I am in El Paso, Texas. It took me THIS LONG to get here, but at least I am back in the States. I may be able to fly home tomorrow - I hope!

Exhausted....

unfortunately, there is no pool here. oh well.

tonight after my yoga class i was going to do some cardio, but they were having a boxing fight and the rest of the gym was closed off. i stayed to watch (nothing else to do), and i have to admit it was a little interesting.

boredom breeds the desire to shop, so i spent some time in the PX today, browsing and getting the new Tori Amos and Ani DiFranco cds (plus season two of Sex and the City, which i'd never watched until recently and am embarrassingly hooked).

my flight leaves on the 6th. that is too many days to spend eating all my meals and doing everything alone. forced time to "look within" and figure myself out, i guess.

I have arrived in Kuwait...after a nice, gucci C-17 (from Charleston) ride.
It feels so strange, being out of Iraq. Away from my friends.

They said the next flight out of here that I can get on won't leave until around the 6th... so I suppose I'll be doing a lot of writing, reading, gym/pool.... and being bored. In a way, it's nice because it will give me a chance to unwind before heading home. Almost like a decompression chamber.

I'll keep this short since I may have plenty of opportunity to write at length later this week.

I leave Iraq TODAY.... that is, if I can find a ride to BIAP.

Just wanted everyone to know...

I'll continue this when I get home (hopefully in less than a week), but it will just go back to normal everyday life.
Thank you, everyone, for supporting me while I was here...

~ amber

The General finally released the group I came over here with... we're free to go home. (We were calling ourselves "detainees" for the past month.) Yet there's a catch -- the plane home doesn't leave Kuwait until sometime after the 1st of March (probably after the 3rd). I thought of leaving, and waiting in Kuwait where I don't have to work and will be able to relax, but then I thought about the lack of privacy in the transient bays, the cots, the noise, the boredom... so I'm staying here until Monday, as planned. Some people here think I'm crazy, but it makes sense to me. I have my own room and a bed here, plus the friends I've worked with the past six months.

So... Monday I catch that C-130 and head to Camp Doha, Kuwait. It will be so strange leaving this place. I practically live here. However much I want to leave, it's my most recent home.

~ Amber