The last time I was in Munich: Oktoberfest 2005. My second visit contained fewer smiles. Details below...

Hello, everybody, and Happy New Year! I apologize for my inattention to updating this blog lately. I have been sick with some sort of a stomach flu since Christmas, and today is the first day I even feel well enough to get online at all. Actually, today I feel like a new woman. I flew out of Baghdad International Airport on the 29th to fly to visit my boyfriend in Italy, via Dubai. It was a long and horrendous flight...pooping all the way, as they say...but I am here now, and I am feeling OH so much better. After barely eating anything for 6 days, I finally managed to take on some food and water, so I'm starting to get my strength back. Walking up one of the many "hills" here on the coast of Tuscany, half out of breath and with aching thigh muscles, I joked with David that now I know what "normal people" must feel like when walking about over here. Haha. Come on now; I said I was JOKING. For those of you who don't get the joke, well, I am usually quite fit, so feeling tired walking up a hill is a foreign experience for me, and I don't care for it at all. (Oh, look, another joke...sort of...)

You'll get the details of my travels in later blogs, but I'll share a little tidbit, by way of explanation for the lack of new photos here: I had to spend eight hours in the Munich airport waiting for my flight to Pisa, because my flight from Dubai to Milan was cancelled, and I was rerouted. During those eight hours, I wandered aimlessly and went to the bathroom a lot before lounging in some cool, swinging, hanging, bubble-shaped chair-thingies in the airport. I took a photo of myself to document how hollow and sunken my cheeks and eyes had become during my illness, and then I guess I forgot to put my camera away. When I FINALLY arrived in Italy and tried to find my darling little camera, it was missing. Subsequent searches have turned up empty. I have officially lost my camera (second one I have lost, and, coupled with the two that I have broken, brings total camera losses to FOUR), its cute little leather case, three batteries, and a one-gig memory card containing 300+ photos. LUCKILY, I have already downloaded most of the photos to my computer, but I have officially lost all photo documentation of my flight on Iraqi Airlines, my new friend Matthew, the sun setting off the wingtip of my plane over Dubai, and my hollow and sickly face after five days of stomach illness. Now I have to buy a new camera, and that just really blows. Argh. Until then, I will have difficulty posting any interesting blogs. Such is life. But at least I am in Italy!

To my friends and teammates in Iraq: I MISS YOU GUYS! I'll bring back lots of goodies for you, I promise.