U.S. Trip

Well, it was time to fly across the ditch again to the U.S. This time it was a new record: Brisbane --> Los Angeles --> Santa Rosa --> Detroit --> Syracuse --> Washington Dulles --> Los Angeles --> Brisbane. All of that in 10 days. I guess my new boss wanted to kick the tires and see if I would fall apart when given a challenge.

Well, I almost did: on the Syracuse --> Dulles leg of the trip the plane's landing gear came down,

1. With a thud  -- No worries
2. Went up again! -- Slightly worried
3. About 50 meters above the landing strip the Pilot floored it -- Lightly nervous
4. And we found ourselves circling 5000 foot up wondering what was going on. -- Nervous
5. After 40 minutes of testing flaps, throttle, landing gear, control surfaces etc. -- Slightly scared
6. The pilot reminded us that if we needed to review any safety measures our safety card was in the pocket of the seat in front of us. -- Scared
7. He added: We expect an uneventful landing and the stewardess looked like she'd just soiled herself -- Really Scared.
8. As the plane came down for the second attempt, the last few meters -- Scared the shit outta me!
9. And the plane landed with no problems. -- Cool bananas + poker face.