English Chronicles
English Chronicles I
9 July 2000
U.K. Arrival
Well, well… this is my first installment of the English Chronicles… everyone seemed to enjoy the Korean Sagas, so I figure why not keep up the story tellin’?
I just arrived in country last week after about a month and a half of time off in the States. I got to see quite of few of ya while I was home and I don’t know about U, but I had a BLAST! Once I get my pictures developed, I write more about that trip – a lot of good stories there!
Well, the plane ride out was fairly nice, I actually got some sleep in-flight which is unusual for me. When I got to the airport, I had to take some extra time out to sort out some “damaged luggage” claims, as the ride over had the mysterious effect of removing my wheels from my suitcase! Hmmmm…. Dang leprechauns! hehe When I finally got up to the main terminal, I was expecting to see my sponsor somewhere; but after about a half hour of hunting I realized I was on my own. I found out that there was a direct military bus that goes directly to Mildenhall (my current base), but I missed it by five minutes – DOAH! I went back inside and talked to the commercial coaches and they had a good deal to go for only 18 pounds (about 27 dollars). I was on my way to the bus terminal when my name is called over the intercom. I went to the Info booth and was met by an old friend from Korea who is now stationed at Mildenhall. He didn’t recognize me when I got off the plane (partially due to the new “do” and with the addition of the goatee). So I refunded my ticket and drove up to base with Scotty.
I’ve been checkin’ out the area a bit here, and what a party place! There are a couple of college towns nearby and the base club is packed on the weekends too… As always, I’ve been out ‘splorin, getting an idea of what’s around. Been to some castle ruins, a windmill and a few churches and abbeys. This place is just too kewl!
My car doesn’t get here until the 11th of August, so I have a nice CHEAP rental (cheap in all senses of the word), but it works. I found a nice place to rent about 20 miles from the base – it opens for renting after the 7th of August, so I’ll be in temporary lodging until I can move in. Of course, all my house hold goods are already here, and I can’t touch them until they deliver the package to wherever I move. This includes my bike that I’ve been dying to ride!
Well, I’ll close for now; I hope to hear from ya and please let me know what’s happenin’ where Ur at.
Talk to ya soon
Dan
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English Chronicles II
5 August 2000
Exploring the Area
Hi all!
Been in country for just over a month. I met up with some old friends from Kunsan, Chris and Amy, and we’ve been out and about checkin’ the area a bit. When they were in Temporary Lodging, they stayed at a nice park area called Elvedin Forest. Inside, they have a nice long trail around a lake, their own theatre, and an indoor water park! I had to ‘reluctantly’ visit them and try out the swimming trunks there… They just moved into to their place, so we’ve been working on getting everything organized there.
Some of the places I’ve checked out now are Acres Castle, Hunstanton Beach and Lighthouse, Norwich Cathedral and Mall, and I saw a Philharmonic Concert at the Ely Cathedral! The history here is awesome, some places dating back to the 1400s and some even earlier!
Although the language is ‘supposed’ to be the same, there are some differences in terms and wording, along with some extra slang words that have REALLY different meanings in the States… I’m slowly picking up on it, but sometimes I need to ask a couple times what something means when I hear it.
My car just came in a couple days ago, so I’ve been re-acclimating myself to driving on the left side of the car again, which is kinda odd, since the traffic is on the other side of the road. Today I went to do the inspection on the house I’ll be moving into on Monday. I can’t wait to get settled! My household goods come in on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the Housing office is giving me some appliances to use for while I’m here, which come in on Thursday. If you tried to use that 800 number I gave you, I’m sorry it hasn’t worked so far, I moved out of the place where the number was linked to, but I have it rehooked up to my new phone number at home (which is 011-44-1366-386-800). Of course, you only need to call that 800# to get me, and it’s much easier to use!
My friend Keith just stopped in for the day, on his return trip to the States from Israel (he was out on an Archeological dig for college)! We had a good time, although short; visited his old base, RAF Chicksands; had some dinner at the local Tandoori Indian Restaurant and visited briefly with Chris and Amy. Talked for a while about what he had done in Israel and what I had done since being here… had to get caught up on, what?, 6 weeks of info?
Well, time to head out for the weekend… I’ll have an extra bedroom and plenty of couch and floor space too, so if the inclination ever overcomes you to leave where you are and visit Europe, please let me know your coming and I’ll have the tea kettle on for ya when you get here!
