My flight is WHEN?!?
It’s a good thing I like flying, because I have been doing a lot of it recently.
We left Tallil last week, on Thursday 24 Nov. Mongo (the new kid working with me in Tallil and elsewhere: he is 6’4”, about 240 pounds, and works out a LOT) and I had to get up at 5:30 AM in order to catch the bus from the Gazebo (just outside of our hooches) to the Dining Facility. We were standing at the Gazebo, waiting, and watching a beautiful sunrise, and waiting, and watching a couple of buses leave the parking lot – neither of them was going to the DFAC, and waiting, and finally, about 6:20 AM, a bus took us to the DFAC.
This wouldn’t be so bad, except that we were assured, several times, that the busses ran every 15 minutes, or so, and we had very little time to spare. We ate breakfast, and then we were lucky enough to catch a ride back with one of the Big Defense Contractor admins, who had her own vehicle.
We made it back to the hooches, gathered up our gear, and waited on the Gazebo for HR to pick us up at 7:15 AM. They were on time, and we went to Air Ops to “sign in” at 0730. We went through several briefings, and finally about 0930 they told us to be back at 1130.
At 1130, we waited some more, and finally got on a bus which took us to the plane on the tarmac. We lifted off without incident, and about an hour later, we landed in Baghdad.
I overnighted in Camp Parker, and got to visit with Principal and another colleague (I haven’t made up a nickname for him yet).
Friday 25 Nov, I go to the Baghdad Transient Center to sign in at 0730 (after having eaten breakfast, of course!), and they tell us to come back around 0930. At 0930, we start the usual delays associated with travel in and out of Baghdad International (BIAP), but we finally get on the busses to take us to BIAP around 1200. We process through, and then the real waiting begins.
Fast forward through 4½ boring hours and we finally get on a plane bound for Dubai. This is the first time I have been on this charter that it wasn’t chock full of people. It was weird, having all that room on the plane. Normally, these flights are 100% full. Period. No more, no less. I guess everyone that needed to get out before Thanksgiving had already flown.
I was on the exit row, alone, so I had LOTS of leg room, plus three seats to crash out in, and I did. Two and a half hours later, we landed in Dubai.
I spent the rest of Friday night, and all day Saturday, in Dubai, making preparations to go to Tbilisi, Georgia. I had to go buy a winter coat, because it is about 5 degrees Celsius in the mornings here (high 30s). Do you know how hard it is to find a winter coat in Dubai?
I go to sleep Friday night, and I leave a wakeup call for 0100, because I recalled that my flight for Tbilisi left at 0330. I recall thinking to myself that I should check the itinerary again. I sure wish I had, because when the wakeup call came, I got dressed, pulled out the tickets at 0120, and noticed that my flight was at 0210.
Holy S@#$%!!
I went to the airport anyway, hoping for a miracle, but I returned to the hotel, checked back into the room I had just left, and waited for morning to come.
I had a backup plan in place, though: instead of going through Baku on Azerbaijan Airlines, I had reservations to go through Istanbul on Sunday afternoon, so that’s what I did. I flew from Dubai to Istanbul, then Istanbul to Tblisi. Business class on the second leg, and I was able to sit around the airport in the Turkish Airlines CIP lounge (I guess CIP is sort of like VIP, except that it was about the same as a Motel 6 conference room). I can’t complain too much, since the lattes were free, and the Internet connection was fairly solid.
The other nice thing is that I didn’t have to go through Baku, Azerbaijan. Did you guys see where the police and opposition political party had a nice little run-in with each other on Saturday? I know I saw it on My.Yahoo, so I am fairly sure it must have made the mainstream US press.
As soon as I got here in Tbilisi, I started making my plans to leave, and then to get back into Iraq, and get to Camp Anaconda. Travel in the Middle East, and into and out of Iraq, is not quite like going from Houston to Dallas on Southwest Airlines. BDC offers one flight per day, and if you aren’t on it, then you get to spend another day in Paradise. Depending on where you are when you miss the one flight, Paradise could be Dubai. Or it could be Iraq.
