Aloha

My criss-crossing of the globe has nearly come to an end, at least for now.

To sum up:

- a hellish 24-hour journey to Okinawa, Japan thru San Francisco and Osaka(12 hours of which I was stuck in a MIDDLE seat);
- a lovely day at the beach there, marred only by the threat of a fistfight between inebriated representatives of the Army and Marine forces; also, a pony bit me because our photo op happened to interrupt his attempts to mount the other pony;
- a relatively uneventful working flight to Townsville, Australia (my only seven hours of true work this entire trip) - however, it was delayed two hours because the military had miscounted its passengers;
- an arrival in TSV just as the sun went down, a quick outing for dinner and cocktails followed by an early a.m. departure (before sunrise);
- an empty ferry flight to Honolulu, during which I slept for six hours and ate lots of chocolate;
- a night drinking mai-tais and celebrating the end of our probationary period (seven months! at last!)
- ..which brings me to now, 10:30 a.m.

So there you have it. Today I will sun myself and then depart for home this afternoon. I hope the aforementioned sleep deprivation and dashing around will excuse my silence these past few days, blog-wise.