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majdalenaska · 4 years

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Up in the air aka glorified waitress

Today it’s been exactly two years since I officially started my cabin crew journey and working for Norwegian Air, hence I‘ve decided to start a blog. Let’s see how it goes..

Below I describe my 6 days‘ trip down route. I hope you will enjoy it a bit and get a little glimpse into my flying world.

I’m talking to a young girl in the elevator; she looks at me in my uniform and says: „Wow, you are a cabin crew? Well, in fact she meant to say : „ Wow you are so lucky, you get to travel the whole world“!

That made me smile, but deep down I thought, hmm that’s a bit of an overstatement.

No, really, many of my friends have a bit biased ideas about this world of flying and what it really feels like to work on a plane. Initially, I was very naive as well, not having a clue as to how I was going to feel on board, how I was going to interact with passengers from different countries and cultures who speak languages that I might not understand. What it is like meeting a different crew every single flight - a bunch of folks who you have never met before, and having to pretend you are proficient enough to provide excellent customer service.

No one can prepare you for the actual flight and being on board. The jetlagg, the anxiety, stress and fatique but with time it all goes away and you get used to it, somehow.

But, on the other hand, who can say they’ve had a steak for dinner in one of the most famous restaurant in Buenos Aires and danced Tango with one of the locals? Or who gets to experience flying in the skies at 39 000 ft every week using a Dreamliner 787 as their office? And getting paid for all the traveling around the world? To sum it up all, I’d say my life is kinda up and down, literally.

This week I’ve had a 6 days‘ trip: London-New York-Madrid-New York-Madrid-London, sounds awful, doesn’t it? It is kind of an odd pattern but since we cover the workload of other bases, we have to be ready anytime for anything. This is aviation! Sometimes you never know where you could be flying next.

28.8./ 8:20 CET- London Gatwick

I meet my crew at Costa coffee at Gatwick and first introductions can begin. There are over 800 crews in Norwegian, so in most cases you will see everyone for the first time, and there is a little chance that you will be flying with someone you’ve already met before. I really appreciate when I see someone I’ve worked with on my previous flights, so there is a slight possibility. I’m feeling a bit awkward, I don’t seem to know anyone. I am not keen on small talk but there is no other choice. The flight crew aren‘t looking very happy today but maybe a smile from cabin crew will cheer them up.

Together we are headed on board and in the forward cabin (PREMIUM) we have a quick briefing before the flight. Our senior assigns positions of the door which we are responsible for. Together we talk through all emergency questions and also discuss first aid topics. The Captain provides us with information regarding turbulences and the flight time, which is the only information everyone’s been waiting for. I’m feeling tired, didn’t have a good night’s sleep , but once the meal service starts, I am ready to go. The flight runs relatively smoothly, we do have an enormous bunch of orders though, which is not ideal, if there are only 8 cabin crew in total. Flights, especially to NYC, are ridicilously busy sometimes.

We finish the service and half the crew can hit the crew rest, which is located at the rear of the cabin. It’s my turn so I can get myself into the little bunk, close my eyes trying to get some rest;this is so far the best part of the flight. If anyone of my readers has ever flown on a Boeing 787 before - please keep reading. You can find the lavatories on the other side of the crew rest and if you see the sign CABIN CREW ONLY , please stay away, this is definitely not a lavatory. You might wonder why I mention this, but 99% of our passengers do try to open our doors and fail miserably.

Anyway, we get to New York city around 1 PM local time (18.00 CET), and since this airport is one of the busiest airports out there we sometimes spend around 45 minutes taxing to the gate and waiting and waiting… (the worst part of a flight)

15:30 local time/ 20 : 30 CET – New York City

Two hours later, we finally reach our hotel in Manhattan; the whole journey from the airport can take up to 1 hour. But we stay in a hotel in Manhattan, so no one complains really. Everyone gets to their rooms and we talk about what to do later. We plan a rooftop bar in Brooklyn, but it starts raining, bummer. I take a shower and a short nap, since later I plan on going to Whole Foods with one of my colleagues. Shouldn’t have done that; after waking up I feel so drained that I am only capable of going downstairs for a pizza at the corner.

The pizza tastes delicious though and I put a Netflix on, unwind and relax. At 8 o´clock I can’t keep my eyes open anymore and I fall asleep. At 2 am I wake up and lie around in bed till 5 am. Thank you jet lag! Being an experienced flight attendant, however, I do have my morning routine. I do a bit of yoga, meditate and head for the coast to have a jog, which works perfect for jetlagg issues. You usually need a buddy who will drag you out of the bed, though. This time I pulled it off on my own!

