounter (second for mine – remember superman from my drive to Atlanta entry?), we walked around the Plaza, made our way to the Royal Palace, and hopped back on the Metro because it was time for the highlight of the night, the Bullfight.

We get to the arena and I have to scavenge tickets from a random guy outside which we were all afraid that were not going to work but they did so we were happy. I have to brag though, me being able to speak Spanish helped a lot so I felt like a badass in front of my friends! We get to our seats and man they are small concrete slabs and right next to each other! It was like being in the New York Subway during rush hour. It was a fun time though.

The best part is that my friends that I was with had no idea that bulls were going to die and/or people get hurt. They were all freaking out once they found out and saw blood. Don’t get me wrong, I love animals, but while I was there, it had the most surreal feeling. It’s like I new it was wrong but I was not feeling sorry for the bulls. It was weird.

On the way out, we ran into the Delta Air Lines crew that flew us into Madrid. It was really cool because he captain told us some great things to do and check out. He also invited us to come and fly his planes with him once he gets back from his trips. We need to email him tomorrow when we are all at the office and see that he says.

Anyways, we made it back to Playa del Sol and walked around at night to find a bar to hang out at. We found an Irish Pub and hung out there for a little while before we went home. It was a long day and we wanted to sleep and be ready for the next day. The funny part is that we ran into the crew again and they kind of made fun of us for going to Madrid and going into an Irish Pub.

We made it back to the hotel just fine and wanted to get up early the next day so we could see more things. A phone alarm goes off and we all think it’s like 8:30am. Turns out its 12:30pm we were still sleeping! Those flights really screwed with our internal clocks a lot. We all jumped out of bed, got ready, and left. This time we went into this beautiful cathedral, walked around some residential streets and then ended up in Parque del Retiro. The best way to describe this park is that it is the Central Park of Madrid. Beautiful trees, paths, and scenery. It felt like you were in a different world altogether. It was really nice!

We felt like partying afterwards so we went to the hotel, changed, ran back out, and went straight for the ME Penthouse rooftop bar (this was one of the suggestions that the Delta Air Lines crew gave us). We get there and it’s amazing! Expensive drinks with a Mojito costing 12 Euro (around 15 dollars), but for the place, one drink was worth it.

After that we go somewhere else and have some more “fun” there. We headed back to Plaza del Carmen and I met up with my brother to go party as one big group. We hopped around bars and danced the night away.

It was 3am and we hopped on the bus to go back to the hotel. We wanted to take the metro but it was closed so the bus was the next cheapest thing. We got to the right stop and made it to the hotel. Through out our journey home, no one knew where we were going expect for me so I felt like the group navigator! (I know, I’m a dork).

I fell asleep but the other three stayed up until it was time for us to go to the airport. It was a three hours nap and once we got to the airport, we didn’t know if we were going to have seats or not. We finally got some and guess what they were!? Business class seats! I could lie down almost to a lay flat position and they gave us noise cancelling headsets to use. The food was amazing! Perfect food for the morning after. We landed in JFK and then went from there to ATL. It was a great trip overall. I can’t wait for our next one together.

So I finally got my badge! I was really worried about that. I needed to get my employee number to be able to get my badge just so I could request a log in and also activate my flying privileges. Yes that’s right! I get flight privileges to anywhere Delta flies! We are all planning a trip this weekend maybe to Buenos Aires, Dublin, or Barcelona. We looked at Cairo but might not be able to into that one. We’ll see though. Tomorrow, Friday, is when we will see where we are going. We fly stand by so we look at the flights that we have the best chance on getting on.

Anyways, the first week is almost done and I must say, it has been a very good one. It still was a little slow just trying to get things set up but I have met all of my project managers and the people that I will be working with. There are some really cool things that I will be doing. One of those is building a business case for upper level management in eliminating paper in the cockpit and ramp operations. Pilots would be using more of an electronic flight bag that would be inter-connected to the airplane and flight operations. If this becomes possible, it would eliminate around $500,000/yr of paper cost in Atlanta alone. If all the other hubs follow suit, it could save millions for the company! And here I am, a regular undergraduate student barely 21 working on this. I feel pretty badass! J

A couple other projects is making sure that pilots are registered to go in Israeli Airspace (because you must be cleared before you take off due to security reasons), doing jumpseat authorization letters, helping the other inters with their projects. I’m excited because all of the interns in Flight Operations (which is only 3 total including me) will be working with each other helping each other out on projects, learning and making mistakes, but build experience in the process. I cannot wait until we are left alone to do our own things and be treated like employees at Delta.

I think that that is the thing that I like most about this internship. We are not the interns that run for coffee or get food for the boss. We are treated like employees working on similar projects that veteran employees have been working on. Only one week and I already feel like part of the team. I am really excited.