Greece, Day Two : Kavala

The second day consisted of a day in Kavala. In previous rotations, this also included a trip to the island of Thassos, but they cut that out because it proved to be rather long and cut out a good portion of the day. See, it took you an hour to get to Thassos, you spent two hours on the island exploring what you could in that two hour time frame, and then you headed back to Kavala which took another hour so WHAM! Four hours out of your day.

I would have liked to visit Thasos, but I was eager to use my limited time to explore Kavala. And check out the souvenir shops. :)


We bussed down to Kavala the old fashioned way. By Bus. This was one of the views off the bus that I had and I just started snapping pictures. It is a very large city, and the roads are not very big and everything is really close together. Very different from the typical American City. I really thought it was cool though.

They had some of the walls plastered in flyers (in Greek of course) that were kind of cool, including a communist one now that I look closer at it, so I asked one of my battle buddies (who actually severely out ranked myself) to take a picture. I kept handing off the camera quite a bit. "here, take my picture! Here, take my picture! Here, take my picture!"

They all knew it would someday land on my blog. I'm known for being the Task Force Blogger. So they didn't really mind. They were all pretty cool about it.



Of course, being in Greece, it wouldn't be proper to go to a Restaurant and not chow down on an authentic Greek Gyro. I've had Gyros before, in Seattle, which was good, but not the same. For one, every Gyro I had before didn't put Fries in it. They seem to always put Fries in the Gyros here. Its an interesting concept.

Everyone was chomping on the Gyros.



Next up, we hit the museum of Kavala. I got a nifty little souvenir ticket of the place (and ended up getting two more identical to it when I went to Philippi the next day and Amphipolis the day after.) I couldn't resist getting my mug with the Greek Pottery. Being a potter of sorts, sort of, (well, how many people do you know that can successfully throw a pot with their friggin' feet?) I have an appreciation for the Potters of old. Besides, I studied this stuff in art school, I couldn't resist being their to witness it in its original habitat of Greece (well, now in a museum, but STILL!)


Of course, being a couple thousand years old, a lot of the statues were of course, missing their heads and hands. Still, very very cool.


That didn't stop me from acting like a complete dork at times.

Yes, that video camera is in my hands. I took lots of video.


Heading back, this is Kavala at its best, most pictures you will see of Kavala will include its Acropolis. Which is that castle type thing in the background over my head. Which was to be our next destination. But first. . .


Greek Boats! Take my picture!


Look! Communists! So they are here, somebody mentioned the Communists to me before.

This is the Aquaduct, which used to span like 3 Kilometers or something and was how they got water to the city. This is the only portion that is left. I don't remember exactly how old it is, it was built sometime in the last millinia from what I understand. But don't quote me on that.

While we were heading up to the Acropolis, we acquired a friend. He had actually been hanging out with one of the groups a good portion of that morning. I hear later he got a hold of one of the infamous greek Cats too. I missed it.


It was quite a walk down these narrow roads and passageways to get up to the Acropolis (you can see how high it is) that wound around every which way in that portion of the city. The streets are small and the buildings are really close together, which didn't leave a lot of room for movement with the occasional car. And it was quite a hike.

Most Greek towns close shop for a couple hours around 1330 for religious reasons (most people here are Greek Orthodox) so we took this opportunity to see the Acropolis. Of course, I got my picture taken and then we spent the next hour and a half just crawling all over this thing.

And I took lots of pictures. Or handed off my camera and had somebody else take pictures.

This is a view of the city of Kavala from the Acropolis. You can see how tight the buildings are together.

And I look about 12 in this picture. (no, not complaining mind you, just an observation, I look like a little kid)


A veiw of the Acropolis from the inside, the SouthEastern portion of it at least.


This is me on the roof of that one building, the roof was made entirely out of rock. Very sturdy, and very cool! (I said Very Cool a lot, you should see the video of me narrating. I think I said Very cool every time I turned to shut it off for that clip. Gar! Find a new word!)


Just me in the northwestern more part of the Acropolis, you can see the castley effects of the Acropolis, and theres the Aegean Sea behind me (which you can barely see)


Another shot of me with Kavala in the background. But this time, you can see that I'm indeed in the Acropolis.


That door just begged for me to climb up on it and hang for a moment.