Hope to hear from ya soon…
Dan
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English Chronicles III
15 August 2000
The New Place
Wow, what an intense few weeks here! I finally got moved in last Monday… I’m living in Denver now! (Denver, Norfolk, England that is.) All my household goods came in on Tuesday thru Thursday and I’ve been reorganizing since! But what a nice place though; about 20 miles from the base, 3 bedrooms, an awesome backyard garden, a view of the Denver Windmill, easy access to a bike path and really kewl neighbors!
My next-door neighbors have already had me over for dinner and drinks; we’ve gone for a bike ride and even went to a local pub! I had them all over for movie night this past Sunday.
Getting everything inside settled has been a chore and a half. I finally got the living room manageable, but the bedrooms are a real pain. There are no closets in most houses in England, so we buy wall units (wardrobes) to place in the rooms. I only have a couple small ones, so many clothes are still lying about, waiting patiently for a home.
The sinks are interesting too, as they don’t have combination faucets – instead they have both a hot and cold faucet, where you fill the sink with water in order to wash up! On the sinks that do have one faucet, the water still comes out both hot and cold (where you can actually feel both!)
Laundry started out fun… no dryers here, no sir-ee, they have “washlines” (although, I’m not sure why they are called that, since the clothes are already washed – maybe it should be drying lines? ) I had my clothes on the line for over 7 hours! I was so happy when the base brought out an electric dryer!
The other exciting things out here are the bugs! Although the ‘season’ is almost over, for a short time during the harvesting of wheat, there are millions of little gnat bugs called ‘midges’. These evil creatures come into the home and land on everything – they don’t do anything, but they are just annoying to see everywhere. When they get on ya though, ya itch like crazy! But like I said, that time frame is just about done. Spiders are the big problem… I caught some HUGE suckers this past weekend! Crawling up my stairs, in the hall, etc… most are really small and I don’t mind them so much, since they trap all the other bugs – but those big ones just give me the creeps! The ones I caught I brought over to the neighbors kid, who thought they were so kewl… hehe
Work has been a real challenge. I don’t think I mentioned it before, but I’ve moved into Budget, which is where we track all the funds for the base and manage different organizations across. It’s overtime season right now, since it’s our “End of Year” (the finance year is from October to September). So if I’m not home, this is where I’ll be for the next 6 weeks or so.
Next week, a few friends and I are going to check out the Reading Festival. They have over 70 bands (mostly alternative) that will be playing there, most of which are local bands, but they have big names too – such as Rage Against the Machine, Foo Fighters, Limp Bizkit, Oasis, Blink 182, The Bluetones and Primal Scream! It’s covering a 3-day weekend (25 – 27 Aug) and we will have our campsite set and tents and MREs on hand! Can’t wait!
I’ll be back in the States next month for a TDY to Sheppard for 7 Level School. I can’t take any leave though (bummer), but if you wanna come visit, I’ll be there from 11 – 22 Sept!
That’s all for now folks… talk to ya soon
Dan
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English Chronicles IV
31 August 2000
Special Edition: Reading Festival Weekend
Wow! What a great concert event that was! (Just wanted to warm you up for the story… )
We went over to Chris and Amy’s to spend the night in preparation for the journey to Reading. That evening involved some very careful planning and skillful organization of packing – OK, OK, we drank a lot of beer and wine releasing the stress of the long work week, but we did throw some stuff into the car and we did check the map to see where we were going… Earlier in the week, we had set up the tent to test it out and make sure we knew what we were doing when we got to the campground. The thing was HUGE, to say the least; with 2 “bedrooms” and a “living room”! When I got it folded up and put back in the bag, it was no bigger than a small duffel bag. Nice fit! Anyway, we had that, 4 hiking backpacks, a ton of MREs (military pre-made meals), water, air mattresses and some other nitnoid things. Needless to say, we were pretty packed, but we managed to get it ALL into one car, with great room for us to sit too! (AWESOME CAR, CHRIS!)
