Merry Christmas!

So I realized that today is the last day I can write a "Merry Christmas" post without it making the "Happy New Year" post late, haha.  Christmas was relatively uneventful here, but as you probably already know if you see my Facebook posts, my best Christmas present came the day after! ;-)  But first things first...

On both Thanksgiving and Christmas, the dining facility staff has gone to an enormous amount of effort decorating for the holiday.  It has been really fun to see what they come up with, and the atmosphere is like a big party with music and people dressed up (even some dancing, haha).  Here I am with the giant turkey on Thanksgiving (excuse Doug's finger over then lens):

And then here I am with Santa and his reindeer on Christmas:

On Christmas morning, I did a "12 Days of Christmas" workout with a bunch of people at our Crossfit gym, which was pretty brutal, but made me feel less guilty about having a second piece of pie at Christmas lunch!  Then I met Doug and a couple other co-workers for the big Christmas meal (served at lunchtime).  After lunch, I went to work for a bit (weather never gets a day off!) and then came back to my room for some Christmas FaceTime.  I got to talk to Martin and then "open presents" with my parents and Lisa.  Gotta love the internet!

Then the last thing I did on Christmas day was... pack for my trip to Qatar the next day!  :-D  The trip had been planned for a few weeks, but I told very few people about it ahead of time because 1) security reasons, and 2) I didn't totally believe it was going to happen!  I was invited to go on the trip with a small group of people from another base in Kuwait, from a unit that Doug and I are technically a part of (it's complicated, haha).  They were visiting a unit in Qatar that just so happened to be at the same base where Martin is currently deployed, so of course I said I wanted to go!  Here is a picture of us by the awesome little plane we flew in:

The official parts of the trip were really interesting, I learned a lot about the weather support done out of that location, and got some cool tours of several ops units.  But of course... the best part was seeing Martin!!!  It had been over 7 months since we last saw each other in person.  It seemed totally unreal at first that we were face-to-face, and it wasn't through an iPad screen.  Once the initial shock wore off, it was so amazing just to be together again.  We spent most of our time just hanging out and talking and enjoying being with each other. 

Martin's base has an awesome sports bar that was paid for and built by Fox Sports (the TV channel) for the deployed personnel to enjoy their time off.  I have to give major kudos to Fox Sports, because the place is awesome!  There are TVs everywhere, with really nice tables and chairs, pool tables, couches, and bar stools.

The first night there, Martin and I got a pizza and sat watching sports together... it was just like being at home, except we weren't on our own couch!

Though I had to come back to Kuwait yesterday, I will remember the last 5 days as the best ones of my deployment.  I think one of the guys in the group said it best when he said he was glad Martin and I got to "reset our clock" on this trip.  It's hard to explain, but before I saw Martin, it felt like it had been forever since the last time we were together.  But when we were together again, it almost felt like no time at all had passed, because it was so easy and natural to be with each other.  And though of course I was sad to leave Qatar yesterday, I left with the feeling that Martin and I can do this, that the hardest part is over and now it's all downhill from here until we can be together again.

I am so grateful for all of the people who helped make this trip happen (people both here and back in the States), and though I know none of them are reading this, I hope I can tell them all how much it meant to me and how thankful I am.  I'll end with a pic of Doha at sunset as we departed last night... farewell 2013, tomorrow I'll say hello to 2014!

 

Kuwait City

About once or twice a month, I have had the chance to go off base into Kuwait City.  I usually go with my co-worker Doug, and sometimes we meet other weather people from another base in Kuwait.  The city is very different than most places I have been before because of the Muslim culture, so it has been interesting to explore.

I have a lot of pictures, so I'll try to remember how to space them out in the post (it has been a year and a half since I used this, haha)!  The first time Doug and I went into the city, we met some other weather people at a restaurant near the Liberty Tower, seen between the buildings in this pic:

The next time, we went to a mall called the Grand Avenues.  It is absolutely HUGE!  Doug compared it to the Mall of America (which I have not been to), if that helps you imagine the size.  Here is a picture of one of the many, many hallways:

Since you can see some people in traditional Muslim dress in that pic, I'll take a second to say that the variety of dress is one of the most interesting things to observe.  When we go to places like the mall, we see a lot of men wearing long robes, some with headpieces and some without, some men wearing suits, and some wearing more Western-style clothing.  We also see women in burkas, women in slightly less-restricting robes and veils, some women wearing Western-style clothes but still covering their hair, and occasionally a few women without head coverings.

