Well... that's quite a jet plane

San Antonio to Detroit (running up and down Terminal A because they kept changing my gate) to Norfolk... i arrived around 11:45 pm picked up my bag and my weapon and met Bryan. We spent two days in Norfolk just spending time together, picking up a few things at the BX at Langley and spending a perfect afternoon of hamburger grillin' and ice cream eatin' with the Gheeslings in Newport News. I got a yummy steak at Outback before Bryan took my to the passenger terminal in Norfolk for my "red-eye" overseas.

Me waiting for the elevator at the Holiday Inn all ready to go.

84 of us air force folks "crammed" into a 767 departed at 0130 in the morning. I could not wait to fall asleep. Cool part was I had about 10 CAST classmates on the flight with me, so we had a great time.

Woke up Monday morning to the sun and my first view of land after the Atlantic Ocean.... im guessing maybe France.

"oh yes, meals and movies are included on your flight"

breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack all with beverages of course. This was dinner- chicken with marinara, orzo, broccoli, sweet potatoes, more pasta and cole slaw and bread and cookies... geez.

Sure fire sign that the deployment is going to be amazing... I lay my head on my pillow and look up to the screen to see what the first movie was and I see a graphic of a full moon turning to new signaling to me the beginning of Twilight: New Moon. The audio didn't work so that was a bummer plus I brought it on dvd myself but I took it as a good sign :)

Norfolk, Virginia to Leipzig, Germany- 8 hours

Flying over Leipzig was amazing. Beautifully picturesque rolling green countryside with storybooks buildings with red roofs. All perfectly German.

We had a 2 hour layover at a tiny terminal at the Leipzig airport, where i was able to skype with Dad and the girls and buy a yummy nutella to go treat. It was a little bit of nutella with the same little breadsticks that were in the handy-snacks. Remember those?

Then, 5 and half more hours to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Landed at 12:30am local time and began the several hour in-processing process. Picked up body armor, chem bag and helmet. Checked baggage, turned in weapon, and got checked into our transient tent. Now we just hang around and wait for our missions to our final destinations.