A 5-sentence summary of the last leg of my trip back to the USA:

I missed my flight to Spain because my plane was delayed out of Providence, so I had a 24-hour layover, so I took a train from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, where I hung out with a great but unfortunately seldom-seen friend, Elizabeth, and then got back on the train and went back to Philadelphia and realized as I was pulling into the train station in Philadelphia that I left my plane tickets on Elizabeth’s counter at her house in Washington, DC. The fabulous people at US Airways took pity on me, potentially making up for the time they lost all my luggage en route to South Carolina with 6 months worth of my belongings I had prepared to take to Iraq, upgrading me to Envoy class, even better than first class, and I sat in a seat with so much legroom that even I, 5′11″ me, could not touch the seat in front of me with my legs OR even bending over and stretching, and they had a 3 course dinner served on plates with all I wanted to drink for free (can anyone say “Vodka and Cranberry”???), and I had a fresh capresse salad on a bed of red oak and frisee lettuces, sundried tomato-basil fetuccini in a baked parmesan cup with baked yellow and red tomatoes, portabello mushrooms and fresh goat cheese, followed by a dessert of warm pecan pie with 3 types of fresh cheese (the kind with the fancy rind) and grapes.  And while I waited for the (my nose in the air and my tongue in my cheek) “coach” passengers to board, I was served mimosas and warm, fresh roasted mixed nuts; after dinner I was given a box of gourmet chocolates while my choice of movies started on my personal television until I dozed off almost fully reclined and woke up to a toasted bagel with a bowl of fresh mixed fruit.

And the best part? They didn’t even lose my luggage this time.

We had to leave this morning at 5:30am to get me to the airport in Jerez by 7.  I got to Madrid at 8 and sat at the airport for 5 hours until I left again.  Of course, when one has a long layover, one spends money - I figured since I’ll be home next weekend (surprise!) I would pick up some Spanish goodies for my family and one friend back home.  I bought packages of chorizo, a yummy Spanish sausage, to give to everyone, and before I checked out I asked if there would be any problems importing it to the US.  No, there wouldn’t be, so I purchased it and packaged it and put it in my luggage.  8 hours later when I arrived in Philadelphia for my next 6 hour layover, the chorizo was taken by immigration and in my over-tired and very irritable mood, I grabbed my luggage and sliced open my finger (ok, it was about as big as a papercut but!) which I didn’t notice until I made it back out of immigration, into another terminal of the airport in Philadelphia, through the baggage check, and to the counter to try and change my ticket, and that was when I looked down and saw that the stupid tiny little cut had bled all down the side of my hand and there was blood on my  pants and on both hands and it was just such a perfect end to my voyage out of Madrid.

I’m in Philly now on my second ridiculously long layover of the day en route to Newport, RI for a few days of training and then I am flying home! for 2 days.  It wasn’t meant to be a surprise to those of you back home, but my travel arrangements weren’t finalized until 4pm on Friday night and I didn’t get the chance to call home until today.  I didn’t want to say I was coming home and then have my arrangements fall through and force you all into grief counseling because I wasn’t going to be there.

You’re welcome. See all you Wisconsinites on Thursday night!

One of the things that’s so frustrating about advancement exams is that as soon as I walk out of that room, I forget about 99% of what was on it.  This time I got lucky and it was only about 95% that I forgot.

So now it’s the sit-and-wait game.  I wait a couple of months to see if I passed and if I scored high enough to make it to the board to review my record, and if I get to that point, then more waiting to find out if I got selected - the entire process takes about 9 months, so there’s not going to be anything to update any time soon!

In one hour I will be taking my first ever Chief’s exam.

It would figure that last night I had a migraine that kept me up late and had me to that point where I couldn’t keep it together emotionally because it hurt so bad and was ready to get in the car and drive myself to the hospital to get a shot, except that it hurt so bad that I couldn’t move from the position I was in to get in the car.

Fortunately when I woke up at 2:30am, the medicine (6 ibuprofen) had finally had some effect and it had subsided enough that I didn’t need to go in.

