Jet lagged.

Traveling back from Iraq was the trip from hell not the easiest journey I’ve ever made. Let’s just say I’ve been out of commission since I got back on Tuesday night! (Read: I’ve been out of it! And keeping old woman sleeping hours.)

I got on a plane in Basrah (southern Iraq) at 8:30am on Monday morning, and landed in Amman, Jordan about two hours later. I then had about a 15 hour layover. Luckily I had a hotel room since it was such a long period time so I was able to go rest, check emails, shower, etc before heading back to the airport around 11:00pm.

My flight to Paris from Amman then left at 1:45am, which let me tell you by this point, I was delirious and I am not even sure how I got on the plane! Motivation to get back to the States I suppose! I arrived in Paris at about 6:00am and immediately found some chairs to try to get a little more sleep in, knowing I had about 6 hours to kill for my layover.

I woke up from my nap and saw that my flight from Paris to Washington had been delayed by an hour. Which I was not exactly thrilled about. The wifi at the airport hated me was not working, so  I walked around the airport, got some breakfast, did some duty free browsing, and tried to relax. I was really feeling the travel exhaustion at this point and I still had 4,000 miles to go!

Finally it was time to board the plane after another 45 minute delay. (My layover was almost 8 hours at this point.)  We got on the plane, I was ecstatic to find out I had the entire row to myself. We did the whole pre-take off checks, started to back out from the gate, pulled back up to the gate and proceeded to sit there for 4 HOURS!

One of the computers had somehow died and they had to replace it. Boy was I bored! I killed my Blackberry battery (thank you work for some entertainment) and then proceeded to read the in-flight magazine from start to finish about 12 times. Luckily AirFrance was kind enough to pass out some beverages wine which at least made me a little bit happier.

We finally took off, I watched about 5 movies, and we landed safe and sound at Dulles International.

I was so happy to be home!

It was definitely a journey, but it was an experience I will never forget being able to go to Iraq and see how things operate and function there. I will do a recap of my whole trip this weekend!

Monday, half training and eating plan commence! Get ready (oh wait, I should be telling myself that.)