Shortest Day Ever

I spent today farther North than ever before and it is the Winter Solstice (Dec 21) so I saw 6h 58m 38s of sunlight (actually never saw the sun despite being up and outside), officially making it the shortest day of my life. Since we were broken we hopped a train to Glasgow for my first international 24 hour period not in uniform. It was pretty awesome. I really enjoy my crew, spending time with them is always fun. (mom doesn’t allow always and nevers) so I have to caveat that with the fact that on every deployment you hit an irritable wall in which all you require is the most impossible thing to find: time and space alone. Sadly I wasn’t immune to this nasty disease and didn’t always have my party pants on, but I apologized, asked forgiveness and everyone forgave me, so I guess we’re ok.

ANYWAY, Iraq doesn’t get you in the Christmas mood nearly as much as you might think, and that bar is probably already set pretty low, so it was pretty exciting driving to our hotel last night seeing well lit Christmas trees in windows and snow on the ground. The Christmas carnival in the main square today helped too, but hearing Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas” in one of the shops is exactly what I needed to set me over the top (so I’m listening while I right this). While we were enjoying some haggis, napes & tatties my AC brought to fact that we weren’t flicking flies off of each other and our food, there wasn’t a constant burning poo smell in the air, and he didn’t have to get dressed last night to walk to the restroom.

Better than the scenic train ride across the highlands was learning that some of the guys had flown the other plane to pick up the spare part and maintenance already changed it out and it was ready to make the hop across the pond. They are pretty amazing, just another advantage of the 130, we can carry our own repair team.