This post was written across three continents.

I am currently sitting in Kuwait’s only airport, starting to write up this blogpost. My goal is to finish this before I land in Los Angeles. I think this is a reasonable goal.

There is a massive swarm of 12 year olds wearing matching red shirts who are getting on the same flight. I am mostly intrigued, and a tad scared. I do not like the idea of a 6 hour plane ride surrounded by a mass of children in matching shirts. I would probably file that potential situation under “nightmare fuel.”

I spoke too soon. I am on the plane now, and the redshirts have taken every spot within 5 seats of me. It’s not so bad, though. They’re not nearly as rowdy as I expected. Apparently, they’re all going to the UK as part of a football tour/camp thing, where they tour the stadiums and go watch a few Arsenal games. I am a little envious. One of their counselors is sitting next to me. She seems really nice. If I was a 12 year old on that trip, I would probably have a crush on her (the British accent doesn’t hurt). This is a very amusing thought to have*.

Soon after I sat down at Heathrow, she parked right next me. I LIKE PLANES

I am now waiting in the airport at Heathrow (London). I am quite happy, partly because I had a triple whammy of good-book-discovery, but mostly because I have been reminded of how much I love traveling. The 20+ hours of travel time leave a person pretty exhausted, but it’s definitely worth it. It boggles my mind how much cultural/anthropological significance airports have. If you went back in time and told someone from a few hundred years ago that there were these places that had thousands of people from every part of the world walk through them daily, it would probably boggle their minds too. I have yet to regret striking up a conversation with someone while on the plane or waiting at the airport. Other people have lives, and lives tend to be interesting. I LOVE TRAVELING

It is now 5AM (although my internal clock says otherwise), and my cousin and I are waiting in Logan for our last flight (for a few days, at least).  The plane ride from Heathrow to Boston was pretty fantastic. I happened to sit next to this woman from Luxembourg. I do not often meet people who come from countries that are smaller than mine. Apparently, she was on her way to visit her husband, which made me both happy (she’s going to see her husband!) and sad (she has to take a plane to see her husband). Besides the 2ish hours I spent sleeping, pretty much the rest of that 8 hour flight was spent talking about education and satellites and everything in between.  I never caught her name, though, and that is a little sad. I STILL LOVE TRAVELING

We arrived in LA, dropped our bags off, and wandered around LA in a half-asleep daze, trying very hard to fight the jetlag, accidentally ending up in an In-N-Out along the way. Tomorrow, we are planning on going to some storage area and sorting out my cousin’s stuff, since most of the reason why we’re in LA is to do just that. It is now nighttime, and I’ve gotten 6 hours of sleep over the past 71 hours, so I think I am going to go do that sleep thing**.

We have traveled over 14121km since I started writing up this post, passing through four airports spanning three continents. I think this is cool. Goodnight all. Have some more pictures from Kuwait and elsewhere.

* these last few sentences were noted mentally and typed up later. I did *not* type that up with her sitting next to me. That would be a bit creepy.

**I actually fell asleep halfway through writing that last sentence. Decided to finish it up the way I meant to last night. The irony was too sweet.

Mom wanted to take a picture of our first big breakfast after Ramadan. Najouba decided that she was breakfast.

Baby sister, grandfather, and goat.

Newest addition to the (extended) family!

My uncle likes to take candid photos of us. This one is my favourite.

A cupcake ATM we spotted in LA.

This is Faisal. He drives me places. He is my cousin. A very useful cousin.