It really feels amazing to be jogging along the Hudson river at 7 am, passing thrilled New Yorkers with their dogs and strollers, thinking about how awesome it might be to actually live here. After a while, I sit on a bench, listen to music and admire the views over Manhattan and get carried away. I come for a run here every single morning.

Back at the hotel, I go downstairs to have breakfast and meet the rest of my crew. A big breakfast makes me tired once again, so no big plans for today, I’m afraid. But maybe I could manage some shopping in Century 21 and a lunch in Whole foods? ( BTW This place is awesome, just don’t get too carried away, otherwise you’ll be crying at the till.) Later we fly back to Madrid and I desperately long for a good night’s sleep. Tough luck, though.

I play a meditation video to calm me down but it’s pointless.

29.8/21:15 local time( 02:15 CET)- New York City

It’s not ideal to start your flight at 3 am European time, as you can imagine. Anyway, in the world of flight attendants you get used to anything…anything at all. One hour on a bus to the airport, one hour taxing to the gate…man, I am drained. I am sitting on my jumpseat about 50 minutes and there are 3 passengers sitting opposite me.( Cabin crew must smile no matter what, so wakey wakey Magdalena!) Luckily all the passengers are asleep so I can relax. The flight is stress and turbulence free and it only takes 6 hours and 30 minutes,yay. Well, sometimes it is rather enjoyable. Although every flight is utterly different, to be honest. Fatique, arguments with passengers, arguments with crew, fainting passengers, drunk passengers…take your pick. But, hooray, today no one has vomitted on me and I haven‘t spilled any drinks on anyone. Not yet, at least.

30.8/14:35 local time - Madrid

We are thrilled arriving in Madrid. My idea of the upcoming days looks like this: The sun, the pool and chill. I leave my uniform in the hotel room and in the evening I meet my colleagues from Hungary and Poland. Together we set off towards the center of Madrid. The plan is to stroll around the city and get some Tapas and Sangria. We are lucky enough to be guided by one of our colleagues who is local in Madrid.

He shows us a few places of interests. I am mainly excited by the beautiful park called Cuarttel de la Montana, which gives you a stunning view over the city. We can‘t possibly finish our evening in Madrid without visiting the local Chocolateria San Gines, where the best Churros is made. The next day we explore the shopping mall next door, and spend a great time relaxing at the pool and regaining energy for the upcoming night flight.

31.8./18:25 local time

All bags packed and prepared, I am headed down to the lobby to meet my crew. We are flying back to New York City, which I am not really keen on, due to my poor sleep on the East Coast. Interestingly, lately I‘ve preferred flying to the West coast of USA where I don’t have a major issue with jetlagg and sleep.( Though it only took a year and half to get used to all those time differences, haha.) We have a nice flight, the only trouble being that almost 80% of all passengers are Spanish speaking, so we send our only Spanish speaking colleague L. everywhere we can. L. is not that excited about the situation. We have a small issue with a passenger who refuses to give up on her own meal with nuts. Unfortunately for her, we have a passenger on board, who is allergic to nuts and hence it’s strictly forbidden to be eating anything containing nuts. But Mrs. B. is not happy about that and complains that she only eats foods that are vegan, gluten free an organic and we can’t really provide that from our snack bar, according to her. I try my best explaining and offering something else but in the end I have to call my senior. We bribe her with a freshly made coffee which is the only thing she is willing to consume. Anyway, at the end of the flight. Mrs. B opens up her own meal box risking an anaphylactic shock for the poor passenger. Fortunately, nothing happens and her meal doesn‘t trigger an allergic reaction. It really feels utterly frustrating that although we do our best to explain the seriousness of the situation, Mrs. B. ignores everything we say and put the life of a co - passenger at a risk. I think it is outrageous how some people are so ignorant and arrogant. Yet, there‘s so much more a cabin crew can come up against and have to deal with.( I just can‘t really stress enough the importance of working on yourself, your resiliance and patience, to be able to face all those kinds of challenges without ever losing your head and nerve.)

Another situation comes up with a lady complaining about not getting a seat in exit row , where she can hang up a bassinet for her baby during the flight. Since she only speaks spanish, my colleague L. apologizes to her saying that they must have made a mistake at the check in desk and she will have to take another seat unfortunately.

