A beira de um ataque de nervos (in English)

Today I woke up in Manchester, England! And since the keyboard at the hotel reception's computer does not have the Portuguese accents I will write in English.

For the 8th consecutive day I spent more than 6 hours on a plane! Will probably become dry like a prune in the next few days. I even think that what I have been doing is not good for the brain since yesterday I forgot my name for a few minutes!

Well, I was in Frankfurt on Monday. Actually I flew from Dubai to Frankfurt, via Vienna on Monday and had dinner with Daniela Stein, an old time friend, in front of the Opera. All of this in preparation for a job interview with Lufthansa!

On Tuesday I woke up early (had nightmares all night long, of course), had two liters of coffee and went over to the Personalabteilung of the Lufthansa-Basis in Frankfurt Airport. You cannot imagine how nervous I was! First because I would have to interact with people in German and second because I was (and still am) unsure about getting a new job, leaving Emirates, loving Emirates, hating Germany, moving away, etc, etc, etc...

For the first two hours of the interview, during the group exercices and the English test all was fine. I was just sweating like a pig but had a T-shirt underneath the suit to control it all(and had applied and extra coating of deodorant just in case). So I was just smiling, saying Ja, Nein, Hahaha, Naturlich, Tannenbaum, Schokolade, Kase... when I had to walk into the psychologists' office for the Personalvorstellungsgesrpraech I felt like fainting, or running away. All I wanted to shout was: Sheik Ahmed, bring me back to Dubai!!! Well, had to face it. And the lady was ready to 'destroy' me! She could not understand how come somebody who works for Emirates and (in her words) live like princes and princesses, not paying taxes, earning rivers of money and being part of today's most successful airline could think of applying for humble Lufthansa, where I would earn 1500 euros a month before the 40% German tax!!! AND SHE WAS RIGHT!!! But this I figured out before I even boarded the plane for Frankfurt!!!

Once the interview was over I ran to the Emirates counter and took the next flight back to Dubai. Almost kissed and huged the whole crew!!! And during the flight I thought: how lucky I am to have a job with Emirates.

Had barely time to rest in Dubai as yesterday morning I needed to operate the flight to Manchester, which was a disaster. Full, children everywhere (not well behaved German kids but Indian and English brats). Very new crew, little experience, I was running up and down the cabin like a headless chicken and thinking: What the hell??? Who could possibly like this????