Oh The Places I've Been!

12 Days, 11 Flights, 10 Cities, & 5 Countries...but that's only if you count connecting flights...otherwise it's 9 cities! And please don't ask me to count miles and/or time in the air...I'm all about breaking it down Big Bird-Cookie Monster style!

Well...I'm back from some of the most hectic and intense travel I've done since I got this job. And since my sleep pattern is so out of whack, I'm blogging about it at 0630 in the morning because I woke up at 0430 wide awake.

Anyhoo...our journey started last Monday with a short flight to New York which was followed by a 3 hour layover before we boarding our flight to Amman, Jordan. Although we weren't there for very long, it immediately reignited my love for both the middle east and also the history of it as well...more on that later.

We left at about 10pm on Monday and landed at about 4pm on Tuesday. We dropped our stuff at the hotel and then went to dinner. Dinner in this culture is very much a social event and you can usually pencil in at least 2 hours for a good dinner with friends. I had forgotten how much I missed middle eastern food so now I'm dragging Holly to a middle eastern restaurant tonight for dinner.

On Wednesday we toured the King Abudullah II Special Operations Training Center that we (USACE) built for the Jordanians. It was a very, very impressive facility. After the tour, it was off to Queen Alia International Airport for what would eventually be a 4 hour delay (surprisingly only one of two we had) in route to Kuwait City International Airport.

We eventually landed in Kuwait, drove to Ali Al Salem Airbase and immediately took off for our flight to Baghdad. We landed at BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) and took an SUV over to our housing. I very quickly realized how much I miss Iraq. I know it sounds crazy but from my perspective it was my home for a year and I really missed it. And the one thing that I have come to realize is that during my last deployment I wasn't just "deployed" to Iraq. It was my home, I "lived" there. I ate the food, I spoke the language (tried to anyway), lived with their people, etc.

I actually realized this in Jordan when we went out to eat and I ordered a heaping plate of rice & lamb and ate the entire thing with my hands. Our host was shocked and kept mentioning it to his Jordanian friends, "This is Captain Dan. He ate dinner last night with his hands!" And I explained to him that the reason I did so is because I "lived" in Iraq for a year. What a realization!

So my stay in Iraq was also fast and furious as we toured projects all around Baghdad and then flew down south to Talil and visited projects there as well. I would have to say that the Iraq leg of this travel was, by far and away, the best part of my trip. Some of the biggest highlights include seeing Talie Casey, flying over my old Iraqi Army base, and seeing the ziggurat of Ur...but mostly seeing Talie!

The next blog, as soon as I can dig out some old pictures, will detail all the historical places I've been to while in the Army. But as a preview, here they are in the order that I've seen them (as opposed to the order in which they were built)...the Hindu Kush, the citadel of Genghis Khan in Bamiyan, the Buddha statues of Bamiyan, the Tigris River, the Euphrates River, the great mosque of Samarra, Al-Askari Mosque (before and after the explosion), the ziggurats of Ur & Aqar Quf, and of course...Saddam's hole.

Moving right along...we flew back to Kuwait and remained overnight there. Please don't ask me what day it was because I'm not sure I knew at the time when/where I was so even now, I have no idea. In Kuwait, we visited a bunch of Engineer staff and then flew to Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar. I don't have any pictures of Qatar because most of which I saw cannot be photographed, wink-wink, nod-nod.

We remained overnight in Qatar after visiting more Engineer staffs and then took a direct flight from Doha to Dulles. By the by...couple of things for you...Engineering operations in theater have completely gone Joint meaning that the Army doesn't (and can't) do it alone...fascinating to see the view from the top and actually see how quickly our Engineering forces are rapidly evolving...one more thing...Qatari airport security is terrible and they take whatever they want from you and tell you that "it's a threat" but I guess if we have no idea what is actually allowed and what is not allowed than neither do the bad guys.

We landed at Dulles at about 5pm and went into work the next morning for a really, really busy day at the office before we flew to Houston early the evening. Once in Houston, we drove to Galveston, checked in, and passed out. While in Galveston, my eyes were open to the horrendous damages done to this Gulf Coast city by Hurricane Ike and their impressive recovery efforts.

After being in Galveston for less than 24 hours, we flew to New Orleans. New Orleans was New Orleans and I'll leave it at that. However, I will say that while there I did manage to eat some turtle soup...this is proof positive that they will eat anything down there. I called Holly my last night there and caught her half asleep and I told her I had eaten turtle soup with dinner to which she replied..."aww...poor turtle..." Then she went back to sleep. :)

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of Galveston and/or New Orleans but I forgot my camera at home for this trip and trust me, you're not missing much.

So I'm back in town for at least another two weeks...exhale. Our next trip isn't until 16 November unless something comes up but I'll certainly keep you posted (no pun intended). Hooray for being home!