Service is taking ages and is not pleasant at all, no one can understand me, but eventually I am good to go with Vino Bianco and Vino Rosso. Spanish is not that difficult after all.

We get to the Manhattan hotel at around 1 am in the morning, which is 6 am European time. Having an alcoholic beverage goes aside and I am only focused on my beautiful bed on 23rd floor. I am so tired I would happily stay in that cosy warm bed until tomorrow’s pick up. But I forget I am at East coast so I am up at 6.30 heading for breakfast. I don’t feel like running today, apologies Hudson river. After breakfast I feel drowsy again, I roll in the bed and put on some Netflix. I get my lunch in Preta Manger nearby and go back to my hotel room. You‘re thinking right, jetlagg is not an easy beast sometimes.

1.9 /21.15 local tme- 02.15 CET- New York

Here comes the very last working flight of this pattern and we are going back to Madrid, yay, feels like Dejavu. On the way to the JFK airport everyone falls asleep since it takes about an hour to get there and it is quite late in the evening. What is the best thing about night flights? Almost every passenger is fast asleep before the take off, awesome! We have a quiet time in both galleys and the flight only takes 6,5 hours, which is a big plus of NYC flights. Compared it with Buenos Aires, which is about 13 hours from London Gatwick, a bit of a difference, eh?

2.9. /12:59 CET – Madrid

We’ve arrived in Madrid but our flight back to London Gatwick is due in 5 hours. We are lucky enough to have our hotel booked for us so we can refresh and relax for a bit. We don’t operate this flight- it is called DEADHEADING, which means, that we fly as passengers in our civil clothes. We get to Gatwick around 7.30 in the evening and everything seems great. There wasn’t any delay, no baggage was lost, everything is as should be. Around 10 o’clock in the evening I get home and order a pizza and a beer from Deliveroo. Unpacking my suitcase can wait till tomorrow - I fall into my cosy bed and I am not getting out of it for the next 12 hours.

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/07/07/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-7717/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 7/7/17

I took last week off, but I hope y’all had a great 4th of July weekend. Life’s still kinda kicking my ass, so this’ll be an abridged edition this week.

I finally got around to watching a movie! It’s been on my list since I first heard it was in pre-production, and I’m amazed it took me this long to watch it, considering my love for the source material. The Founder stars Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc, the “founder” of McDonald’s who really just stole the concept from the McDonald Brothers. A down-on-his-luck shake machine salesman, Kroc happens upon the fledgling McDonald’s restaurant in Southern California. Knowing a good thing when he saw it, he pretty much insisted on becoming a part of the operation, mainly focused on franchising the business. And that’s when things get interesting. I LOVE McDonald’s. You can hate me all you want, but like Jim Gaffigan says, “Everyone has their own McDonald’s”. Mine just happens to be the actual company. I don’t know enough about the history of the company to know how factual an account the movie was, but it was sure damn entertaining. Keaton is amazing in it, and I feel like anyone would enjoy the movie even if they think they don’t give a rat’s ass about McDonald’s as a company. I highly recommend this film.

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We finally got our first trailer for Marvel’s Inhumans, and now I realize why they were so hesitant to release it. MY GOD THIS LOOKS TERRIBLE! It looks like Into The Badlands – a show that I hate because people fawn over it when it looks like something that would’ve aired after Xena on Saturday afternoons 20 year ago. Yeah, I even told one of the Badlands creators that when he confronted me over my “appraisal” on Twitter. Badlands is a bad show, but it gets “diversity points”, so folks give it a pass. This show doesn’t even get diversity right, so it’s really just a shitshow in the making. I hate hate HATE that this is considered an official part of the MCU, even if it’s just a part of the never-referenced TV wing. Anyway, this trainwreck debuts in IMAX on September 1st, but will officially air on ABC beginning September 22nd.

Speaking of diversity points, CBS lost all of theirs when they let the Asians go from Hawaii Five-O last weekend. Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park both left the show after salary negotiations broke down as they requested pay equal to their costars. I’ve never seen more than 15 minutes of that show, but I know the dude from Lost seemed pretty important to things. He was basically the White guys’ interpreter to all things native. CBS has claimed that they offered them sizable increases, which weren’t deemed acceptable to Park and Kim. Now the Five-O showrunner, Peter Lenkov, is now joining the side of the network, saying that CBS made “generous offers” to the stars, yet they decided not to renew their contracts.

