Kuwait in a nutshell...

Was cold and rainy all three days we were there... Yuck. But we made the best of it and had some fun while we were there. A girl that was at Walter Reed doing the Psychiatric Nurse Course when I was doing the Critical Care Course is deployed with me, so we have been paling around quite a bit and finding every opportunity to make a poopy situation more fun... We found the 24-hour Starbucks on camp and got our caffeine fix on the second day we were there, so of course I needed a picture to post for the folks back home to show them that I am not really roughing it all that much. I call this one "Starbucks combat style." What struck me about the Starbucks was that the inside of it looked exactly like a Starbucks in the states, with the exception of the dual English-Arabic menu. It was so cool! We also went out to the range to test-fire our weapons... And don't you worry mom and dad, my weapon works just fine! But it just amazed me how much of the land is desert in Kuwait. I mean, we were the only thing out there at the range surrounded by endless miles of desert. But the most fun thing we found were the hard-boiled eggs at the dining facility... They have arabic writing stamped on the shells! My only guess is that they must be the Kuwaiti version of Egglands Best. Ha-ha. As you can see, they also have a great fruit selection here. I have eaten Kiwi fruit every day since we arrived in theater... You would never see kiwi fruit in a dining facility stateside, so I am loving it!

Our last day in Kuwait ended very early in the morning with a flight out to Baghdad. It was really cool going out to the flight line and getting on the plane in full gear, but also nerve-wracking hoping that the flight goes smoothly with no direct or indirect fire, which it did, so no worries anyone! Here I am on the plane preparing for take-off... The girl next to me is another nurse from El Paso that is deployed with me.

Other than that, I am just getting the lay of the land here and was in the ER getting a brief orientation today from one of the outgoing nurses. I have to say it is quite comfortable here... Indoor plumbing, 24-hour gym, dining facility with four hot meals a day, PX and a shuttle that runs all the way around the camp every 15 minutes to get to the large PX and all of the shopping you could ask for while being deployed. It is definitely not too much of a hardship tour, if you ask me...

Well, that is about it for now... I am off to the big PX with some friends!

66HM5 out...