I am tired...

I arrived at Baltimore International Airport at 2:30pm on Thursday the
3rd of June. After many hours waiting in lines and sitting in a very
crowded USO we departed at 2:00am on Friday morning. While killing
time in Baltimore I joined a community group that was welcoming home
returning troops for about 2hrs. It was great to see the community
doing that.

The flight to Ramstein, Germany took a little under 7hrs. I believe I
recognized flying over England, the english channel, and France before
getting to Germany. We spent about 2.5hrs on the ground in Germany
waiting in line and sitting in the USO or other holding areas. Next
stop: Aviano, Italy.

I am tired but I think I will look out my window for the next leg of
the flight. The interesting thing while looking out the windows is I
do not see boarders, politics, religion, enemies. I mostly see a
beautiful earth we have been given.

It was about 3 hr flight or less to Italy. I think we flew over the
Swiss Alps. I dozed quite a bit so I missed a lot of the scenary. What
I saw of the Italian countryside was beautiful.

We are sitting in the terminal and there is another line! It takes
about 1/2 hr to get throuh but you get free hot dogs and sandwiches.
If they just changed the food layout it would go twice as fast. I had
an energy bar in my pocket so that might be my dinner unless the line
gets shorter.

The water fountain here is sensor activated like the automatic sink
fixtures, except ths sinks in the bathtoom are manual.

I ended up getting couple of hot dogs. Should keep me satisfied for
the 5.5hr flight to Qatar.

I sum up my Italian vacation this way, "I came, I ate, I left."

It is a little after 9pm. I hope to sleep The rest of the way in.

We got into Qatar about 4am. Hot and humid...like home. It is now 8am
and we have been getting, inprocessing, and clearing customs that
whole time. Funny thing is I an sitting here in a paved lot awaiting
the next task and I am getting wifi...I love my iTouch when it works.
Pretty soon we should be done and be bussed to our temp sleeping
quarters and await our flight to Baghdad which could be a few days.

I'll send this now and add to the saga later.

Love you all,
Gary/Dad





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