I've been here for a couple of weeks now, so lemme share the adventures thus far...

Travel to the AOR.  I left in the afternoon on a Thursday and made it to my destination late Saturday evening.  We made several stops along the way and spent a few hours on the ground at each and I can say with great confidence that if anyone is deploying anytime soon just know that you will be fed plenty.  There was no shortage of food anywhere (which was a big concern of mine).  Now, let me also caveat that statement with this...do not, under any circumstance, ever, eat the alfredo pasta.  Ever!  On one of the 7 1/2 hour legs of the trip 50% of us (the 50% that did not heed the above advice) had food poisoning.  Seriously the worst 7 hours of my life.  Stuck on an airplane with 300 of your closest friends and 6 bathrooms...no bueno.  muy muy malo.  Worst 7 hours of my life, fo shizzle. 

Another lesson learned so far, do not ever believe anything a logistics planner tells you.  Ever.  And I assure you it really is no fault of their own, the movement to and from the AOR is such a cluster that they never stand a chance.  So, the lesson learned is just that if they tell you you're not on this flight, assume you are.  If they tell you you're only going to be in the AOR for 7 days, 30 days later you can go ahead and request permanent billeting.  At one of my stops, I'm at a mass briefing to find out what flight I'm on to get to my final destination.  They go down the list of names of folks going to my same location, they're flight time is 2:30pm the next day.  There were 5 of us left who were going to the exact same location and to the same unit who were not scheduled on that flight, or any other flight for that matter.  So, we ask the question, what about about us?  They tell us they aren't sure and to come back at noon the next day and they'd figure it out.  Ok, so I go to sleep, take my time wandering around the next day, show up at noon.  Turns out this noon meeting was solely because they had lost complete accountability of who was at this particular location and who needed to go where, so they just had us all show up at noon so they could get eyes on and figure out what was going on.  They call the 5 of us going to same location up to the front and tell us that we need to be on this 2:30pm flight (shocker), and oh by the way, you have 30 min to get packed, turn your linens in, and get the f on that plane before it leaves your ass.  Great.  So, of course it's complete madness and we get out to the plane in time, have to leave some of our gear behind because there wasn't enough time to get it all (it was shipped to us later)....and then we sit there for an hour because the plane was late coming in...of course it was.  Then we fly to the final destination, all seems to go well...that is until we step off the ramp of the aircraft and we're surrounded by fire trucks & ambulances.  I think to myself, hmm, that's odd, but maybe that's just how we roll over here, I mean I've never been here, idk.  Oh no, the plane was leaking so much fuel they thought it was going to explode upon landing...perfect.  Welcome home. 

Week 1 was definitely the worst.  Every day individually flies by, but when I'd realized I'd only been here for one week it felt like it had been an eternity and coming to the realization that it'd only been a week was terrible.  Thankfully, that felling has worn off and now the days and weeks seem to be going by faster since I've got a routine down. 

Other tidbits of lessons learned:
1.  Women are much nastier and most would assume.  Yuck.  Seriously ppl, what do your homes look like? 
2.  If I catch one more person not taking a combat shower (get wet, turn the water off, shampoo, turn the water on to rinse, turn the water back off) I'm going to freak out.  I have not have one freaking hot shower since I've been here and let me just tell you, bitches get crazy over some hot water...
3.  If you like to hit snooze, forget about it.  You'll get slapped by somebody if you think you're going to lay in a room with all those other ppl and snooze for a few.  Your shit will get thrown out in the hall (seen it happen). 
4.  If the food looks funky, it is. 
5.  Kleenexes and phone cards are you bartering tools.  You want something over here, you better find out how you can hook up a fellow service member before you go asking for favors, haha.

And finally, there is no gut wrenching pain the world like when you wake up in the morning and see the U.S. flag lowered to half-staff.  Never forget and be grateful every single day that you wake up and are surrounded by people you love.