Moving down the street, I thought the buildings and the road were cool, we were headed for the monument of Muhamed Ali (i probably misspelled that, and no, its not the Boxer, I just know its spelled differently then normal)


That would be the statue there, and this is taken by yours truly. For some reason, when I snap the shot myself, I rarely smile.


I discovered an elusive Zebra Elephant! You know, now that i think about it, I think i've seen one of these little bouncy toys before that was that of a Zebra Elephant and I thought it was as funny then as I do now. But I couldn't resist, I hopped on and had somebody take my picture of me playing on a toy that I outgrew about 17 years ago.

EEK! PUPPY!!! Its. . .so. . .darn. . .CUTE!!!

Somebody asked me why I didn't smuggle it back to Bondsteel with me. Er, two reasons. One, pets aren't allowed on Bondsteel (and that's something that I'm supposed to enforce in my position) and Two, the owners are both standing right there.

I just no that I'm suffering from lack of animal contact anxiety. I've always had some kind of pet or critter stinking up my room in the past and I've gone without an animal for nearly four years now. That's a long time.

Must get pet when I get home.

Oh well, if I keep going on Vetcaps, I should have that cured, or at least pacified.

Um, anyway, back to Greece.

I crawled up on a rock at the base of that statue (and the church that accompanies it) and felt another kodak moment coming on.

Somebody else ended up jumping in the water. We all just kind of dawdled along this rock bed for a while and enjoyed ourselves.

I ended up getting a few more pictures taken.

Iraklitsa, which is where I was the day before, is behind me. Of course, you can't make it out, but its there in that land mass, I promise.


Of course, we turn a bit more and there is the sprawling outer parts of Kavala, complete with grafiti on rock.

By this time, the shops were starting to open back up, or at least one in particular who knew we were coming. We came along and gave her lots of business. I went shopping and got a bunch of souvenirs (that I now need to send home.)

Strange, I took no pictures of these souvenir shops. Maybe I took some video?



After walking around a good portion of the rest of the day shopping and doing whatever else, we grabbed some grub at an Italian Restaurant called La Roccos where I ordered a Pizza. I love Hawaiin pizza. But I think back and I think I should have gotten something a bit more traditional Italian. Like Lasagna or something.

We got back to the hotel at around 2100 that evening where we retired to our room and I talked with my roommate and started going through my stuff and showing her what I got (er, I got quite a bit). I was beat, but we had a good time talking until pretty late that evening.

That wraps up Tuesday.

SideNote: from the comments I got from my previous Greece Post, some people seem to think I'm still in Greece. As much as I wish I was, this is a recap of the events that happened last week, not this week. Sadly, I'm back in Kosovo working once again. But its all good. Bulgaria is up for July!

Greece, Day One

note - This map is copyrighted somebody, but I don't remember who. . .

The Drive was long, but we were given entertainment in the form of Bruce Almighty, Two Brothers and View From the Top via the entertainment center on the Bus.

And I had my feisty little iPod to keep me company. Unfortunately, all my plugs are American and every outlet was European. *grumbles*

I brought a lot of electronics with me and learned that my digital camera chews up Double A's like they were going out of style. Good thing I brought a few.

Anyway, back to Greece.

We drove through F.Y.R.O.M. (Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia) which looks a lot like Kosovo and therefore wasn't very exciting. Then we got to the FYROM/Hellas Border.

And I took a picture while we waited.

Hellas is Greek for Greece. Though they don't mind if you call them Hellas or Greece.

Besides, you drive within a mile of the border and you are greeted with this sign.


Now, there is a bit of political strife in regards to names within the Balkans on what to call FYROM (because a lot of people think FYROM is a stupid name) because you can't just call it Macedonia on account of the fact that there is a region in Greece known as Macedonia. It's like, say for instance, that British Columbia decided to break off from Canada as an independent country and called itself Washington. Or maybe that's a bad analogy, as they would probably continue to call themselves British Columbia. Anyway, then we would have to call it the Former Canadian Province of Washington (FCPOW, hmm, that doesn't flow off the tongue).

The point is, see the deal with the confusion of Names? Greece doesn't like that FYROM decided to call itself Macedonia once they broke off from Yugoslavia so in all its infinite wisdom, somebody in the UN came up with the idea of FYROM to appease both sides. From what I understand, its not working.

