Afghanistan from the Air Part I

Today I arrived at my new home for the next nine months. We took a chinook from Bagram to FOB Finley Shields. I sat right next to the gunner and got a great view of Afghanistan. The below picture is what most of Afghanistan looks like.Now this is what Nangarhar province looks like! We live in a fertile valley and there's lots of greenery, which is really nice. It's also hot. Today was 115 and it gets as high as 140.Here's a picture of me on the chinook.
And here's a picture of my current living arrangements. This is only temporary until I move into the hotel (old Russian R&R complex) which is actually very nice for deployment standards.Even though I'm excited to be here and excited to start work, it was hard to leave Scott, who is still stuck at Bagram. We may be able to see each other at Bagram in a month or so for a conference, but we're not holding our breath.
I have more pictures to share from our flights to Kyrgyzstan, but it will have to wait for now. It's almost my bed time! :)