This has turned into a discussion of race in Hollywood and how things still aren’t equal across the board. I’m a big fan of billing. Billing is important, and should go to the most well-known star. It’s the reason all the ’89 Batman posters say “Jack Nicholson” first. Dude was a bigger star. Now, I didn’t watch Lost and I didn’t watch Battlestar Galactica, but I still recognize Kim and Park from those shows. Maybe it’s just because I’m a geek and folks were always talking about those shows. The show’s star, Alex O’Loughlin? I can’t name a thing he’s been in. Don’t know that dude from Adam. And the other lead? James Caan’s kid? Whatever. Y’all mean you couldn’t pony up the cash to keep Lost Dude and Battlestar Girl? We’re not talking about big names here so, unless there was a favored nations clause where O’Loughlin would have to get a raise if they got raises, thereby thwarting the whole “equality” thing, I don’t see what the problem was. As has been pointed out, all O’Loughlin and Caan had to do was stand in solidarity with their costars and this would’ve been a non-issue. Word on the street it O’Loughlin is quitting at the end of the season anyway, so it’s not like we’re talking another 5 years here. He couldn’t keep his ego in check for a season? Nah, for too many folks, as long as they’ve got theirs, they don’t care if you’ve got yours.

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We also got a trailer for Pitch Perfect 3, forcing me to reiterate that NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE A TRILOGY. I know everyone involved likes money, but sometimes there are natural, built-in ends to things. That thing was a 2-movie franchise and that’s it. Don’t forget – I lived that life. I was in the same competition the Bellas won in the first film (we came in 2nd), and I experienced the aca-graduation blues that the girls experienced in the second film. That’s pretty much it. There’s nowhere else to go. I mean, sure there are some random outlier outcomes. One of my groupmates is a hit producer in Asia now. Another is a pretty big pop star in Hong Kong. The rest of us? Dead-end jobs and bills. I used to occasionally do karaoke, but even that got to be too depressing. That shit is fun while it lasts, and then you’ve got to move on. So, in that vein, I can understand the plot of the 3rd movie, with the girls wanting to have one last hurrah, but I don’t really understand the concept of putting them on a USO tour. Is that something the troops wanna see? Has Pentatonix been dropped into the theater of war? It just seems kinda farfetched to me, and I was fine with how things were left in the last movie. Sure, I’ll see it, but it won’t be in a theater.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

Hide grandma’s wallet – QVC is buying out Home Shopping Network.

After 3 seasons, The Carmichael Show has been canceled by NBC. I really wish someone else would snatch it up, as it’s a smart show

Netflix has renewed Dear, White People for a 2nd season. Meanwhile, they canceled Girlboss after one season. Reed Hastings giveth and he taketh away.

Speaking of Netflix, hearing the cries of fans, Sense8 will officially conclude with a 2-hour finale special

Netflix also renewed one of my favorite original shows, F is For Family, for a 3rd season.

Apparently a series based on the popular Step Up film series, called Step Up: High Water, will premiere on YouTube Red, where absolutely NOBODY is gonna watch it.

Fuller House season 3 will coincidentally premiere on the 30th anniversary of Full House, September 22nd.

Make your vacations weird again, as Cirque du Soleil has purchased Blue Man Group.

Patton Oswalt is engaged to 80s actress Meredith Salenger. Ya know, the same Patton whose wife died last year. I guess we all grieve in our own ways…

Lack of interest brought down The House, which bombed at the box office last weekend. It was reportedly Will Ferrell’s lowest live-action opening for a major studio.

Nick Fury will reportedly be making his MCU return in 2019’s Captain Marvel

HBO is reportedly getting the True Detective band back together, with a 3rd season to star Mahershala Ali

Nixing speculation that she was still up for the White House Press Secretary job, Kimberly Guilfoyle has reupped her contract with Fox News

Rob Lowe and his sons will chase the supernatural in The Lowe Files, and I literally cannot wait.

New game show, Snap Decision, premieres August 7th. Hosted by David Allen Grier, the show breaks precedent because it will debut on GSN and in syndication on the same date.