Anyway, we moved out of FYROM and into Greece in the region of Macedonia. And I was formally introduced to the phrase 'its all Greek to me'.

Fortunately, a lot of signs had a Latin alphabet as well as the Greek Alphabet to help those of us poor fools who can't tell Omega from an Upside down V.



I just thought the signs looked cool.

Ok, to make you a wee bit jealous, this is the view from my balcony. The splendid and glorious view, with a crystal blue pool just off the beach of the azure Aegean Sea.

This is the view just by the pool up to the hotel.


They had this private hotel for us, there is enough soldiers that every time we come we rent out the entire hotel to us, with our own private beach and everything. The only downside to the hotel is the European plumbing. You can't flush paper down the toilet, which means that you have to throw it away in a little trash can next to the toilet. Even if you have to do a number 2.

Being trained in the part of the Western Hemisphere that is the United States, I almost flushed toilet paper down the toilet a couple of times. Apparently, it clogs the sewer system for the entire hotel.

Lovely. Anyway, moving on from the Too Much Information Department. . .

This is me on the beach. Look, my clothes aren't camouflaged and there isn't a weapon for miles!

Yes, I know, I've gotten quite famous for being an advocate of boomsticks, but when you've been lugging one around for the last four months without firing one single shot out of it, you kind of get sick of it hanging off your shoulder serving no purpose otheer then to provide a vector for knocking other people around in the knee caps.

Anyway, back to the beach. It's a private beach, the sand was pebbly and kind of hard to walk on, but it was really nice and relaxing. I would love to go back here in the heat of summer, and then I'll remember to have somebody send me a bathing suit!

Well, if it was a little to chilly to swim in the Aegean, it was perfect weather for collecting Sea Shells! I wanted something to bring home right off the Aegean and though Sea Shells are pretty much everywhere, I thought, Hey, why not? They're SPECIAL SEA SHELLS!

So I lined them up on a rock after finding them and took a picture. Nothing particularly exciting by any means, I just thought they were cool.


I tried to get a few pictures of me on the beach. Yeah, after being forced to wear camouflage twenty four seven, I decided for my little outing in civilians, I would attempt to look like a girl. I even brought make-up. What did I do? I wore a hat and sunglasses most of the time. And I didn't touch my make up bag. Usually I wore the hat backwards.

Nope, no Americans in this group! None what so ever!

See, we were trained on trying to blend into the populace and appear sort of unamerican. The thing is, Americans stand out like a Doberman in a pack of chihuahuas. But we were to avoid the military thing. That was sometimes a problem, I went with two Colonols and a Major in my unit, and I hung out with them quite a bit and often found myself reverting to calling them by rank.

We eventually went by a first name basis, just for the purposes of Greece. Its an old habit.

After settling down at the hotel, where I shared my room with one other girl, we got back in the busses and went down to Iraklitsa, which is where we ate dinner and spent the next three hours just walking around. Very relaxing, as soon as we got out of the bus, everyone started taking pictures.

If we weren't mistaken for americans, we were definitely tourists. And you would pick up on the Americans as soon as they open their mouths. We're undeniable.

We walked along the boardwalk for a while trying to decide between which restaurant to eat at when we settled into our environments. Most of the restaurant signs were in Greek, so we couldn't even phonetically pronounce them much less know what they served outside of the fact of the Octopus tentacles hanging outside drying outside some of the restaurants.

When we finally found a restaurant, we looked at the menu and were a bit baffled by it.



I couldn't make anything out on the menu, well, other then the price, which consisted of us going to the owner of the restaurant, pointing at what we wanted to eat, and grunting. They didn't know much English, we couldn't speak an ounce of greek. There was that language barrier thing going on.

I eventually got gutsy and ordered the Kalimari and the Scampy.



I have had Kalimari once before, there is a greek restaurant in Hohenfels that we escaped to every once in a while to get away from the D-Fac up where we were (which was nasty) and I didn't know what it was then. Now I know. Its kind of hard to not know what it is when they don't even bother to cut off the heads of the food. (I didn't even think about whether or not they bothered gutting the food)

It was good though. The scampy still had the exosceleton on it and I just ate the first one on my plate whole, then noticed that it was a little crunchy. A little Too Crunchy. Hmm. . .