Next morning, I woke up kinda early (0530) and got ready; woke up the rest of the crew at a little after 0600. The plan was to be on the road at 0700 to beat the crowds at the campground. We decided though, to make a pitstop for breakfast (BK crossainwiches & some nasty little tater tot hash brown units) and top off the ole fuel tank. We actually ended up on the road about 0800. The cruise on the main highway was rather uneventful. But when we hit the M25 (the London Orbital [kinda like the beltway around D.C.]), we started CRAWLIN’ though the traffic. We musta been backed up for over an hour, but we made it through and scampered our way to Reading – just west of London. We got into the city, but there were no directions on the tickets on how to actually get to the festival! We took a couple of guesses before we ran into signs showing us the way.
Finally arrived at the campgrounds (now just after 10). We hooked up everything to the backpacks, hauled out the tent and started the hike from the Car Park to the actual tent sites (and believe me, it was a HIKE!) The place was PACKED (it turns out that the grounds opened up the night before at 10). We hunted around for a while, looking for a recommended site (M). We finally found a patch in the back of a wooded area, secluded from most passers by, were we pitched up and settled in. Once we got everything somewhat organized, we chilled out for a bit, broke out some of the MREs and chowed. We met the neighbors in the tent next to us. Dave and Amish, from Australia and New Zealand, respectively. To the front of us, there was a large circle of tents, occupied by some teenagers out for a weekend away from the parents… (you could tell by the huge mess they made and from the weed they was smokin’! hehe)
Next obstacle we had to overcome was to trade in our tickets for weekend long wristbands. I call this an obstacle, because when we got to the queue (line of people), it was backed up for half a mile! Chris and I had Amy and Less stay in line while we checked out the front to see what was going on… LONG hike later, we see an opening to squeeze in ahead of the queue. Chris stays at the front, while I go back to get the girls. We walked up to the main gate, which lead into another realm of the festival area. Inside there, the line continued for another 100 yards or so. We casually walked up, talking amongst each other and stopped next to a group that wasn’t paying much attention. As the line moved up, we just kept in step. (sneaky little b*283rds, aren’t we?)
With wristbands in hand (or on our wrists anyway), we headed into the main arena to check out the concert venue. The first band we went to check out was Limp Bizkit. First pit stop though, of course, was for some concert beer (Carlings Special). NOW we were ready. Me and Chris headed up to the grounds area of the Main Stage (there were 3 stages with different bands on each; Main Stage had the big names). The crowd was huge, and we were pretty far back when the jammin’ began. As the people started jumpin around, we made our way through the people. By “Faith”, we made it a quarter of the way up. But second song in, we were not but 5 rows from the main stage! The mosh pit was HOT, and we were lovin’ it! Limp was Rockin! The music was LOUD and the bass was deep! Some kids were crowd surfin’ and I got nailed a couple times by flying feet and heads! A couple times the crowd started swaying, and with the crowd as packed in as it was, a lot of people couldn’t keep balance… there were bodies EVERYWHERE! Hehehe An hour later, sweat covered, bruised and happy, Limp Bizkit finished up with the Mission Impossible song and we made our way back to the beer tent. My sunglasses were crushed (just some cheapies I bought in Korea) and the sun was beatin down on my bald head. But the Carlings went down VERY smooth.
Still nervous about the rumors we heard about personal property being nicked (stolen), we went back to check on the tent and gear. We met up with our neighbors again, and shot the breeze for a while. A few bands later, we went to see Oasis – very mixed feelings in England on this group. Most like the music (in fact, they are one of the top bands in Britain), but also hate the brothers. It was packed though, more so even than Limp Bizkit. It was hard trying to skooch up in this crowd to get a closer look, but we did our best. Oasis put on a pretty good show.
Well, it was now after 11, and we were all pretty well tuckered out, so we headed back to the tent to call it an evening. Just before falling asleep, the camps started the infamous (in England anyway) chant, “Bollocks!” (which means balls). It’s been a ‘tradition’ of sorts for a long time, I guess.
