We landed in London around 8:00am local time. I was prepared for the unknown since the American airlines ticket agent in Tucson told me she was unsure if I had to clear customs in Heathrow. The airport was well marked for "transfer" travellers as we were called. The signs eventually led to a narrow corridor in terminal 3.I began to see that I was less and less surrounded by Eurpoeans and more and more by people of Middle Eastern and Indian descent.
Oh, note to travellers through Heathrow...you know that 2 carry-on rule we have here in the US? Ummm...not so there; just 1 carry-on per passenger. I had my backpack and my laptop bag (oops, that was 2). I luckily was able to stuff my laptop into my backpack and jam the rest of the laptop bag in there also. It made me have to rethink my return trip strategy! People were told in the security line that they had to go out, clear customs and check the extra bags they had (ouch) and then come back through the security line! Oh, and Heathrow airport security personnel...definiitely not as nice as US personnel!
After passing through security, my passport and plane ticket were checked and I headed on down the hallway. The hallway led to a big open area where all the ticket counters were for the international flights. I found my Kuwait Airlines line (just one little counter position) and got my boarding pass. Terminal 3 was set up like a lot of the modern airports, lots of little shops and eateries. I saw a cute London t-shirt for Evan that I planned to get on my return back through the airport. I found a spot to watch the BBC news while waiting for my flight. I headed out to gate 33 where it was a little unsettling to see I was the only caucasian, female, non-muslim on the flight! I ran into an Army officer from CENTCOM (Tampa) that I see on our bi-weekly video teleconferences, so we struck up a conversation while waiting to board. He was heading to the conference also, so at least I was not alone on the flight!
I had another window seat, this time I had a British guy sitting next to me. He and some buddies (who were also on the flight), were heading to Kuwait enroute back into Iraq. They all looked like your typical rugby-playing guys...but from my conversation with the one guy, I think they weren't soldiers, but contractors (the guys who do a lot of the personnel security/bodyguard work). Since there were empty rows of seats, the guy beside me moved into a row with one of his buddies (which gave me room to stretch out).
The flight went quickly (I slept a lot of the time). It was dark when we flew into Kuwait City. From above it looked like a typical port city. The onyl odd thing were the methane fires you could see from the oil refineries. The airport was very modern; many western shops like Starbucks, Clair's Boutique, and KFC.
I had to wait in line to get my visa and then clear customs. We next met up with the conference personnel about 10pm to load up into the van to take us to Camp Arifjan. Walking outside the airport you get that blast of warm air. I was expecting it to be hotter, but the conference personnel told us there was an upper-level sandstorm that kept the temps low that day.
The trip to Arifjan took about an hour and we were hoping to just buzz right through the security checkpoint which is manned by contracted security personnel (both US and Kuwaiti personnel). The US security guard asked to see everyone's ID cards. Of course, my card he pointed to and said that my Army Contractor ID was not a valid ID to get on post (ack)!! Our driver (who was an Army officer) showed the guard all the paperwork I (and about 5 other guys) had filled out to approve our post access. The guard said that the policy had changed since our paperwork was approved and that contractor ID cards were not valid. The running joke in the van of about 20 other conference attendees was that I would be spending the week in guard shack! Um, yeah, not funny!
The guard's superior officer arrived on the scene (about 30 minutes had gone by and we were all waiting). It took a while longer and some phone calls, but we were all finally allowed to pass. The van had to go through a vehicle inspection (which took about another 30 minutes). We made it to the barracks around midnight (so this post is bleeding over into Tuesday).
We got "checked in" to the barracks (got a bunk and locker assigned and our Army-issue linens). Oh how I've missed that green wool Army blanket!! The open bay had about 50 bunks and of course women were sleeping already; so we had to fumble around in the dark until our eyes adjusted to find our bunks (I was #74, a bottom thank goodness). In the women's bay, we were fortunate to not have too many women bunking down so we all had bottom bunks. The guys on the other hand, were stacked on the bottom and top bunks (yuck). It was freezing in the bay so I had to sleep with layers of clothes on. We had to be up and at the conference by 8:00am, so not much sleep tonight!
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