(I have skipped over all the in Iraq travel stuff and start typing in Kuwait)
Hour 1
Here I sit in a foreign airport, Kuwait International. Through all the cigarette smoke I can faintly make out that I am surrounded by local merchants with names I don’t recognize: Hertz, Starbucks, Fuddruckers, and Birkinstock to name a few.
Seriously, this place is like an American mall.
There is allegedly a wireless internet going on here, but I can’t get on. I connect to a network that gives me nothing. So alas, I do not get to MySpace in my 4th country.
Two women of European ancestry come walking through the Starbucks, they are a good 6 inches taller than all the local men.
HA HA.
One thing I would like to throw in about this ridiculously spacious and nice looking terminal is that outside are the only healthy grass lawns I have seen in the Middle East. I mean this stuff is as good as the illegal immigrant laid stuff back in California.
Anywhooooo…
I am on my way home for emergency leave. My Grandmother passed away and the Army found it in their collective heart to let me come home for the funeral. Though I was only approved 5 days of leave which, I discovered upon my arrival in Kuwait, includes my travel time!!! So, I actually only get 3 days back home. My request for an extension has already been typed and simply awaits an internet connection.
I have an hour to make it through all the lines now to my flight.
I will write more later.
Unless of course I have to check my laptop because of the idiot terrorists in London.
Argh.
They make me upset. I can’t brush my teeth at anytime during my nearly 24 hour flight process home because of those idiots. Someone needs to get those terrorists girlfriends or something, or at least playstations.
Peace.
Hour 4
Beautiful Dubai!!
I tried to spot the most luxurious hotel on the planet on the approach, but alas, I saw nothing except an absolutely massive terminal being built. It seemed like we were driving by the pitch black terminal for 10 minutes. Crazy.
We are sitting here while we refuel. I was excited to step foot in a new place only to find out that we can’t leave the plane, walk around on the plane, go to the bathroom, or use our cell phones. At least we are only here and stuck in our seats for an hour. They could at least put on a movie or something.
Jeeeze
Back in Kuwait I waited in line to get to the counter only to find out that they had overbooked my flight and I was being booted off.
Lovely!!
Freaking Northwest. I have never been a fan and this doesn’t endear them to me anymore; though they did give me a $300 voucher for my trouble. But still, if you have 100 seats on a plane, why in the blue hell do you sell 105 tickets? I don’t get it. Oh, and it is assigned seating.
I mean, doesn’t it toss up a flag, when you have more than one person assigned to the same seat?
With such wonderful customer service it does not surprise me at all that airlines go bankrupt.
Needless to say, I ended up on Olympic Air (a Greek airline) and we are going from Dubai to Athens to Amsterdam. Then from Amsterdam I get a direct flight to LAX.
Why fly to LA instead of Sacramento you ask?
Well while the good people at the Army are letting me come home, they are not being very accommodating to the two services in two different locations. So unless I wanted to spend whatever free time I get after the funeral driving back to Sacramento, it was a round trip to LA. Though, the bump from the original flight is going to seriously fuck up my hop up to Nor-Cal.
Hour I don’t know.
I am now in the air over Athens. I can’t see any ruins though, which sucks. I am seriously going to have to actually come to these cities whose airports I have visited on this deployment, Shannon, Budapest, Athens, Dubai, Amsterdam, and Las Vegas.
Ok, so I threw that last one in there; seriously though, there is always room for a trip to Vegas.
So I am finally sitting next someone on the plane. Pretty cool cat. She is an engineering student in Amsterdam traveling with her twin sister and other family members. She has never heard of the Foo Fighters or the open seating that Southwest does on its planes. I think I have managed to turn her into a Foo Fighters fan though. She has also translated the comics she was reading for me. Same old stuff as the states but it was in Greek. I got to tell her, “It’s all Greek to me.”
I win.
When I told her I wanted to go visit Athens, she said it was the worst part of Greece and I should go somewhere else; and Athens is her hometown!! What is it with people and hating their hometowns?
I would love a layover right about now.
Seriously, Grandma would understand if I didn’t make it to her funeral because I felt the urge to live it up in Amsterdam for a night right?
It just looks so beautiful.
Amsterdam has a nice airport. It also has a restaurant with one of the worst steaks I have ever eaten. And since the dollar is shit in Europe, it cost me 24 bucks for a tiny steak and a beer.
I lose.
They have a little casino and museum here in the Amsterdam airport. I fought the degenerate urge and stayed away from the casino. Though I couldn’t fight the snob urge and went to the little museum. It was an odd display, a few dozen fake Rembrandt’s. I thought it was a silly exhibit. I mean, way to flaunt all of your purchase mistakes. I mean, if I were a prestigious museum, I would really try to hide the fact that I bought a bunch of fakes because I didn’t know the difference. I guess if there is a format for turning nothing into something, it is the airport. Downtown Vegas would be a great spot too.
Man it is great to be back in California.
It just feels good when I get off a plane and am home; I consider the entire state my home. Nice and sunny, attractive people (though there were a lot of those in Amsterdam too), and just as a write that I see one of the So-Cal doosh-bags go strolling by. This clown is wearing a soccer jersey, a brown blazer, and a beret.
What The Fuck?
Home Sweet Home I guess.
The girl at the Southwest desk was very helpful and hooked me up with an early flight up to Sacramento. So I wont be cost all that much time from the KLM/Northwest fuck-up in Kuwait. Though the Army’s screw-up will cost me at least a full day at home.
So far I've have had the row to myself on everyflight except for one, and it definitely made the time go bye faster having someone to talk to, especially since I couldn’t seem to be able to sleep even though I have been up for about 2 days. Insomnia is a bitch.
And so is a dead laptop battery.