Late the next morning, we got up and looked around at the mass mayhem the previous night inflicted on the area. The place was trashed – food, bottles, cans, paper – all over the place. (I’d hate to be on the clean up crew of this party!) Plus it rained most of the night and all that morning, so it was very muddy and soggy. Most people were groggy and slow, but a couple hours before the bands started up again, everything resumed its course from the last night. Chris and I decided it was time to make a pilgrimage to find a case of beer (so we wouldn’t hafta pay the outrageous draught beer prices). On our way out to town, we stopped to listen to the Def Tones. We ended up stayin for over a half hour before we realized we should get down town. The mud was thick on the dirt path we had to walk, and slippery too. We found the exit and also a sneak path to the back stage (which was guarded, but Chris was certain we could get back there if we wanted to). We headed down town, picked up some “supplies” (beer, vodka, juice, chips, cookies, etc) and made our way back to the tent. We ran into Amy and Less on the way back; they were heading to the concert site to check out … uhhhh … Super Furry Animals?? I think… yeah, sounds good. Anyway, we went back to the tent and popped open a couple of the cans. Amish came back with a bag in hand and said he had just won a tent from the local radio station! We helped him set it up and BSd for a while before we went back to meet up with everyone.
Beck was main entertainer tonight (in my eyes anyway). I got up real close to begin with, before the crowds poured in. Beck came out and everyone went crazy! He started out with Loser, Devils Haircut and then started getting into some slower songs. It was really awesome. He finished up with 2 Turn Tables and a Microphone and everyone was moshin again. BLAST!
Went to the comedy tent for a while afterwards, chilled out on the grass and had a couple more beers. We walked around a bit, then headed back to the tents. Broke out the Vodka/Juice and beer, and chilled out with both our Australian neighbors and the teens at next site. Great diversity, huh? We were the American geysers to the kids. We musta been up until after 4 AM. We had the campfire going and chips passed around. It was really relaxing, and a lot of fun!
Next morning, we were so tired! Muscles were achin, head hurt, everyone was annoyed… and we had to break down the tent and haul everything back to the car before the final bands played that day. It was very SLOW going. I got a couple pictures of our neighbors and the tent area (wait til you see those!) and we moved on to the car to get everything reorganized. We were tired, but we had to see Rage Against the Machine (which played at 6). We didn’t feel like doing much, so we just found a plot of ground in front of one of the big screen TVs and chilled out watching the bands play from a short distance on the tellie. The crowd was so immense, and we were so sore, we didn’t bother with the mosh pit for RATM… we just stayed put where we were, and did some make-shift head bangin as we listened and watched. The cameras showed the crowd (the biggest of the 3 days!) and it seemed to stretch for miles (exaggeration of course). After, we were thinkin of staying for Slipnot, but figured it was a LONG ride home, so we busted outta there for the car a eased our way back.
Nice easy ride on the way home – no traffic from the camps or the Orbital… just … very … tired…. Made it home safe and sound though, got undressed, curled up in bed and slept til the alarm went off for work as usual…
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English Chronicles V
Friday, 13 October 2000
The Texas Interlude
Hey all!
As you can see by the Subject Title, I’ve come back to the States for a short time… back to school! On Saturday, the 9th of September, I got up at 3 in the morning to start getting ready for the long trip to Texas. Started off with the normal 20-mile drive to work, which is where the Military bus leaves for London Heathrow airport. Left my car (in the wrong area I might add) and hopped on the bus at about 5. Slept most of the way to the airport since it was a couple hour drive… needed more sleep! I was smart this trip and only packed 2 small bags with minimal clothes (which turns out to be bad in the long run, but that comes up later) and no toys (like CD player, computer, etc). Nice and light, plus I can carry everything on the plane.
The flight over was awesome; the plane was one of the new 777s – great seating and everybody had their own televisions with choice of channels, all built in to the chairs! The meals were actually really good (surprising, huh?). After getting to Chicago’s O’Hare airport, went through the typical customs ordeal, however, I saw a quick opening for Military and handicapped, so ran over there (only one other person in the line, as opposed to the hundreds in the other lines – God I love my job! Hehe). We changed planes and headed down to Dallas, where I jumped onto a little prop job that took me to Wichita Falls. When I got off the plane and went to the taxi area, I met up with a friend I knew from Korea (Vanessa). Headed up to the base and got the lodging squared away, then headed downtown to try to stay up for a while so I wouldn’t get hit with lag time too bad. Started 7 Level School and found that 2 old friends from Omaha were there: Colleen and Stephanie, one from Langley: Kevin, and met new friends Keith and Pam. All of us hung out most of the time during our “stay”, going downtown to the clubs or to the Enlisted Club on base, and even ventured out of town on the weekends.
