Made it!

Well, here I am...sitting in an internet cafe, able to update my site, check email, and such. Not too bad considering the country I'm in! Man, these military folk really take care of you! :)

So the last leg of the tour was pretty fun. I sat by the window because my "partner in crime" moved to the back to spread out since a lot of people got off at the two stops we made. It was truly amazing to see the sporadic lights throughout the countryside and trying to figure out which country I was flying over! Then we happened upon some HUGE mountains and with the almost full moon above us, it was amazing to see the snow-filled mountains all lit up! Then again the lights in little towns below. Amazing to know that even though we may think some of these countries are so far behind, they are getting power even in the nether-reaches of them! Truly eye-opening!

So we landed and of course, being the great person that I am, volunteered to help unload the bags...yeah, didn't realize how many bags we actually had and how MUCH people packed in them. I'm feeling ok though after unloading them from the plane to a truck, then from the truck to the ground so people can come pick them up. Kind of fun though to be able to help like that.

Man, there are a ton of people at this base! Lots of army and air force mainly, but the occasional marine here and there.

BIG TIME irony here....when the plane (a DC-10 if i didn't mention it before) pulled in to stop, it pulled near some of the planes I was going to be working on. Those planes had "Illinois" on the tail! Yep, the same planes that I used to work on (ok, kind of) back when I first joined the Air Force National Guard back in 1996! I have since seen several people that I used to work with and learned that I'll be working with them for the rest of the month! Truly amazing that fact!

I have yet to see my army buddy who's here, but after we got in, in-processed, unpacked, and showered, I crashed out for 14 hours!!! Yeah, I was tired!

Alright, so here I am, made it safe, and will definitely have better internet access than I thought! I look forward to hearing from you all and will try to keep this updated as much as possible! I start work tonight and am working night shift while I'm here. Should be fun!!

Take care!

Paul

ps....I'm 12 hours ahead here....