I then started to strip them of their outershells, being a bit unnerved that my food was looking back at me. They didn't even chop the heads off the fish.


I was a bit more leery of eating the Kalimari, though i have eaten Octopus before. The Kalimari was really good though! I cleaned my plate of that, delicious! Kind of rubbery texture, I'm not sure if the Squid Kalimari or the Octopus Kalimari was better.

Then there was the other factor of Greece that I never knew about.

Cats.

Cats are everywhere in Greece. And this is a stray, probably not owned by anybody. Strays are usually finicky creatures that dart away from you if you try to touch them. Not in Greece. They sit at your feet and beg for food. They still won't let you pet them, but it won't stop them from rubbing against your legs.

I was warned about feeding the cats. I went ahead nad started feeding her my scampy heads anyway. I also threw some of the legs at her as well. She seemed to enjoy them. But I couldn't get her to jump over the baring to fetch the food. For one, a giant dog was over there, and its universal that Dogs and Cats hate each other.

Anyway, after the delicious dinner, we hung out and walked around the beach, trying to find something to do, as it was more of a place to eat and not so much a place to shop.

But I found Ice Cream!

You wouldn't know it was Ice Cream by the sign however. Unless you spoke Greek. Most Europeans sit down and eat when they get something. But not Americans. No, we walk and eat at the same time. We're always in a hurry to get some place (well, at least I am) so we kind of missed the atmosphere of being in Iraklitsa. To just sit down and enjoy the atmosphere.

Instead, we started exploring the piers and such. I then handed off my camera nad had a picture taken.


Ick, I'm going to do something that is totally being a girl and say that I can't stand how fat my face looks in this picture! Maybe I should have laid off the ice cream?

Anyway, we walked all over Iraklitsa and enjoyed ourselves. Somebody even saw an octopus in the port. Dang, I missed it. But he took a picture and shared it with me. That was cool.

After trying to find things to do, and buying a Mars Bar (yeah, I need to start laying off the chocolate), we headed back to the busses and prepared ourselves for a quiet and relaxing time at the hotel.

I got my laptop out and proceeded to dump my pictures.

Monday was a good day.

Meanwhile. . .

Photoshopping at Mountaineer Musing is still going on.


Apparently I am now using my literally kickass white belt maneuvers to kick Frank J's butt (er, or rather his gut) for a Telethon.

I should just post pictures in weird poses just to see what Cadet Happy will think of next.

Infamous Lists

Alright, after my last post, BNCOC got canceled for me and suddenly I feel loads better.

Its not that I didn't think I could do BNCOC, its just that the timing was really, really bad. And I would rather have more then 48 hours notice in the future. Besides, if it was something like PLDC, which is required at my rank, then I would just buck it up and drive on, however I do not require BNCOC to be a Buck Sergeant.

Besides, I'm not sure I'm ready for that rocker yet. But that's a whole 'nother post.

Meanwhile, now that I will indeed be spending quality time back at the ranch 'aka Bondsteel', I've got a whole bunch of things I need to do in my spare time and I need to make time to do them.

I like lists. So I'm going to make me a list and cross things off as I accomplish them. Sometimes, I don't get everything crossed off, which is alright, but being able to cross things off feels really good.

• Empty out remaining 35 emails out of inbox.
  
• Answer all remaining snail mail.
  
• Mail care packages home (I got some goodies for my family that I've accumulated since Germany, and I still haven't mailed it. What's wrong with me?)
  
• Post info about Greece.
  
• Write a handy dandy post about today's Vetcap, complete with Pictures! Its up on my neglected Milblog.
  
• The 3 fronts of the webcomic (er, that's something involved with my Webcomic)
  
• Spread the love with the Lit concert to the various members of the task force that were there.
  
• Upload Blackmailable file of me singing Karaoke online.
  
• Keep track of Devils Arithmatic (Davison), Red Vs Blue Seasons One and Two (Nate), Freaks and Geeks (White), PS2 complete with FFX and FFX-2 (Wong), and any other wandering DVDs I might have out there. Oh, like Sin City-bootlegged edition (Shull)

This list can be edited, added too, or taken away from. I shall go about marking things off as I accomplish them, which always feels oh so good!

