Chilling on a Monday

I am getting ready to go to London. I am sooo excited. I haven’t seen my family since Jan 05 and I haven’t seen my oldest sister since our trip to Prague and Zagreb in the middle of last year. She is only a year younger than me and we always have a great time. She is fun to party with and she has all the good gossip from the US. It is not too easy to call her from here but we used to call each other and watch Paradise Island together, telephonically. That was when I was in Kentucky and she was in South Carolina.

Now, we can’t do that obviously. I also don’t get to watch my beloved reality TV shows. There isn’t a menu channel on the TVs here so you can’t ever plan to watch anything. You just start clicking thru the channels till you find something. Also, programs start at random times so you almost never get to the beginning of a show. I swear I have seen the last 2/3 of so many movies. Anyway, my absolute favorite reality show is The Amazing Race. I would win that so easily with a buddy of mine in Dubai. He has traveled more than I have and speaks pretty good Arabic and Spanish. I speak French and some Arabic so with our language skills we could totally win. We are also both experts in airports and most importantly know how to pick a cab. That whole game is won or lost in cabs. I won’t tell what my secret is to picking them just in case I get on there. Anyway, we have already figured out that we would have to lie to get on there. If they knew our skills they would never let us on the show. We both have nearly full passports that we would conveniently lose so we could get fresh empty ones. Ah well. Hopefully I will get on there and win that 1M bucks.

I feel like I set a precedent by talking about politics in nearly every post but tonight I just don’t feel like it. I am pissed actually. I watch the news and see all this Middle East coverage. I care about Iraq, and Lebanon and Israel and all that, but I care more about immigration and our southern borders. We really have to square that away. Put it to a popular vote and be done with it.

Oops, well I guess I hit some political stuff. Oh well.

Aside from that though, not much news to tell. We didn’t get rocketed again today which is always nice, but it was damn hot. I don’t know the exact temperature it was, but whew. HOT. You know what it feels like when the air blasts you after you open the stove? It feels like that, only all the time, and on your whole body. When you walk behind an AC discharge vent, it feels even hotter. I don’t think this is the hottest place on Earth by a long shot, but it is definitely the hottest place I have ever been. Somebody should do something about this!

Oh, the bathrooms in the hooches don’t have AC. You sweat so bad using the toilet it isn’t funny. What I do now is leave the bathroom door open and my trailer door open so that the room AC flows towards the toilet. I don’t care if someone sees me. It works a bit but you still sweat your ass off. I will not miss this place at all when I am gone. I will miss some of the people and the excitement, but not the Iraqis and not Iraq.

So tonight is a pretty chill night. No parties, no BBQs. Just chilling at the hooch planning my trip. I am trying to make time to go to Monkey World while I am in the UK. I was going to make a donation tonight but I would rather go there and make it in person. You guys have to watch Animal Planet and catch a show called Monkey Business. Best monkey show on TV. They are totally committed to rescuing primates that are sold illegally after being captured in the wild. I totally respect that. If any of you have pet monkeys, call Monkey World and turn that sucker over to them. It is the right thing to do.

Well that’s it I guess.

Here are some pictures from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. These monkeys are wild but they get really close to you and will steal anything you leave laying around. They run up and down these steps like it is nothing. Also, some monk rode an elephant to the top to visit the religious site. Freak.






Cheers,
Walt