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Wow, it seems like only yesterday that I was arriving, completely exhausted, after my first 28 days in Angola. Tired from working almost continuously for 28 days, tired from traveling on buses, boats, planes and cars to get home. It’s been a great time off. I see now why people were telling me, “Just make it through the first rotation, then enjoy the time off, you will be hooked.” We did a lot – a 10 day road trip with very little in the way of schedule. Time to work on the house, build a computer, spend way too much on power tools, and have lots of nice dinners with friends. Time to relax and enjoy. Now I’m back at it – we are leaving the house in half and hour to head to the airport. I’m going to head into downtown Luanda this time to turnover with my back-to-back, and to meet my boss (not the first time meeting him, but the first time as my boss). It’s funny how you go from 10mph to 100mph in a day or so – running around making sure that I’ve bought everything I need for this hitch, getting a haircut, buying (expensive) malaria drugs. We got a reasonable amount done on the house – baseboards in my office and the guest room are done, ceilings in those rooms are painted, my office now has a very nice big computer desk that I got at a consignment store for about a sixth of the original price. When I get back, our Kazakh shipment will be here and the house will look a little less empty. Liz has grand plans for decorating and other stuff. We’ve already got most of the weekends planned for my next off-time in May, including another trip to Las Vegas for a friend’s renewal of vows, and a trip to Newfoundland to see the daughter of another friend graduate. Fun stuff. I think I can do this for a while.