To rewind a bit, I was feeling a little frustrated the other day when my bud, Scott, showed up. It was very good to see him, but more than anything, just nice to be around someone with a good attitude. That night, after check-in, a few of us got a taxi and headed out into town for a hot night. I was the only girl in the group with a few firefighters, an HVAC worker, an electrician, and some other various jobs. First we grabbed some of the guys who are staying in another hotel, then we headed to yet another mall. We ate at Chili’s (very, very disappointing, I must say), then headed over to a Hookah lounge.
I’ve never been to one before—they don’t really seem to be a dime a dozen around southern California, but I was just so thankful to be out of the hotel that I didn’t care where we ended up! I haven’t laughed as hard as I did that night in a long time. Since I’m sick right now, the laughter sent me into coughing fits every time, but it was so well worth it. It was truly a fun evening in spite of the heat and humidity. Just standing outside for seconds, we were covered in sweat because we were so close to the sea and it was probably the hottest night so far. But it was great. Definitely boosted my spirits in a big way.
Sunday night, we headed to the big mall, the Avenues again, with only four of us in the group. We ate at PF Cheng’s. So delicious! Once again, there was so much laughter. I drink a lot of water. I mean, apparently it’s an inordinate amount. Between these two nights, I was the subject of ridicule most of the time… though now that I think about it, the ridicule may have been more like awe. Regardless, that was the brunt of many of the jokes. Those boys tried so hard to get me to spit my water out, or spray it out of my nose, but thankfully I was the stronger of the bunch. We did a smidge of shopping after dinner then headed back to the hotel.
Monday night, last night, to be specific, after I did my check-in, which was later than the normal time, I met up with Scott and he and I decided to hit up the Japanese restaurant in the hotel and treat ourselves to a nice dinner. And a very huge thanks to him for paying part of my portion!
He wasn’t going to be leaving with me today (once again, had to leave him behind!) but at least we had a fun time for our last night. We were in the restaurant eating amazing sushi, laughing, and talking about work stories until about 11, at which point we finally decided to hit the spa for our final gathering to watch people slip and fall. Actually, the night before, there was a pretty impressive injury, but 99% of the falls resulted in immediate and heartfelt laughter from the kids. That was one huge difference between Kuwait and America. It’s my experience that when most kids fall, they cry until they’re coddled and “fixed.” Not these kids. They get up laughing and hoping people saw them. It’s actually very funny. So Scott & I got there around 1115 or so, and didn’t leave until about 230 this morning. As was the case for the past few nights, we had some very entertaining visitors and conversations while we were there.
I had hot plans to do some laundry in the lounge before I left, but that didn’t pan out. By the time I got my stuff together and headed to the lounge, I only had 45 minutes before we had to meet in the lobby and check out. So that means that I get to travel with a bag of dirty laundry. Awesome! Anyway, since it was so late/early anyway, and since there were a few of us in our group heading out this morning, Scott headed down with me and waited with us until it was time to say goodbye. I’m so not a fan of those. Hopefully he’ll catch up and get to Afghanistan before I get shipped out to my FOB. From what we were told, we’re not going to be going to the same one, but like everything else, I’m not banking on ANYTHING until it happens. After our final role call at the hotel, we boarded a bus then headed to the airport, which leads me to now. I’ll give Dyncorp a few things—they do take care of us, even when situations arise like what we’ve been going through for the past few weeks. They gave us meal vouchers for McDonald’s in the airport so we’ll be able to board with happy bellies.
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| Part of our hotel lobby |
I had to say goodbye to my roomie last night/this morning as well. I know that we’ll definitely keep in touch on Facebook and all, but it was quite fun getting to know her. She is one entertaining lady. We missed a few naps because we got so wrapped up in our conversations. I hope that I get along with any future roomies the way I did with her. I said a goodbye to Tim last night as well. He was a total lifesaver for those first few days getting to Kuwait. I know he’s so frustrated with being there, and he wants so badly to get to work… Hopefully that’ll happen on the next go around.
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| The group in Kuwait on our last night all together. From left to right: Chris, me, Tim, Rog, Champagne. It was a fun bunch. |
One other guy in our initial group that headed from Texas to Kuwait, Chris, is sitting right next to me. There are a few of us who processed in Texas together, but he was the only one out of all of us in the airport right now that I’ve spent the past 10 days with. I was really hoping not to be the only one and thankfully I’m not. I’m not positive, but I’d guess there are about 6 of us here today that were in the same class in Texas. I’m interested to know how many are already in Afg and how many aren’t going to make it at all. It really hasn’t been a very easy ride so far. Everybody says that this has been the toughest part. I guess I’ll know in a few months.
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| More part of the hotel lobby. It really was a pretty place. |
So from what I can tell, I’ll be landing in Kandahar, going through some more processing, then after anywhere from 5 days to a few months (I really hope I’m being sarcastic…) I’ll be taken to my FOB, where I finally get to do a job! You know it’s bad when you miss working!
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