The first weekend we drove down to San Antonio (about 7 hours South of Wichita) to visit with Colleen’s old friend (Gregg) and wife from Germany. Met Chief Stradley at the club there and we all partied downtown. We also went to a nice Italian restaurant and checked out the local mall. Played cards in the evening (along with a few brewskis). The next weekend, after graduation from 7 Level, I said goodbyes to Pam and Vanessa, then the rest of us drove down to Dallas for the evening (Steph and Keith were flying out from there anyway, so the 2 hour drive was OK). Went to the Hard Rock Café, where 7 Mary Three was playing live. It was all stand up that night, even for food. We found a nice chill spot upstairs, had dinner and listened to the music (and of course had a couple Hurricanes and Long Islands). We got souvenir glasses with the drinks, however MINE broke (a good story to go with that, but you need to see the box to hear it).
Stayed at the hotel for the night and took Keith and Steph to the airport the next morning… Colleen and I went back to Sheppard, where she headed back to Colorado. Left poor Dan all by his lonesome. During the 7 Level class, I checked to see if there were any openings for the Budget class, since I just started working that section and had no idea what I was doing. Turns out, there was one slot open, so I called my boss and they said I could stay for the next class. It started a week and a half after 7 Level ended.
With the time off, I ventured out again to Omaha. After hanging around by myself at Sheppard, I got bored, so I went up to the airport and rented a 2000 Ford Mustang and drove up to Omaha. Stayed with Connie and kids for the few days I was there, and finally found my “Little Brother”, Jeremy, who I lost touch with over the last few months. The Mustang was sweet and we sped around a lot in parking lots and down dirt roads “testing” the traction controls (turning them off is more like it, so we could peel out!) 🙂 My niece had some friends over on Saturday and asked me to BBQ, so I had some WELL DONE burgers cooked… at least the hot dogs turned out OK. . Saw “Kings of Comedy” – REALLY FUNNY! Other than that, mostly chilled out… needed it after the long study week! On the 3rd of October, the Budget class started. It was only a 4 day week thanks to the 3 day weekend, plus the next Monday was Columbus Day, so another 3 day weekend was at hand. On the 2nd 3 day weekend, I got another rental and headed up to Colorado Springs, to the Air Force Academy. Went to visit with friends Carlos, Carrie and Nick, who I knew in Virginia. We went hiking in the mountains and checked out 7 Falls. Saw a couple movies: “Meet the Parents” (great movie, especially if you liked “Something About Mary”) and “X-Men”. Had some yummy steaks, and Carrie made up some of her specialty lasagna!! Mmmmmmm…. Had way too much fun! Now I’m back in the mix of schoolwork, and just had our first Block test – scored 95%, one of 2 people to score the highest! Yeay!
Not sure what this weekend is going to hold yet; had an offer to go down to San Antonio for a Cow Fair, or volunteer for something going on at the mall, or to go back to Dallas for Motor cross, or just to chill out and do nothing. Not sure, but I guess I’ll tell ya in the next installment. I should be back to England on the 28th though, assuming no other class openings come up.
Cheerio for now – write back and let me know what’s up in your yonderous location!
Ole Dan-E Boy
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English Chronicles VI
6 November 2000
Germany
Finally made it back to England, briefly…
A couple days before I left Texas to come back to England, I got word that I had to leave again, just days after returning (more like hours, from what it felt like). I got home on Saturday to find that my car’s battery died. Some of the circuits seemed to have gotten shot as the radio and some instrument lights were not working right. My base pass had expired too, so they gave me a hard time about that, until I explained some of the details of my absence. But I made it home OK and unpacked, relaxed a bit, then went over to base to help out Chris and Amy at Amy’s works’ Haunted Forest… had a blast dressing up and scarin’ the b’jesus outta the little tykes and grown folks too! Played as a Guide, Ghoul and “nuisance”
Spent all day Sunday cutting the grass and tending the garden – it was WAY out of control after almost 2 months of neglect. Some neighbors stopped by and lent a hand, so it made the job a bit easier … I just need to invest now in a Green Thumb book so I can figure out what I’m doing! Hehe
Monday morning, I had to work for a bit, but I cut out early to try to take care of personal things (bills, filing travel vouchers, checking on school, etc). Went home and repacked again for the next mornings early flight to Germany…
With only about 2 and a half hours of sleep, I awoke at 2:30 in the morning to start on the adventure. Again I drove to the base – this time leaving my car with Less so she could start it up daily to make sure the battery wouldn’t die on me – hopped in a Taxi and headed out for the Stansted Airport near London. Chris was on the flight too, which made the trip better (he was going to the same conference). We arrived at Hahn airport near Frankfurt Germany. Our conference was at Spangdahlem AB near Bitburg. The Lieutenant from my office was with me and rented a car that we took to the base. Nice hour drive through beautiful country-side, during the autumn color mix. Farmlands mixed with forestry were an appealing change to the likes of Omaha, where only corn was abundant .