Now I get to go see Ring 2 at the post theater. Movies take a few months to get here, yes I shall be missing Star Wars this week, unless I want to get a bootlegged copy but I've been told that I'll ruin it for me if I do so. Those generally consist of somebody sitting in a theater with a camera. Its kind of funny because sometimes you can see the heads of the people sitting toward the front.

But Ring 2 will be authentic. I probably should go get a shower first however, I smell of Cows and Pigs, courtesy of the Vetcap. Which is on my list.

Rambling Thoughts

I don't know when I'm going to be able to tell you about Greece, most likely long after the whole appeal of the trip has been whisked out of my mind and the monotony of Bondsteel comes back into play.

I just got back and I've been told I'm going to BNCOC tomorrow, Basic Sergeant School that is. That's a two week course and I doubt I'll have much internet access.

And it seems that if I put any thought or feeling into any post I write (I wrote a doozy about my first day in Greece), Blogger deletes half of it. Or if I post anything in regards to my experiences and trials with being a Sergeant, my internet times out.

I'm a little frustrated right now, at a lot of things. Greece should have been the key to helping me relax and escape for a while, but it seems that I came back to a headache.

Pardon me if I'm quiet for a little while longer as I try to recoop and get my thoughts together.

Strange, I was in better shape before going to Greece then I am now coming back.

frustrations

I feel the need to just give up on Blogger. I'm getting so freakin' frustrated with it that I don't know what to do with myself. If I want to post anything of any consequence that takes up more then two paragraphs, it usually freezes and dies, and I've had it up to here on what to do with this thing.

First its Greece. I typed up this long post on my experiences there and so on and so forth and the thing deletes most of my post as I'm trying to preview it. Then I wanted to type something about my feelings of what I'm going through right now, and the trials and tribulations of being a Sergeant in Todays army, and the thing delets that too after I try to post it (though that was partly my fault, I did copy it, but then I tried to copy something else too without thinking what I already had on my clipboard.)

Anyway, I'm just frustrated right now. I have to go to BNCOC in the morning and I'll be doing that for the next two weeks. I don't know if I'll ever post anything about greece or not. This whole thing is turning out to be a huge chore for me because half of the time the internet ceases to work.

Makes me wonder if this thing is even worth it.

Meanwhile. . .

Your Political Profile

Overall: 85% Conservative, 15% Liberal

Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Ethics: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal / Conservative Are You?

Yeah, so I am conservative. However I didn't like the phrasing of some of those questions. I wish they offered more choices because some of those were questionable.

I would Quote Tex, but it Might not be Appropriate

Yep, I'm back from Greece. Had a flippen blast too! But considering I just got back, I'll have to arrange my pictures and get back to you on those in a little bit.

But anyway, I'm back. . . Just a quick notation. Now I need to go back to my room, take a nice hot shower, and chill.

Then tomorrow, I have to fetch Jadacious Maximus and play soldier again.

Well, This is It!

Wow, that was close. I almost slept in!

in that my alarm didn't go off, but I have a great biological clock for this sort of thing. I woke up myself ten minutes after it was supposed to wake me up.

Anyway, I'm off to Greece and I'll be back some time later this week. Although I am taking my computer, I don't intend on using it all that much. Its more of my dumping ground for the many many pictures I intend on taking.

I'm just in the hospital right now tying up last minute errands (like emailing my battle buddies important information, cleaning out my inbox, taking a second to update my blog, that sort of thing)

So anyway, I'm in civilians for the first time in almost 4 months and I feel naked because I turned in my weapon yesterday and I don't have this extra weight on my back that I've come to be used too. Feels weird not lugging around a weapon everywhere.

And then I had another Red Vs Blue marathon with some of my new friends in Tornado. At this rate, I think I will have everyone on Camp Bondsteel watching this thing by the end of this deployment. . . well the guys at least. I haven't gotten any other girls hooked on it yet.

UPDATE: Red Vs Blue is a cartoon based on Halo that I'm slightly addicted too.

Tornado is Task Force Tornado, which is the infantry (well, actually they're Armor posed as infantry for purposes here in Kosovo). I'm in Task Force Med Falcon, which is the hospital.

Apparently that confused somebody.

