Here I am again, a bit sooner than
expected. It’s already the 12th of September right now and for the rest of the
month I am only scheduled for two days of class. Somewhere in between I also
have to do my basecheck (flying some circuits with the actual aircraft) but for
the rest not that much anymore.
This means that for the following two weeks
already I will have a lot of time to spare. The reason for this waiting again
is the paperwork and scheduling. It will also take about a month before they
finish our uniforms. The tailor performed the measurements last week, from head
till tow. But with a fully filled order book of the tailor it can be a while
before it’s finished.
This also means that I have some free time
to write something here. I am currently in the apartment I will share with
Yannick and Ivo for the next six months.
After a long search we finally found an
appropriate place to stay for our time in Jakarta. It was not easy to find a
decent place with three rooms meeting our requirements. And for sure not for
only six months since most owners only rent for at least a year. But since we
will probably be moved after our linetraining to a base outside of Jakarta it
would have been impossible.
Eventually we found an apartment right next
to Emporium Pluit Mall located just 15 minutes from the airport by taxi. It is
a complex of a few apartment buildings and several houses with all the
necessary things required.
Living in the same complex are another two
Dutch guys from our group and today there should be the two other Belgian guys
moving in too. It is always nice to have some familiar people around and if the
schedules are the same we can share a taxi to save some expenses.
For the rest there is not really much to do
around here. We will have to spend our time in the complex or at the mall next
door. They have all the necessary shops and places to eat we need and even a
movie theatre with English spoken movies.
Yesterday they installed the LPG to cook
and we even got our requested rise steamer and waterdispenser. Now we can start
living like true “locals” and eat rice everyday.
I am happy I can make my own food again
because going out to eat was starting to be boring. The choices are a bit more
limited compared to back home for the dished I am used to cook. But I am not in
Europe anymore so I will have to get used to it.
I received some good news as well from the
Belgian aviation authorities yesterday. We only get a validation to fly in
Indonesia based on our original license from Belgium. This means we need to
keep this Belgian license valid. But that means I should go back to Belgium
every year to do another skilltest in the simulator for the Belgian authorities
on top of the two skilltest I already have to do for Air Asia.
Since the policy on licensing is different
for every country I as told to inform myself with Belgium. They gave me some good news for a change,
they are allowed to re validate my Belgian license based on the skilltest I will
perform with Air Asia. But they will put a restriction on my qualification for
the A320 to be only valid for Air Asia operations. Since I will not be flying
for another company in Indonesia this doesn’t really matter.
I only need to do a skilltest in Belgium to
remove this restriction if I choose to come back to Belgium to fly there.
With other words, I can spend the time I
would be back home fully on family, friends and Belgian beer and food! I don’t
know yet when this will be since that will depend on the future and my
financial status. It will anyway be after my linetraining, if that finally
would start.
There is not really much to say for the
rest. I still don’t have Internet in our apartment; I hope that will be
arranged this week. I am limited to free Wi-Fi in the mall and via the limited Internet
on my smartphone. I will hopefully catch up on my Skype conversations next week
because I am receiving some complaints about people who are already missing me.
I also made a Picasa album that I will use
to post some pictures now and than. It is an online photo album you guys can
look at. Its just a random collection without much explanation but at least you
can see what I do around here while waiting to fly.
Here is the link:
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