Afghanistan in the Morning

Our flight to Afghanistan takes off from Kuwait Airport at 0800 (see how I'm already fitting in?), which means I have to wake up in something like 5 and a half hours. I never sleep much while I'm on the road, especially when I have to get up in the morning.

I meant to write a lot more about Kuwait, but there's really not a lot to say. It was pretty boring as we spent most of the time in the hotel eating and going to the gym. We were only here waiting on the next flight in country, anyway.

I did record a video-blog-kinda-thing that I was going to post on here, but after fiddling around with a couple of really terrible (but free) editors trying to put in my pictures as well, I gave up telling that story altogether. Maybe I'll post it later.

The gist of it can be found in my pictures of the city. Brook and I walked around and took in the architecture the other day until it got unbearably hot. That very tall spire is the Liberation Communication Tower and is part of the Ministry of Communication. It was in construction when the Iraqis invaded in 1990 and construction was finished after coalition forces liberated the country--hence the name. It's 1220 feet tall. Our driver on the first day told us it was 1200 meters tall, which seemed strange to me as I figured I would've heard about a structure that was a kilometer tall.

The first picture is the view from my hotel room. It would look better if there wasn't so much dirt on the outside of the windows, but what you see appears to be a very large and unattended cemetery. What look like beach chairs are actually head stones, and the uneven lumps are where the bodies are buried. Nice view, right? In the meantime, Brook can see Liberation Tower and the Persian Gulf from his room--I got hosed.

The next time you hear from me, I'll be in Afghanistan.

Kuwait City