Departure

Thanks to the nature of my job, I've been relocated to the middle of nowhere for the next 6 months of my life. I can't exactly say where I am right now, so let's assign a codeword for my present location. How about: Sweden. Whenever I mention Sweden, I am really referring to "the place that shall not be named."

The journey over here was epic to say the least. Not epic, like that ridiculous game of beer pong you played a few weeks ago that ended in naked female jello wrestling, but epic as in long and arduous.

My first attempted departure from home base (California) resulted in being left on the tarmac because of overweight baggage. My travel buddy Amanda had packed 5 pairs of high heels which apparently put her over the weight limit and kept us from boarding the plane. We had to wait until the next flight which left later that afternoon. So, back to our coworkers house for drinks, naps, and lunch.

We finally made it onto the twenty-seat prop plane about 10 hours later - Amanda was thoroughly sloshed at this point, but she turned out to be a happy mess of a drunk rather than a slobbering retard. She sang and danced loudly and without shame as we boarded the plane, and then proceeded to declare that it was a "party plane". To my surprise, the other 10 passengers whole-heartedly agreed and we proceeded to order a round of drinks for everyone. We applauded the stewardess after she completed her safety demonstration, she coyly thanked us, and we were off.

Our schedule remained unchanged after this, which meant we had to scramble like lunatics to catch our connecting flight from LA to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Virginia. Landing in Virginia we managed to sneak in more drinks, naps and lunch. So far so good. Lots of drinking, napping, and lunching thusfar, little drama, and a nice spattering of hilarious shenanigans courtesy of Amanda.

From Virginia it was off to Germany for a 3 hour layover. We were hustled into a small, cramped terminal that smelled like a poorly maintained truckstop. They did sell fine German beer, so more drinking, napping, and lunching on bizarre German candies.

This is where I start to get vague, sorry for the inconvenience. We had a two day layover enroute to Sweden at another location I will refer to as Portugal. Immediately after we got off the plane we were hustled into several briefings, and then to the warehouse for supplies. This is where I somehow got separated from the group of 300 or so and wound up completely alone at 3am with no idea of where to go. So, naturally, I climbed into the first truck that would stop. Luckily the guy behind the wheel knew where to take me, so it was off to the lodging office for a tent assignment.

No linens, and 2 miles on foot later I found my "bed" and crashed. I had the bottom bunk, which consisted of a bare mattress and a seemingly clean pillow. The air conditioning was on the Antarctic setting, and with no sheets or blankets of any kind I had to rely on my copious chest hair and bath towels to keep me warm. At one point I covered my legs with magazines, the right with Rolling Stone, the left with National Geographic Traveler.

The next morning I still had not found my group and had no instruction as to where I needed to be or when or why. I wandered aimlessly for half the day, taking full advantage of the 3 beer maximum at the bar and stopping several times for iced coffee at the coffee shop. Luckily I happened to bump into some folks I came in with and they filled me in on the plan. 0530 the next morning we were getting out of there, on the first plane to Sweden.