I've arrived....

Yes, it's true, I'm finally here. It's about 5 am here, but only 9 pm at home (or somewhere thereabouts), so I'm not as sleepy as I should be. I will, however, try to take a nap before I get up and get to work. Getting here was fairly uneventful, all my luggage made it, and I even managed to sleep a little on the plane. Funny thing about flying for the better part of a 24-hour period - they feed you constantly. I mean, it just never stops. The food wasn't too bad (yay for the vegetarian option), but yeah...definitely won't be hungry for a while.

I think I'm living in my old neighborhood. I know that the window from my bedroom looks out over the cricket field of the Karachi American School. It's all very surreal still, and I can't believe that I won't see home for a few months. To be honest, it's been a little emotional, but I'm going to chalk all that up to sleep deprivation and quit being such a wuss.

Our driver, Hamid, seems very nice, and most of the people at the airport were also very kind - there's a customs line for "children and unaccompanied women" that someone pointed out to me. Interesting. But as I said, everyone was very nice. I started chatting with a guy in the Dubai airport who is from here, but currently lives in Houston. He's getting married here in July, and when he found out I'd still be here, invited me to the wedding. I gave him my card, so he can send me an e-mail, but how fun would that be?

That's about it for me for the moment. I'm going to check work e-mail, and brace myself for the flood of "holy crap, where are you???" e-mails. I'll write more later, but it appears that e-mail access is pretty good, so I'd love to hear from folks. I don't have a phone yet, but I'll pass that along as soon as I get one.