My sister Lisa studied Arabic and the Middle East in college, so she has been a convenient source of answers to many of the questions I have about things I see out here.  She says that this mix of clothing is probably due to a few different reasons, the first of which being that a large percentage of people living in Kuwait are not native Kuwaiti.  Their style of dress may be that of their home country.  Also, she said that family tradition and level of religious beliefs play a major part in what Muslims wear.  Thanks for the info, Lisa! :-)

As you may expect, the level of wealth here due to the oil industry is amazing.  It is an awesome place to car-watch (I only wish Martin was here to do it with me!), as we regularly see Lamborghinis, Porsches, Ferraris, and the like in the city.  The "houses" are also unbelievably huge, as you can see in this pic from the highway (yes, those are individual houses!):

One time we met the other group for dinner, Doug and I headed into the city early to catch the sunset at the beach.  Here is a pretty sunset pic:

And here is me with my toes in the Arabian Gulf! :-)

I'll finish with one more thing... as the temperatures cooled later in the year, we started seeing "tent cities" popping up in the open deserts adjoining the highways.  Lisa enlightened me again on this, explaining that camping is a frequent winter activity for the Kuwaitis.  It may also be a tribute to their heritage, some of which are Bedouin.  Sometimes families have camps in the same places every year, and sometimes groups of young adults will pitch camps to just hang out and spend time with their friends.  It is really amazing just how many tents are out there, and though that can't really be conveyed in just one picture, here is an example of what the tents look like:

I have more pics, but that's a good overview of what we see when we go off-base.  I'll try to work more of the pics into future posts! :-)


 

New Adventures

I guess I should start by saying that I never intended for "Leaving England" to be my last post for a year and a half.  After landing in the US, we were off and running for our wedding, honeymoon, new base, new house, etc, etc, and I just never got started writing again.  But here I am in the desert, with a bit of time on my hands now that my grad school semester is over.  So why not give blogging another shot?  I'm not entirely sure what I'll have to write about most of the time, and I'll have to leave details out of some things for security reasons, but... here we go. :-)

I want to talk about the last year in Arizona at some point, but I think it makes the most sense to start with where I am now.  Since the Army feels secure enough to post event pictures from here on Facebook, I can say that I am deployed with the Army in Kuwait.  I've been here a few months, and I'll return sometime in the spring.  This is my first deployment and first time with the Army, so I'm learning a lot and enjoying the experience. 

Why am I with the Army when I'm in the Air Force, you may ask?  Air Force weather personnel support the Army at almost every Army post both stateside and overseas, because the Army does not have their own weather personnel.  So it's a pretty common occurrence for an Air Force weather officer to have one or more Army support assignments in their career; some even devote most of their careers to it.  I've always thought it would be an interesting experience, and that's turning out to be the case.  There are plenty of similarities between the two services, but there are also quite a few differences.

The facilities here are relatively good for a deployed location.  I live in a dorm-type environment with one roommate, an Army Lieutenant from Louisiana.  The bathroom and laundry room are wayyy on the other end of the building, but at least we don't have to go outside to get to the bathroom like some other living areas.  The dining facility food is kind of hit or miss, but if you don't compare it to anything you could get or make at home, it's not that bad.  One good point is that there is always grilled chicken available if you don't like what's on the main line, so I have found several new ways to eat grilled chicken!

I work what you would probably call a "swing" shift, from about noon until 9:30pm-ish.  There is one other Air Force weather person here, and he works the early morning shift.  It's not a bad schedule; I have plenty of time to work out in the mornings and do my grad school homework while my roommate is at work and it's quiet.  The only downside is that I can't go to any of the evening events the base holds, and I don't really get to "hang out" with people because most are off in the evenings.  It's not bad though, I enjoy the people I work with and work out with, so I always have fun talking with them at work or the gym.

The weather was really hot when I got here (sort of what you expect for this area), with average high temperatures in the 110s.  What a difference a few months makes, however... our low temp this morning was 43!  I actually had to wear leggings and a long sleeve shirt to go running.

I don't want to ramble too much in this "first" post, so that is probably a good enough overview of where I am and what I'm doing these days.  Hopefully I'll have more interesting things to say in the future. :-)  I'll leave you with a teaser picture, since I'll probably talk about our off-post trips next... here's a road sign!