The world’s leading (and only) bar scientist favorited my tweet this week

We’re gonna do something different here this week. Usually, if you’ve been paying attention to the week’s news, you can at least try to figure out who or what had the best week. Some weeks it’s harder to choose something than others. Then I remembered, “Will, this is YOUR site.” After all, this is all pop culture through my lens, so it’s my rules. So, sometimes I might choose something that meant a lot to me that week, while you were none the wiser. But I bring it up on the site so that we’re all on the same page. And that’s the kind of pick I have this week.

After watching The Founder, I was left thinking, “Michael Keaton is a goddamn national treasure”. After watching Spider-Man: Homecoming last night (yeah, we’ll talk about it next week, when more of y’all have had a chance to see it), I was thinking “Why have we been sleeping on Keaton the past 20 years?” I mean, with the exception of The Other Guys, I honestly hadn’t seen a Michael Keaton movie since probably Batman Returns, and yet Birdman is the one considered his “comeback vehicle”. In The Founder, he really made you feel for a traveling salesman who was at the end of his rope. After a string of laughable failures, he finally found something to which he could hitch his wagon: McDonald’s. And while he also had to prove this to everyone in his sphere of orbit, most importantly he had to prove this to himself. He really needed a win, and Keaton did such a great job conveying that.

In Homecoming, Keaton plays Adrian Toomes, better known as the Vulture (though he’s never called that by name in the film). Not unlike Alfred Molina’s Dr. Octopus, he’s something of a sympathetic villain. Were it not for the fact that comic book franchises deal in the good/bad binary, you could almost relate to him and understand where he’s coming from. He’s a modern-day working class guy who feels ignored by the fat cats up on high. He doesn’t have evil goals. He simply wants to provide for his family, and he has a code of honor that dictates he must do whatever it takes to make good on that promise. I felt that Keaton did a great job expressing the plight of the working man. Sure, he got to utter some cheesy villain dialogue, but that simply comes with the territory. If you stopped for a minute, and ignored the fact that Spider-Man HAS to win, you realize that Toomes is actually kind of on to something. Again, though, I’ll get into more Homecoming thoughts next week.

My pal Chad pretty much swears by Michael Keaton as his favorite actor – a lot of that having to do with his immense love of 1989’s Batman. I’ve gotta say, I was never a huge fan of Keaton’s Batman, and when Chad would laud Keaton’s praises, I wasn’t really seeing it. I see it now, though. I have seen the light and I am healed! Dear Hollywood, more Michael Keaton, please! He pretty much impressed me on two different cinematic fronts this week, and that’s why Michael Keaton had the West Week Ever.

#80s #A Cappella #Batman #Comics #Marvel #Movies #Politics #Race #Social Media #Syndication #Television #West Week Ever

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junker-town · 7 years

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When football goes away, what do we do with our weekends?

We asked St. Louis Rams fans and, surprise, Sundays weren’t ruined.

Football is about rhythms. The snap, the catch, the throw. The hit, the crunch, the thud. The drums of the high school marching band beating steady, the speakers of NFL stadiums pumping out top-40 hits. The refs blowing whistles, the players making guttural sounds as the huddle breaks. The stands chanting names, clapping hands.

As a fan, you feel these cadences somewhere in your chest. Maybe the pit of your stomach. They define your Sundays. They bleed into your Monday nights, your Thursday nights, your Friday nights, your Saturdays. For those who love it, football is a metronome that ticks throughout the fall to structure the weeks and order the days. It ticks back through time, too, anchoring you to your school, your family, or your home.

All sports do this, but football has become Sunday Service in America in a way that basketball, baseball, and hockey — with their massive, sprawling schedules and nightly games — have not.

So what happens when football goes away?

There’s no real way to figure this out, because football is woven into American culture like the stitching on a Starter jacket. But as people start to ponder the future of the sport — will parents let their kids play while evidence mounts that, hey, football might not be so great for you? — it’s a valid question to ask.

The best simulation of an America without football is to check in with the fans the Rams left behind in St. Louis a year after the team relocated to Los Angeles. I thought about finding a high school or college that no longer had a program, but I wanted to talk to the biggest group of people who had suddenly lost the team they loved. Rams fans (well, mostly ex-Rams fans, as it turned out) seemed like my best bet.

I put a call out on social media and got emails from more than 60 people. There wasn’t anything scientific about this. I didn’t target any particular cross section of any particular demographic, so the responses aren’t necessarily true for the entire region, nor is it indicative of what taking away a team elsewhere might be like.

