Clicking My Heels

Economy seating and airport lounges...the typical complaints. In Frankfurt, I had to have just one last taste...though it had surely been more than 5 months since I had McD's, it was a matter of principle. Except for the bad euro-club pop music being piped in, it was perfect. The remains are shown below.


I stayed in a really nice hotel in Dubai, 4 level atrium to welcome the guests, 40 foot palm trees...indoors of course, ingratiating employees everywhere...quite fancy by my standards.


"Really nice" in Dubai means low end. Oil wealth changes standards I guess. So it will be polar opposites in 24 hours.

Countless hours of travel and I arrived. As others have noted, the wrecked and burnt out airplane welcomes you to Kabul. The steep descent into the airport is not welcoming. There were some people, Omar and others, to greet us (unknown to me till I got of the flight, two others working for AEAI came with me). They had me stand to the side while everything was taken care of. Not waiting in lines is always nice.

We got our luggage and were shuffled to the guest houses. I met with Jack, my boss, and my co-workers and housemates. I was given a brief introduction to what I will be doing (don't worry, excruciating and mundane details are sure to follow in future posts). Settled into my room, took a short nap, had dinner, we watched Lord of the Rings 2, and then I went to go battle jet-lag. Looks like it'll be a non-stop party, tonight I think we watch Lord of the Rings 3.

I'm living in the appropriately named "glitter house." Four levels of marble floors. My room is on the upper (3rd) floor, a large roof deck surrounds it, providing great views of the city. The view off the deck that greeted me last night, a simple reminder that this aint Kansas.


The same reminder was there in the morning. I gather this will be a constant reminder of where I am. I'm guessing it wont be the only one.

I changed the comments setting to allow anonymous posting. Enjoy.