Greetings From Kuwait

My job has taken me across the ocean to Kuwait, a brief stop on the way to Camp Slayer, Iraq. I'm only going to be here for a few hours, so I'm not going to be able to make any sort of piercing, insightful observations. I'll make some cursory, superficial ones instead.

I grew up in Southern California, so the LA basin serves as my point of reference for what a city should look like from the air. Kuwait city is not much like LA; its a quite discreet lump in the middle of the desert; there's nothing around for miles and miles, just flat stretches of sand and scrub. Even within the city's boundaries things don't seem very dense; there's large pockets (oil fields mayhap) that aren't lit up at all in the evening.

Things here seem to be very Westernized. According to my host there's such a diversity of cultures and nationalities commingling here that everyone speaks English to communicate. And you can't escape the restaurant chains; there's a Ruby Tuesday somewhere nearby, and the apartment where I'm currently holed up has fliers for Papa John's. Yeah, that's right, Papa John's. There was at least one section of road that wouldn't have looked out of place in Irvine, CA, right down to the palm trees and apartment buildings.

Like I said, shallow observations, but I'm not going to be here for very long. Hopefully I'll have something more substantive to say once I "head North" as they seem to refer to Iraq around here.