Touchdown!

So, it is now 1:35 AM Central, and I am in Illinois, in a hotel room my company reserved for me.  I am typing away on a company-provided laptop, and a couple of doors away is another trainer who will be my neighbor for the next eight weeks.  I am freshly showered and slathered in lotion, and I am looking to two days of getting used to being here before I go to work Monday.  I had to go through the insanity that is airport security, and live through the longest January first of my life (that's because I lived it twice - in Manila and in Japan/Missouri/Illinois), but hey, I did find out that yeah, snow lives up to its reputation by being cold, I got to eat a mountain of shrimp, and discovered that here, their version of 7-up is called "Sierra Mist."

Is this the life, or what?

Sorry for the whining.  Birthing (or is it growing?) pains.  Now that I'm here, I see my company's done a pretty good job of taking care of things for us.  The people who received us here also live up to the company spirit that I've seen from our visitors back home, and it's overwhelming, not to mention very comforting now that the people closest to my heart are very far away.