I slowly surrender to the child in me who can't say goodbye. - Jimmy Buffett, The Night I Painted the Sky

So, I miss our time in California.

I miss the beach. I miss beer. I miss bikini's. I miss driving.

It's an interesting transition here....We all had kinda a rough day yesterday all figuring out what our jobs were going to be and who was going to be in charge of us.

Today was much better. We got to see the old tent hospital. It's weird because most of it is torn down, but I can still picture it from images I saw before. Then, we got to see the building we'll start living in next week (getting out of tents!!). It's like a large dorm hall. Army on the first few floors, then, EMF Kuwait. We'll have a large berthing area for officer women. We'll each get our own bunks (unlike the guys, who will have to be one on top and one on bottom) and we separate the areas with curtains and can decorate them. They look like really small dorm rooms. Some area really cute! It's so great to see there is light at the end of the tunnel.

They turned off our power this morning in the tent to clean the air conditioners...it didn't take long for our tent to turn into a small oven. I eventually convinced the girls it was better to go outside in the shade because at least we had wind blowing! It was much better....yay for learning the tricks of the trade of heat from living in Texas.

The second day I was here my nose was cracking and bleeding, my lips were chapped, and I had started my routine of drinking the equivalent of a full bathtub before lunch. This also means the routine of getting up at 0200 and grabbing my buddy to go to the head. They won't let us go alone where our tents are now. Apparently, there have been multiple rapes, including one male... our area is a "transient" area where people move in and out of and a lot of the TCN (third country nationals) work and live. Slightly bad that my fear comes more from within the wire than outside...

I can't get the song "I've been to the desert on a horse with no name...." out of my head. Bah bah bah bah bah baaa....

The computers are slow and I can only be on for 30 minutes. I can't wait to pay for wifi in the I building when we move...

I can only talk on the phone for 20 minutes. I feel like it's prison. BUT! I got a DSN number and a code so I don't pay for a cent! That's helpful. No phone cards for me.

Gotta run. Time is up.

Sadly, earlier today I missed Bethesda. ha. Never thought I would say that.
I know once we move into the fixed building and the transition is over that we will be loving life! Everyone has had a blast out here.

(oh, and I can't believe how many people I have seen out here from Bethesda. Makes me wonder who works back home...haha)