Home at last!

12/5, 5:40 AM EST: Home at last! Sorry everyone that I haven't been on Skype or on the blog recently. Once we left Dhahran and the Saudi Aramco Compound, it was difficult to post to the blog or photographs just because we were constantly on the go! One night in Jeddah I had worked on updating the blog for about 2 hours, but then my Internet time had expired, so it wiped out all my work when I tried to post it! My last day I had time for Internet access was Thursday!

We left Riyadh on Sunday afternoon after meeting with Prince Faisal ibn Turkey, which was an interesting experience. We had just had yet another big lunch, and then we went to meet the prince, and the room we sat in was extremely warm...we were all trying to stay awake! It was funny to watch my group members seated around a big conference table with smiles plastered on their faces and their eyes cranked open so they wouldn't fall asleep...I wish I could have taken a picture of them because they were just plain funny to watch.

We flew from Riyadh to Dammam, and there we parted ways with Hanadi...she was a wonderful guide and great conversationalist. We caught a bus from Dammam to Bahrain, again jumping through all the bureaucratic hoops to pass through the border of KSA and Bahrain. At the airport we told Tariq masalaama...yet another tough goodbye!

Upon arriving in Frankfurt, our group started to go its separate ways to catch flights back to the US. We all made friends, and it's not easy to tell people goodbye, knowing that you may never see them again. I almost didn't get to leave Frankfurt at my scheduled time because for whatever reason because Lufthansa did not have me in their system...they had an Angus Simmons, but no Daniel Simmons. By this point I was tired and just wanted to get home; I would have gladly changed my name to Angus just to have boarded the plane! Fortunately the lady at the Lufthansa desk was able to book me a seat, and off we went.

Landed at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. at 3:20 PM on Monday, and then had to get through Immigration and Customs. My flight was supposed to have left at 5:30 PM, but it was delayed until 7:38 PM because of high winds in Washington, D.C. I landed at RDU around 8:50 or so, and it was great to see my wife for the first time in two weeks!

Debating whether or not to go to work as I'm really tired, but I haven't adjusted to the time here yet. My body is thinking it's 2 in the afternoon, and I've been awake since 4 am EST.