Although the conference was long during the days, Chris and I, along with his friend Les, headed downtown to Bitburg to check out the night life. All I will say in this message is, “we had a blast!” For more information, please write to ‘disclosures’ at dreanged@hotmail.com. hehe On the relatively safe topic of weather, it rained the majority of the time we were there, with cool breezes to make it better (sarcasism is flying). The autobahn was awesome, the LT had our car up to 200 KPH (about 140 MPH) and the thing handled like a champ around corners… must get a German car, must get a German car….
We had made several plans to travel while we were there, but the conferences tended to take more time then we thought. Luxembourg and Amsterdam were on the Top 5. But in the end, we always seemed to end up at the clubs in Bitburg ‘til the wee hours of the morning.
That trip lasted 5 days and I got back this past Saturday… just in time for the Guy Faux bonfire festival! It’s a major event in England, signifying the day, many years ago, when a man named Guy Faux tried to burn down one of the major buildings in London (Parliament, I think). Anywho, we went downtown in Denver (if you can call it “down town”) and checked out the HUGE bonfire and fireworks display and listened to some great music. We retired back to my neighbor’s place for dinner and drinks (lots of drinks). I have yet to understand why they “celebrate” a man who tries to burn down an important building… the main point though, was that he failed too. ???
Anyway, finally back to work now and had to “re-introduce” myself to everyone and into my job. Forgot my computer passwords, how to open my mailbox, and names of people I should know! That’s what happens when U’ve been gone almost 2 months!
The current plot is on to go somewhere for Christmas – currently looking at flying or driving out to Switzerland to snowboard in the Alps! My cousin is trying to come out from Canada, which would rock! Guess money will be the deciding factor, although not if I can help it… 🙂 Second choice is Moscow, although in that case, I’ve made a promise to wait until a friend comes out… “Better hurry!”
What’s your plans for the holiday season this year? Please send me your current mailing address too so I can be sure to have the right address to send cards to this year…
Cheers from jolly England!
Dan
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English Chronicles VII
6 December 2000
French Excursion and AC/DC
Thanksgiving was an excellent time this year. Thanksgiving itself was laid back, and uneventful. I just cleaned up my place a bit and read, but needed a day to relax, so that was it. Although I didn’t do too much on Thanksgiving Day, I did use the long weekend well. I took a tour trip out to Paris for the remaining 3 days!
That Friday morning, I headed out to the base and tried to take out some cash, so I could convert it later, but the machines on base were all out of money (due to the long weekend, I guess). So I decided to just bring the charge card with me and use it to withdrawal funds or buy foreign currency at an exchange place. We headed out of the base in a double-decker bus at about 5 in the morning, and cruised down to the cliffs of Dover, where the major waterway port is located. Headed over the channel by ferry and came off in Calais (pronounced Kah lay) France. The ride over was great, with an awesome view of both sides along the way, although a bit chilly up on deck. I checked out the Currency Exchange place and bought a little bit of Francs, but didn’t want to spend too much, knowing that these places are usually a bit more costly than in town. I really should have bought more here, and you’ll find out why later… Anyway, when we reached the other side, we drove through the vast farmlands of France on route to wee Pareee.
Once we got into Paris, we headed for our hotel, and I made my way to a local ATM. Hmmm… this darn thing won’t accept my card. Huh? So, I went into the hotel to see what rates they had; pretty good actually! I handed them my car and, as you can guess “sorry, cash or travelers cheques only”. Doah! That’s the way it was for the whole trip… but I had a small reserve of English £’s and some US $’s, so I exchanged all I had. Got me about 450 Francs. It ended up being just about enough though… That evening, me and a friend, Bob (although, I gotta call him Chief, due to the whole fun rank thing, but he’s kewl) went up to the market and checked out prices on wine. Red Wine was REALLY inexpensive, and turned out to be truly decent! Some bottles we picked up were only 9-12 francs (about $1.20)!
