Its extremelly bittersweet. I am very excited he was able to get a job in this economy and so soon, but the bitter part its a job in Kuwait. Now I know we were due for a separation soon. In the Army for so long, you spend the majority of the time waiting for them to come back or waiting for the other shoe to drop and them leave on a moments notice. His last deployment he got home in 07. He was home for about 2 1/2 yrs, that was a blessing. A huge blessing, so this separation was kind of expected, still hard though, add in the fact I thought I would be in my own place taking care of the kids and going to school while he was gone. Yeahh life is funny that way. I am at my parents, trying to save money to buy a house and waiting for hubby. So I already know this will be a crazy ride.
Before he left though, we made sure to spend lots time doing stuff and soaking in every second. I took him for his first trip to Five guys, we went to Panera bread, took the kids to the park, zoo, museum, planetarium, bike riding, movies and so forth. So it was very enjoyable.
Hubby left from West Palm Beach, Fl to Detroit, then to Amsterdam (where is Amsterdam?? Nope not Germany. Everyone thinks its Germany but its actually in Holland. Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands located in Holland, so here you go. One question on "Who wants to be a millionarie" you will get it right) and from there he went to Kuwait. Well you can only guess what kind of jet lag he got. He is so out of it, but now he is at his apartment with 2 of his roomate. He will send me pictures and I will share with you guys because nothing interests me more than how other people live in different countries and since you read my blog, you will get injected with some culture ;)
Here are some facts:
-Kuwait is 8 hours ahead from east coast US.
- The money there is called Kuwait Dinar. The exchange rate is about $1 dollar equals to .28 kwd. They go by the thousands not the hundreds like we go here.Imagine if you had to say 10 dollars and 985 cents. Weird hun??
-The country shifts in weather a lot. It can go from the low 40's in the middle of the night to the high 130's during the day.
-NO they dont ride in donkeys. Its very civillized.
-Hubby lives on a 3 bedroom 3 bath apartment with 2 roomates. He got a key for his apartment and a key for his room. They each have their own bathroom, and share the rest of the place. The apartment is huge. Bigger than our base housing in Bragg.
-He is on the 4th floor and is paranoid that they got 2 or 3 elevators and he thinks is elevator overkill..(I love him)for his tower (i guess apartment buildings are called towers)
-Also with this job, his living allowance is included in our gross pay. He gets about 500 bucks every 2 weeks but because they like to rob them on the currency exchange, hubby already got a bank account and they will deposit his living allowance into his bank account over there and he wont have to worry about the exchange rate or anything like that. Our pay will be deposit into our bank account.
-Hubby thinks 500 bucks every 2 wks will be fine for him to live on since he only got to pay for internet and phone cards and any extras he might want. Even his car, they will put gas in it and reeimburse him (they want him to have a kuwaiti (I dont know if its kuwaity or kuwaiti) DL) I guess being a mechanic is helpfull, but until then he will get rides to work. Also I believe they are allowed to use the dfac and the px (for all you nonmilitaries that is the cafeteria and walmart of the military)
-All over the place everything is written in their language and in English
-McD's fries are the saem but the meat is very different
-There is soo many mosques (sp) all over the place. Hubby told me every couple hours during prayer time, they play the prayers in Arabic over the loudspeaker. Its very hard to hear yourself when you are outside during prayer time.
-Americans are absolutetly not allowed to enter the mosques
-Unmarried man are not allowed to live with unmarried female. Hence why hubby got 2 male roomates
- He already got a prepaid phone and we can call and text each other any time. For 30 minutes to call my cell is about 18kwd. Kind of pricey.
-Internet he will share and its 10kwd a month, except its extremelly slow. Everyone in his tower will use the same line.
-The hotel he was in had a desktop. I guess most hotel rooms got a desktop computer
-MSN, Aim, vonage and so forth doesnt work there. But facebook does..lol.
-You can smoke anywhere. The hotel lobby, inside the airport, seriouslly anywhere.
That is all I got for you so far. As we go through this journey I will share more and promise I will post pictures.
Hubby starts to improcess on Sunday and will work Sunday to Thursday from 5am to 3pm. He might work saturdays too to rack some overtime. We will see.
I am now trying to find a support group for wives of civillian contractors. I had a great one for deployed mm's. I learned so much and it made life so much easier that I pretty much had a better picture before hubby even got boots on the ground in Iraq. Here I am flying dark and I dont like it. So if anyone knows of any sites I would love to hear about :)
I will leave you with a picture from right before he left. This was our date night and this picture was supossed to be post in the post right before this one, but I am too lazy to edit it :)
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