26 hours in America

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Seattle watching Interview with the Vampire, eating chocolate covered strawberries and looking up places to visit in Portland.

I AM IN AMERICA!

Tina and Mom

The flight from Kuwait was over 30 hours including the quick stops in Germany, New Jersey and Texas before finally reaching Washington.  It was an uncomfortable voyage sitting in coach for that long.  On one side of me, I had an older gentlemen who reeked of moth balls and chewing tobacco.  On the other, was a young woman chewing gum with a high pitch giggle.

As soon as we touched ground my allergies kicked in and made this a bittersweet homecoming.  I woke up in the morning with red, itchy eyes that my mother thought was conjuctivitis.  I couldn't figure out where I'd picked up pink eye but I went to the doctor to get treated right away.  The doctor, an elderly man with red eyes of his own, prescribed a slew of expensive allergy pills and we chatted about his visit to Los Angeles to see the Dalai Lama lecture near UCLA so many years ago.  Old people are fun.

I've got two weeks to outprocess the military to make it home in time for summerschool.  Can I make it?  I'm not really sure.  Usually people get an entire year to start outprocessing and a few months to really concentrate on it.  However, all the people in my unit are helping me out and I already have my orders cut (HALLELUJAH) so I figure it won't be too terrible.  I'll try to keep you posted on my progress.

Ok, I'm going to go put on a cup of coffee and start reading all the exciting updates I've missed for so long.  Isn't that the best part of being away?  There's so much to catch up on.