But it is a glimpse into a collection of fan psyches. St. Louis wasn’t the biggest football town, you might argue — not compared to Dallas, Boston, Pittsburgh, or Green Bay. The Rams weren’t that good. It still was a football town, though, one that is now suing the NFL for a whole lot of money. And many people still loved the Rams.

The split was ugly. It left a group of angry, disillusioned, and bitter fans in its wake, many of whom described it like a nasty divorce. The ones I talked to took the time to answer an eight-question survey, often with close to 2,000 words. They wrote about their families, their team, their time, and their new, post-Rams lives. Many of them said writing it all down was cathartic. Their responses are below, edited only for length.

Several themes came through my inbox. Some weren’t surprising, such as how painful it was when the Rams left.

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

It was kind of like it was like a divorce. That’s the best way to put it. Where you’re trying everything you can to get your spouse to stay, trying to go to counseling, trying to buy them a new car, trying to work it out. And they just want nothing to do with you because they’ve got a girlfriend in L.A.

— James Kendall, Western Kentucky

It was a mixture of anger and sadness. With everything that happened in Ferguson a few years ago, it is hard seeing St Louis completely trashed by a slime ball like Stan Kroenke (who somehow is in the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame). I was angry at the NFL for allowing the farce of the relocation process to take place. Their "guidelines" are a joke designed to give political and legal cover to greedy billionaires that simply extort local governments and fans dedicated to their hometown team.

— Alex Kuhn, Wildwood

All sorts of things. Extreme anger, mainly, which I expressed in my mind by visualizing me Ric Flair chopping Stanley Steamer Kroenke's throat into oblivion. Also, I went through a semi-severe depression for a few days. I cried some the night after the relocation was announcing, sobbing in my bed until my now fiancee reminded me that real people die every day and maybe that would be something more worth crying for. I then ignored her and weeped some more, until the a copious amount of tears ran down into my neckbeard and made me feel like a wet dog. That was my cue to stop.

— Zachary Poelker, St. Louis

Many were somewhat devastated that their kids wouldn’t be able to grow up with the same team they had. Some felt they were losing the franchise that connected them to their parents at St. Louis itself. Almost all of them said it was harder than they expected it to be.

I’m 18, and I’ve been a fan for all my life because my dad is from St. Louis. I’m currently a high school in senior. I go to school about 30 minutes south of San Francisco. [...] My dad loves the city and my grandparents live there but for me the heritage of the city will always revolve around sports. Currently, I’m in search for a new favorite NFL team. Now that the Raiders are out of the question (because they are moving from the Bay Area), I’m going to have to turn to the 49ers or the Chiefs because they are the only other Missouri team. I was planning to be in St. Louis a lot more, specifically at this sports bar named Lester’s with some of the best fans in the world: Missouri sports fan.

— Ellie Lieberman, San Francisco

I have a 9 month old son. My wife and I found out she was pregnant about a month before the relocation vote had happened. It's is really sad to think I'll never be able to take my son to a game in our hometown. [...] Some of my best memories of time with my Father were from the 99 Rams season. The Rams had been a pretty rough team to watch in their first few years in town. It reached a point where every Sunday, my dad couldn't give tickets away at Sunday church. But when 99 rolled around, we had Marshall Faulk, we had Holt, Bruce, Hakim....it was on. I went to every playoff game at home. I remember dropping to my knees at our house during the Super Bowl praying to GOD PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T LET THE TITANS SCORE. The Greatest Show on Turf in my opinion was the most excited team to watch of all time.

— Christopher Marischen, St. Louis

Many fans said they weren’t sure what they’d do with themselves on Sundays before the season started, but ultimately found that life without a team wasn’t so bad.

I thought I was going to still watch football. My dad and I watched it every Sunday for years. But I ended up doing everything else. I went to MO Wine Country with friends. I went to special events. I went to parks. I went to family events. I drove up to Chicago to watch the Cards-Cubs at Wrigley. It was the best Fall I have had in years. I accomplished so much and never wasted a Sunday on the couch.

—Jeff Dreste, St. Louis

I'm a proud family man. I'm happy to spend time with my daughter and wife.