Not as fortunately, the reason I woke up at 2:30am was because Anja was crying.  Not just crying, wailing, the kind of wail that isn’t the infrequent yet somewhat expected cry from being sent back to her own bed.  I could tell something was wrong.

She came back to our bed and we asked her what was wrong and she said that her ear hurt really, really bad.  And that it felt “spicy” inside.  I love the descriptions that Anja comes up with for things because they’re so random and yet they make sense.

I gave her some Tylenol and tried to get her back to sleep with us but she couldn’t because her ear hurt so bad, so finally at 3:00am, B took her to the doctor.

I couldn’t fall back asleep after that so I was up til about 3:45, and my alarm went off at 6, and now it’s time for me to shower and get dressed and go take the biggest advancement exam of my career thus far.  The one that I haven’t studied for and forgot I even had until 3:00 yesterday afternoon.

Wish me luck.

FINALLY, I am done assisting in the investigation.  While I was glad to help and it was very interesting, I am finally able to dedicate all of my time to my real job.  I have been itching to be done so that I can focus on getting back into the thick of things with my regular job.

Three things I forgot to post about the sub tour I went on last time that I found fascinating:

1. They sleep on top of torpedoes.  Literally.  Not everyone but there are actual bunks directly on top of the torpedoes.

2. As narrow as it is, people walk through at a very brisk pace and never so much as brush against your shoulder as they pass.  It seems as if there’s not even room for two people down a passageway and yet no one bumps into anyone else.  I think they go to school to learn how to change the dimensions of their bodies while walking as fast as they can.

3. On a related note, I saw the unexplainable: a Chief (I’m sure this will make more sense to those of you who know about Chiefs) went through the very small hole with the very narrow ladder while holding two cups of hot coffee.  I can’t figure out where his hands were on the ladder when coming down?  One of the many magical phenomena associated with being a Chief.  Paranormal activities relating to coffee and eyes in places that my mother would be surprised by are common.  I heard once something about one of the requirements for being a Chief is that you have to be able to stand in a canoe in a hurricane with a full cup of coffee and not spill a drop.  I’m working on it, Dad….

By the way, Niki - no bruises!  Impressive, huh?  Well, no bruises from the sub at least.  I have a big one on the front of my leg from getting it stuck every time I got up from the spring-loaded chair and there will be another on my shoulder from getting hit by a racquetball, but I managed to keep all my veins sealed while I was on the sub.

This weekend is a long weekend and guess what!  WE ARE GOING SOMEWHERE!  I’m still feeling a little bit faint that B actually (enthusiastically, even) agreed to go somewhere and *gasp* stay in a hotel for *gasp* not just one but TWO nights.  It’s still in the Andalucia province but we’re getting a little bit further away and there’s still hope that we might even leave the country for a vacation someday.   We’re going to Granada and probably going to spend one day meandering through the town, one day split between tubing on the mountain and visiting the Alhambra, and the last day doing whatever (B: stop reading.  Everyone else, read: shopping).

I PROMISE I haven’t forgotten about my blog.  I know I’ve been neglecting it and every time I think about posting, I feel like I need a huge amount of time to write a big, long post and I never seem to have all that time that I need. 

I finally went back to work last week after New Year’s.  The night before I was to come back, I got a phone call saying that there was a submarine that had pulled into our port and that there was going to be an investigation into an incident that had occurred as it was leaving its last port.  It was a very somber week as we interviewed witnesses and gathered information.  This week, the investigative team travelled to do some more interviews and I was able to come back to my regular job for the first time.

It’s good, albeit a bit overwhelming at times, to be back at my regular job.  A lot has happened in the 6 months I was gone and I’m in a new position now where I’m pretty much learning everything for the first time.  I have a good group of people to get me up to speed, though, and I think things will work pretty smoothly.

On a more interesting note, yesterday I got to take a tour of a submarine - an unusual opportunity, especially for a woman!  It was very small as I’m sure everyone already knows, but I was surprised that I didn’t feel nearly as claustrophobic as I thought I would (though maybe I’d feel differently if we were closed in and going underwater!). 

Hopefully we’ll do something this weekend worthy of writing about and I’ll get some nice pictures with my fancy shmancy new camera!