Day to Day

ATTENTION MURRAY: (permalinks should be fixed. Note Should)

Man, I've been riding high on that concert for the last week, I can't express how much flippen' fun I had! Lit has since become one of my favorite rock bands and I've even been lurking in their forums. Well, ok, I haven't really been lurking, I posted pictures. Thought Lit lovers would appreciate them more then anybody else.

So um, there are some more pictures for you to paruse at your leisure, most of them link back to my site.

And I'm still working on getting videos online. The only way I can get things online is through FTP, and the internet connection from my laptop has proven to be particularly horrendous. It takes me about 6 minutes to download a 100K file. These are like 16 megs.

And everyone in the hospital has jumped on the any soldier bandwagon, well, at least it feels like that. Which reminds me, i need to update my site. I got so freakin' spoiled the first few months I was here, pratically getting a letter/package/something in the mail everyday, many times two or three +, that now that I'm going into this dryspell, I'm thinking, "where's my package?"

Of course, I still need to mail these letters I have sitting in my hut as I sit here typing this out. I've got about fifteen letters to return. And I need to see if I can find that invoice for that Mug so I can give Murray a post card because he's feeling out of the loop.

Or he could just send me his address :)

Hopefully, I'll have enough time after I get back from Greece (after giving the task force a swift kick in the fourth point of contact to send me info for their respective sections) I'll have a website up for Task Force Med Falcon.

Why oh why did I agree to take this assignment on?

Good News Bad News

In my section, the NCOIC (ie sergeant in charge) often disperses bits of information starting with the phrase "do you want the good news or the bad news?"

Sometimes I say "give me the good news, that way the bad news doesn't seem as bad" or sometimes I say "give me the bad news, so the good news can cheer me back up", depending on the circumstances.

Well, this is one of those good news bad news situations. I have to dispense with the bad news first.

Sofia Bulgaria is no longer on. Neither is the 25K DANCON road march. I was looking forward to both with much anticipation, and had to cancel them yesterday (well, technically, I postponed Bulgaria and will await the next road march, I hear they're having a 2 day 50 K road march, now that's an idea!)

Which brings me to the good news. I'm going to Greece instead. I had to cancel the Road March because doing both the Road March and then walking around Greece the next day was a very bad idea and would have left me very very miserable. And i can't do two retreats right after one another so Bulgaria has to wait until later this summer.

More specifically, I'm going to the community of Fillipi Greece, which is now in ruins. Now, if everyone flips open the New Testament, you will notice that one of the books in the New Testament is labeled Phillipians. In fact, I think there are a couple of books named Phillipians. These were specifically letters written by the apostle Paul to the people of Fillipi (also spelled Phillipi, depending on the map you read). This retreat is actually in relation to the journeys of Paul and the whole retreat is focused on him.

Being a Non Denominational Religious retreat sponsored by the chaplains, I shall be going to Fillipi and afterwards get to shop in Kavala which is right on the Aegean Sea. We get to explore Greek Ruins!

I'm mucho excited! I probably won't be blogging for those days, but I will take lots and lots of pictures and post a few online.

Gosh, I think the army should deploy me more often! What, with free concerts, Karioke (which is particularly scary) Kajukenbo and opportunities to see Greece and Bulgaria, I don't think I've had this much fun in a long time!

More on Kajukenbo

Kajukenbo continues. . .

I'm on my third week of this, last Saturday the uniforms came in and now I can feel like a real martial artist, in a sweet lookin' black Gee and a white belt.

Yeah, so everyone knows that a white belt means I'm a newb, but the white belt goes very well with the black gee.

And I took pictures.




It is hard to get a picture in the middle of a kick. It is even harder to do it without making some sort of stupid face.


Punches are a lot easier.


I don't know about you, but that looks an awful lot like my 'not sorry' face. I'm feeling really self conscious about my hair lately too. Oh well, I like 'not sorry' better, but this is cool. I'm going to attempt to get more pictures later, and maybe even some videos or something.

In Other News - I put together a video of me singing Karaoke (I could easily use this stuff to black mail myself, its that bad) and also included a clip with me singing with Lit. However, internet connection is still hella slow and I have to use FTP to upload a file this big.

That means that the internet freaks out. I'll try to blackmail myself to my public asap.

