Yesterday I had the afternoon off. I went to the coffee shop and got a strawberry-banana smoothie and then got a half hour massage at the beauty parlor on base. After that, I went to the Dining Facility and got a bowl of cheese to go. I came back and warmed up a can of Skyline chili-spaghetti and ate a three-way. It was nice to relax and enjoy a little taste of home.
Today I went to something called a Souq (pronounced s-oo-k). It’s supposed to be a kind of market place where the Local Nationals (LNs) come to sell their stuff. We walked over there right after lunch and I was expecting to see a flea market type of atmosphere, but, disappointingly, it was more like a yard sale. There wasn’t really anything that interested me. There were some scarves, a little bit of cheap-looking jewelry and some dirty rugs. Hopefully the next one, they have them about once a month, will be better because it will, hopefully, be a little warmer. On the way back from the Souq we stopped in an Iraqi store on base, where I bought a couple of T-shirts and a large oriental rug that they are shipping back for me. I was able to haggle my way down from $800 to $200, but have no idea how much it is really worth. It’s pretty though, and I think it will look nice in our family room. That’s all for now.
Well I finally moved yesterday and the night before. My old CHU was a bit smaller; length-wise I could have stuck out both arms and touched the sides. It was about 20ft long. I took pictures of the old one and my new one. I just haven’t loaded them yet. The pictures I took were after I cleaned it though. :) It was a total mess after living out of my bags for a week. Not that my new one won’t be a mess soon enough, but I was able to get things relatively straightened up. I even made my bed this morning. Yes, I am feeling alright! It’s just that it’s such a small area and if I don’t stay some what organized, I’ll never find anything or remember anything. As soon as I figure out how, I’ll post the pictures.
The restroom situation isn’t horrible, but it’s not great. On our “Pad” (our living facilities) there are two seperate trailers, one for the showers and one for the latrines. All of the water is “non-potable” which means you can’t drink it or even brush your teeth with it. Everywhere you go there are bottles of water for these purposes.
The problem with the latrines is that it gets very dark out here at night and the walk to the chews from my CHU is about 150 yards past some very scary bunkers. I have not yet slept through the night without having to get up and put my shoes on and coat on and run through very rough gravel to the bathroom. I think I might be drinking too much liquids.
The showers aren’t bad. The water pressure is good, but the biggest problem is about once a minute or more you get a blast of scalding hot water. We’ve started to pick up on the signals (the water heaters click) in order to avoid it, but I still manage to get scalded at least once a shower.
The most interesting restroom facilities are the port-a-potties out at our site. The have lights and radios in them, but other than that they look (and smell) like regular old pot-a-potties. Despite the fact that they are musical, I try to avoid them whenever possible. 
I arrived at the base on Wednesday afternoon completely exhausted and jet-lagged. It is now Saturday evening and I’m almost recovered. It was a pretty tough trip getting here, mentally and physically. We left Monday morning from Blue Ash, and there has been nothing but “hurry up and wait” since then.
We flew out of Springfield around 4 p.m. on Monday and I checked into a hotel near Hartford, Ct. I had a lot of trouble sleeping and finally drifted off after midnight. The next morning we had to report to the lobby by 5:30. Little did I know that this would be the last time I slept for a couple days. We flew from CT to Germany for a half hour layover. It was a nine hour flight and I could not get comfortable enough to sleep. After our fuel stop, we continued for another 5 hours to Al Udeid in Qatar. We landed around 9 a.m. local time and had a lot of in-processing to do. By the time we checked into our tents it was nearing 2 p.m. and we were all exhausted and starving. We ate lunch in the chow hall, however we had a meeting scheduled for 10 p.m. so sleep was not in the cards.
At the meeting, we were told that we had a flight scheduled for the following day, but did not know yet what time. We finally went to bed, and full of adrenaline and in such a strange environment it took me forever to fall asleep again. At 1:45 a.m. we were awakened and told that we had ten minutes to get all the girls ready to go. Our flight was scheduled for 5:30 and we had close to 4 hours of out-processing to go through and might not make it.
To make a long story short (a little late for that) we arrived here in Iraq Wednesday afternoon after another four and a half hour flight on which I passed out of sheer exhaustion for the last 20 minutes. I was completely exhausted and after a quick lunch and “bag drag” to my CHU (pronounced Chewy/my trailor) I slept for the next few hours. I woke up around 11 p.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I watched a movie. On Thursday morning we had to be to work at 6:45 a.m.
Needless to say, I’ve been pretty tired, but things are definately improving. We work 12 hour days, 7 days a week, so it may take a little more time to completely adjust.
The base is nicer than I expected. There are some trees and a little bit of grass and lots of birds and animals, including some ferrel donkeys! I haven’t seen any yet, but a friend of mine has. The sun rises and sunsets are beautiful and it’s a full moon tonight and it’s magnificent. It’s still pretty chilly here, between 30 and 55 most days. One of the best parts about the base is the food! The chw hall is enormous, and I couldn’t begin to list all of the options that you have, including Mongolian BBQ, a baked potato bar, an international pasta bar, a short order cook, a great salad bar and several different entrees to choose from. It’s all really good.
I’m staying busy, and not having too bad of a time. No boredom yet!