finally a phone call!

I guess posting yesterday did the trick, because I got my first phone call from Iraq yesterday. Patrick gave me a call around 2 pm yesterday, 10 pm his time. It was so good to finally hear from him! We got to talk for about an hour, which was very nice.

He filled me in on everything. He said he's been very busy, working around 17 hours a day. He said he had just gotten off work, and he usually gets up for work around 4 am. So he apologzied for sounding tired, and he told me... "If it makes you feel any better this week flew by for me!" I told him it didn't because I felt like a "snail crawling through time". Regardless I am glad he's keeping busy, and he's safe.

He told me that everything was ready when they arrived, and they got to move in right away, and that he has 2 roommates. He said in the cans the outlets are European outlets, which he hadn't anticipated so he hasn't gotten to use his laptop or ipod or anything since he can't charge the batteries. Hopefully by the end of today he'll have the adapters and be all set up to communicate more often.

Of course he told me about the food, with Patrick it's always about the food! He said along with the Burger King and Pizza Hut and Subway, they've built a Cinnabon and KFC that haven't opened yet. Needless to say he's excited for all of that. He also asked if I could send him Bojangles, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too tasty after the 2 week trip in the mail!

He gave me a list of things to send him already, and things I shouldn't send. He originally wanted me to ship his Wii over, but after he got there he saw how bad the sand got into absolutely everything and thought it wasn't the best of ideas. If anyone out there wants to send him something, shoot me an email and I will be happy to provide his address for you.

He didn't have much more to tell me. He said he's taking pictures, so I'll see what I can do about getting them from him and posting them up here. But that's about all for now. Keep him in your thoughts and prayers! 1 week down, 51 more to go!