The Four-One-One on Lit

I think I'm in Love.

No, seriously, these guys rocked! And I have a new found respect for rock bands who come to war torn third world countries to put up a free rockin' show for the troops and let them dive off the stage and mosh. I've never moshed before, never been to a concert where I was close enough to the stage too.


The audience was completely sober (well, maybe a couple of people had been drinking when they weren't supposed to), and from what I understand, so was the band. There is no alcohol on Bondsteel. AJ, the lead singer, made a comment about it too, something to the effect of "you know, I don't think I've ever had a concert where the audience was sober and everyone was carrying guns."

He then asked us to show our weapons so they could take a picture.



I was up on the stage practically the entire time either catching the thing on video or taking pictures (when I wasn't moshing). I was in a pretty close proximity to the band. Here's an idea.



They're best known song is probably "My Own Worst Enemy" which is a song just about everyone in the audience knew. They pulled us up on the stage with them and we sang along, I have never had so much fun at a concert before.



And of course, I have the obligatory pictures of me with the band.



They came around the hospital earlier that day and we gave them a tour. I was trying to tell them my job function but I got interrupted, that and we have a lot of graphic pictures in our office. I probably ran into these guys around post four or five times yesterday before the concert.

Did I mention these guys rocked? They are now one of my favorite bands (seeing a band live in concert does that to me) and it is my quest to attain their CDs. I have one back at home. Now I need the other three.

Extra Curricular Plans for this Week

Note: I posted about this earlier, and then my internet connection promptly up and died, which by the way, is one of the reasons why I haven't been posting to this thing lately.

I got talked into doing Karaoke tonight. This should be interesting.

I guess I'll take my camera and get a shot of me singing. I have a video camera that I bought that I haven't used once however.

Added Note: Did Karaoke tonight, had a flippen' blast! That is now one of the main things I get to do every night week, or every other week, maybe, from this point on.

Video to follow. I promise. Then you can hear me sing, I sang four songs in all, When I'm Gone By 3 Doors Down, Disease by Matchbox 20, Don't Speak by No Doubt, and a duet to Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, to which I might add, I sucked majorly so, but had a lot of fun. I got videos off all, and I will snibbits from each

I think I'll take that with me tomorrow to the Lit concert. Yeah, a band with some name recognition has come to sing for the troops in the balkans. They have automatically assumed a level of ultra coolness in my eyes. I will give the laydown on Lit tomorrow night, or Tuesday morning, depending on how out of it I am.

Also, my Gee came in. For Kajukenbo. I'm taking my camera with me on Tuesday and I'll get some pictures of me doing some Roundhouse Kicks in the proper attire.

In other plans that have been eating at my free time, I've gotten to a point where I'm actually updating regularly with my Comic. Mt Lubojan (commonly referred to as Big Duke) has made a candid appearance within it. This is the mountain we see every day to the South of Camp Bondsteel. It really is a beautiful mountain.

I plan on going on the DANCON road march next Sunday. However, I've been tasked with Driver's Duty, and now i have to find somebody to take over Drivers Duty over so I could go on a 25K road march sponsored by the Danes instead. There will be pictures, and I will post about that, and I'll probably make use out of my neglected Milblog once again.

And the latest on the iPod, because several people have asked about it.

It works now. I threatened it, and it has since behaved. It hasn't paused on me once today and I've been listening to it practically all day too. It has been a good little iPod, I just wish it would be a bit more random in its song selection.

Note: As soon as I typed this, it started scratching up songs and pausing once again. But I don't know if it was becuase it was out of juice or not. Is plugged in and juicing up batteries as we speak

In work related news, this week we plan on having the website up. I just have to get the content from the other sections. And I need to learn some different scripts to put up some pictures.

Those pictures are going to be the end of me. I swear it.

Bulgaria is officially on. I even went shopping for some real normal clothes that don't say KFOR or Army on them. I've bought a lot of T-shirts while I've been here and none of them are wise to wear outside of the United States, and we aren't allowed to wear civilian clothes here.

Which means I got to be a girl and go SHOPPING for real clothes!!!

When shopping for clothes makes me excited, something's going on. Or I'm just getting burned out on Camouflage, Combat Boots and PTs.

Something obviously.