— Daryl, St. Louis

I thought I’d sleep, eat terrible food, and watch terrible 80's movies featuring Michelle Pfeiffer on the CW because I am too poor to afford cable. And I ended up sleeping, eating terrible food, and watching terrible 80's movies featuring Michelle Pfeiffer on the CW because I am too poor to afford cable. Oh I also go to the grocery store on some Sundays now, maybe about twice/month, which beats my previous high of never going to the grocery store ever so…

— Zachary Poelker, St. Louis

The Super Bowl was the first NFL game I watched start to finish last season. I watched here and there during the playoffs, mostly as background noise, and if I was with somebody who was watching a game I wouldn't storm out of the room in protest. But mostly, I stopped caring. I'd run errands or watch other sports or watch Netflix. It's actually pretty amazing how much more productive of a person I was--it turns out that drinking beer at 9 a.m. on Sundays was not the most efficient use of my time.

— John F., St. Louis

About half of the responders said that they kept watching the NFL but chose new teams like the Titans, Chiefs, and Packers (a few people said they went with Green Bay because the team is publicly funded). Others shifted their focused to root for college programs. Some said they hoped St. Louis got an expansion team again someday.

But a lot of them just ... well, stopped watching football. And some of those people said that they could easily imagine a world without the NFL, since that’s basically what their lives had become. For many, fantasy teams were the only reason they paid any attention at all.

Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images

At the end of the day, football is just a game, and I refuse to let the greed of a few disrupt my life. The sun still comes up in the morning, I still have a family and a job, and St. Louis still has franchises like the Cardinals and Blues that are run with fan-interest in mind, not just the financial interest of a crooked owner. I miss caring about the NFL. Much of my pigskin interest has transferred over to Saturdays and the college game. Hopefully my love for the NFL will return at some point, but right now I feel like a guy who just got dumped by his girlfriend for a richer, flashier guy who will take her for granted and never love her the way that I did.

— David Jones, Fenton, MO

As you can tell with my other answers, the rhythm of my life has not be disrupted at all. I've got more free time on NFL Sundays than ever. I can now spend more time and energy on NCAA football and rooting for my not-so-good Mizzou Tigers. :)

— Ben Choi, Columbus, MO

"Rams" had become part of my friends and my lexicon of language. Sort of tongue-in-cheek, but we used "Rams" as a replacement for anything positive. "You got a 98% on your biology final?! Rams!". Honestly, that is the only real rhythm disruptor. Outside of a long-running joke, the only hangup was finding a shelter to give the dozen or so Rams shirts and jerseys I had collected over the years.

— Timothy Barnes, St. Louis

I hope in my lifetime the NFL ceases to exist - not because they took my team away, but that process definitely opened my eyes to the creepy machinations of the league and allowed me to critically see all the complete shit they are able to get away with. Of course, 'my' team moving pales in comparison to real-life issues affecting actual people - like player safety, long-term healthcare of ex-players, co-opting cancer awareness drives to make cash, bilking municipalities into subsidizing billionaires' clubhouses, using 'patriotism' to make cash / pump up the USA's military-industrial complex, mishandling off-field issues involving players, et al. Those are all real issues that this sociopathic league gets away with every single year. Shame on me, I suppose, for not turning against the league until it affected me personally.

— Jack Kelly, St. Louis

Aside from making money, the one thing that the NFL seems to be best at is angering large portions of the country. Some Rams fans even said they started rooting for the Patriots — perhaps the most hated team in the league — because they were also battling the NFL.

If you make people hate you, they won’t wish you well. That’s not surprising. But what was surprising to me was how many of those people: a) said they were living happy lives without football, and b) were as surprised as I was by that turn of events.

This is a fairly simple takeaway. You might think, “Well, yeah, of course it’s not the end of the world, it’s just a game,” but I think that underestimates just how much it means to people. How baked into the schedule of people’s lives it can become.

The fact that many fans seemed relieved to realize they were capable of structuring their lives themselves is important. It shows that a league constantly trying to snake its tentacles as firmly into as many fans’ hours as it can might not always have as firm a grip as you might imagine. Many fans said they were happier now that their Sundays were free of Stan Kroenke and Jeff Fisher (although everyone’s are now free of Fisher — 7-9, baby). They spent more time with family and friends. Caring less — or not at all — about football gave them stretches of free time that they previously thought they didn’t want.

When I started this, I was expecting only negative reactions to the void football left. I was expecting people to say they missed their personal connection to the league, that they wanted their team back more than anything they put in its place. I assumed the American appetite for the NFL was insatiable.

Instead, I found a small pocket of people in a small corner of the country who have learned the (very) hard way that life goes on without football. And that sometimes, losing the thing you love can actually set you free.

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