Soulless & Feral

7/17

It has been a long few days.

I left South Carolina Wednesday evening around 7pm, and arrived in Qatar on Thursday evening around 7pm. After a decent night’s sleep. I was up, re-packed, and waiting for a flight from Qatar on Friday. After a very long 12 hours in the transit terminal, I arrived in Kuwait around 11pm to await my flight from Kuwait to Iraq. It is now 1am local, and I’m waiting for a flight that should leave Saturday morning. As I said… it has been a long few days.

Having said that, it hasn’t been a bad few days. Aside from a screw-up on United’s part that made it difficult to catch my international flight, my commercial travel experience was excellent. Should I need to fly to the Middle East in the future, Qatar Airways is likely to be my first choice. The airline is, bar none, the best airline I’ve ever flown. I just hope I can upgrade to business class next time I fly for 12 hours, so my sleep goes from okay for an airline to okay for a regular bed.

Military travel, though excruciatingly slow, has been okay as well. I have few complaints aside from the speed, but I do understand that moving people is, as a rule, less important than moving stuff.

Okay, experiences and weirdness.

I’m not used to food and lodging being free. And really, everything here is included. Want a sandwich? Go get a free one. Soda? Free. Chips? Free. I can see where one could gain weight if one partook of all of the freebies. The heat… you know. It is hot. It really is. But maybe I’m just built for it, because it does not seem to bother me nearly as much as it bothers other people. Hell, I’d rather sit outside at times, just to bask in the dry heat.

Internet access has been good up until now. I’m in Kuwait, and I don’t seem to be able to find a connection. I suspect it may be an Army versus Air Force thing, though, so I’m not sweating it too much. Hopefully, access at the endpoint is good… or at the very least, available. We shall see!

Other than that, I’ve not got a whole lot of updates. Postcards were mailed (incidentally, postage was also free) so let me know about how long it takes to get ‘em. Not that it really matters; I’m just curious.

More later.

7/18

Aaaand, I’m here. Or rather, I’ve been here for a bit of time, though I’ve been understandably asleep most of that time. Adjusting to jet lag is one thing; adjusting to having to be up to catch two flights that could leave at any point in a 6 hour period is quite another thing. After meeting my new co-workers, getting settled into my new room, and getting a quick tour of the base, I showered and dropped off to sleep. Delicious, delicious sleep.

So, a brief rundown:

Co-workers – Seem awesome. Could not ask for better ones! Seriously. That was, aside from explody badness, a major concern, which has now been alleviated.

Accommodations – better than expected. Some locations give you a roommate. I have my own room, AC, a desk, and an internet connection. The shower and bathroom is shared, but hey… if I think of it like camping, all is well. Really, sharing a bathroom is not a whole lot different than sharing a bathroom at home, except you have to walk outside to get to this one

Temperature- Hot! What did you expect? I’m still gonna fucking run, though!

Gym- I have not peeked yet, but there IS a gym here. Working out shall start soon; I need to wait for the requisite smallpox vaccination hold period to end before I can go work out in the gym. In the meantime, I may go run at the track. Because yeah, they do have a track, of sorts! I’m not sure how long it is, though… that’s something I need to figure out before I use it for anything but easy runs.

Food- Food is actually quite tasty. Seriously.

I think I’ll write more later… I’m still trying to get settled.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Isolation, Plan X, Travelosomosity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.