We left Tallil last week, on Thursday 24 Nov. Mongo (the new kid working with me in Tallil and elsewhere: he is 6’4”, about 240 pounds, and works out a LOT) and I had to get up at 5:30 AM in order to catch the bus from the Gazebo (just outside of our hooches) to the Dining Facility. We were standing at the Gazebo, waiting, and watching a beautiful sunrise, and waiting, and watching a couple of buses leave the parking lot – neither of them was going to the DFAC, and waiting, and finally, about 6:20 AM, a bus took us to the DFAC.
This wouldn’t be so bad, except that we were assured, several times, that the busses ran every 15 minutes, or so, and we had very little time to spare. We ate breakfast, and then we were lucky enough to catch a ride back with one of the Big Defense Contractor admins, who had her own vehicle.
We made it back to the hooches, gathered up our gear, and waited on the Gazebo for HR to pick us up at 7:15 AM. They were on time, and we went to Air Ops to “sign in” at 0730. We went through several briefings, and finally about 0930 they told us to be back at 1130.
At 1130, we waited some more, and finally got on a bus which took us to the plane on the tarmac. We lifted off without incident, and about an hour later, we landed in Baghdad.
I overnighted in Camp Parker, and got to visit with Principal and another colleague (I haven’t made up a nickname for him yet).
Friday 25 Nov, I go to the Baghdad Transient Center to sign in at 0730 (after having eaten breakfast, of course!), and they tell us to come back around 0930. At 0930, we start the usual delays associated with travel in and out of Baghdad International (BIAP), but we finally get on the busses to take us to BIAP around 1200. We process through, and then the real waiting begins.
Fast forward through 4½ boring hours and we finally get on a plane bound for Dubai. This is the first time I have been on this charter that it wasn’t chock full of people. It was weird, having all that room on the plane. Normally, these flights are 100% full. Period. No more, no less. I guess everyone that needed to get out before Thanksgiving had already flown.
I was on the exit row, alone, so I had LOTS of leg room, plus three seats to crash out in, and I did. Two and a half hours later, we landed in Dubai.
I spent the rest of Friday night, and all day Saturday, in Dubai, making preparations to go to Tbilisi, Georgia. I had to go buy a winter coat, because it is about 5 degrees Celsius in the mornings here (high 30s). Do you know how hard it is to find a winter coat in Dubai?
I go to sleep Friday night, and I leave a wakeup call for 0100, because I recalled that my flight for Tbilisi left at 0330. I recall thinking to myself that I should check the itinerary again. I sure wish I had, because when the wakeup call came, I got dressed, pulled out the tickets at 0120, and noticed that my flight was at 0210.
Holy S@#$%!!
I went to the airport anyway, hoping for a miracle, but I returned to the hotel, checked back into the room I had just left, and waited for morning to come.
I had a backup plan in place, though: instead of going through Baku on Azerbaijan Airlines, I had reservations to go through Istanbul on Sunday afternoon, so that’s what I did. I flew from Dubai to Istanbul, then Istanbul to Tblisi. Business class on the second leg, and I was able to sit around the airport in the Turkish Airlines CIP lounge (I guess CIP is sort of like VIP, except that it was about the same as a Motel 6 conference room). I can’t complain too much, since the lattes were free, and the Internet connection was fairly solid.
The other nice thing is that I didn’t have to go through Baku, Azerbaijan. Did you guys see where the police and opposition political party had a nice little run-in with each other on Saturday? I know I saw it on My.Yahoo, so I am fairly sure it must have made the mainstream US press.
As soon as I got here in Tbilisi, I started making my plans to leave, and then to get back into Iraq, and get to Camp Anaconda. Travel in the Middle East, and into and out of Iraq, is not quite like going from Houston to Dallas on Southwest Airlines. BDC offers one flight per day, and if you aren’t on it, then you get to spend another day in Paradise. Depending on where you are when you miss the one flight, Paradise could be Dubai. Or it could be Iraq.
posted by Steve | 2:59 AM
2 Comments:
Hey, Stevo! Thanks for stopping by my new blog. TLO and I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday with Pooks (whose blog is at triple-dub guiltyofbeing-dot-blogspot-dot-com) where we had coffee and browsed and ran into Br. Larry from the Fig. We miss you!!!
Hey, Stevo -- check out today's entry on my blog -- it's about your amazing daughter. Hugs.
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