We cracked open a couple bottles before we went on our first tour that night. Had to start out the trip right, right? In fact, we even brought a bottle with us! Hehe First stop was to a nice little French restaurant where we (the whole touring crew) had beef marinated in chardonnay, some cheesy French onion soup and desert, along with an endless supply of wine and beer… Of course, we all took full advantage of that! 🙂 There were entertainers there, signing songs, dancing, entertaining. Very pleasant. We snuck out a couple bottles of wine from the restaurant, and headed back to the bus. Afterwards, we headed downtown to check out the Eiffel Tower.
When we got there, we were immediately swarmed by local sales folks, with tons of trinkets and goodies to remember the occasion. Well, if you’ve been reading carefully, I’d had quite a lot of wine, so my accounting functions weren’t working to a certain extent… one guy offered me a plastic 7” replica of the tower for 200 francs. I knew that was outrageous, but I couldn’t think by how much, so I told him I’d only give him a hundred (about $12). He warily accepted, although knowing he easily got the best of this stupid American. I rejoined our group and showed them my new toy. One of the folks on the bus, Kathi, asked how much I paid… I told her, and I’ve been getting the flack for it since (still to this day!!) (Thanks Kathi) Anyway, we made our way to the tower. It was completely lit up, still using some of the special effects from New Years (sparkling lights, ‘Au 2000’ sign, etc). Just an awesome sight! We rode up to the midway point for a view of the city, and other stores selling my “prized possession” for a mere 35 Francs. When we were done, some of us went over to the pub to see “what was going on” there. After a couple more small drinks, we went back to the hotel and just CRASHED for the night.
Next morning, we reboarded the bus for a scenic tour of the city, viewing Notre Dame cathedral, the infamous arch in the city center (which infamy has forgotten it’s name at the moment), and the Louvre (similar to our Smithsonian Museum), which had the Mona Lisa! We also ventured out that evening to the Hard Rock Café of Paris… Chief and I took the underground from the hotel, and got off at the wrong stop. We attempted to walk it, and it was POURING down rain. By the time we made it to the Café, we were drenched! It was a fun evening and we took the tour bus back to the hotel with the rest of the crew.
The final day, we headed up to see the Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart cathedral) and Place du Tetre (artists square). The church was immense, and active. We were allowed to walk around while a church session was going on. They started playing music on the organs, and the pipes were located all through the church. It was overwhelming how beautiful the music was. A chorus of singers followed the 3-minute intro on the main stage area, where the pasture was giving his sermon. In leaving the church, we wondered around to the Artists Square, where dozens of artists were painting and drawing, selling their work to would be buyers. Some of the art was really great!
We headed back from Paris, and stopped at a special shop in Calais to buy some French wine and Belgian chocolates. The prices were just right, so I ended up with 8 bottles of wine and 5 bags of chocolate. On the trip back over the water, the winds had picked up a lot, so the boat was all over the place. Walking around the ship made us all look drunk! Hehe… so instead of pretending, we decided to sit down and have a couple brews over the hour and half trip back over. We got to know some new friends better (Kathi and her husband Steve, and Dre). Sleeping most of the bus ride back to base, we ended up getting back around 8 or 9. Ahhhh… home sweet home.
Yesterday (Tuesday), me and a couple folks from work headed down to London to Wembley Arena to see AC/DC in concert!! They put on an awesome show, and still dress up the same as they did years ago, Angus in his shirt, tie and shorts, still had his huge amount of energy, just rocking the whole show, almost non stop! Some of the special effects and “visual eye pleasers” were sweet, from a huge statue of Angus, with growing horns, lit eyes and spewing smoke, to huge cannons that blasted during “for those about to rock”. There was a huge bell for “Hells Bells” and an enormous inflatable woman for “she’s bit”(?). Hehe Just an awesome show. My ears are still ringin’, so ya know it was good. On the way back, we got mixed up a couple times trying to find the main highway to head back home. It took us over 45 minutes to find the right way, just to the M25! We didn’t get home until after 1:30AM… (notice, this is a work night). I worked it out with my boss so I could sleep in for an extra couple hours… I really NEEDED it! HA!
Anyway, things are going good. Starting to catch on a little more at work, but not as fast as I think I should be. It’s really a difficult job, and there’s a lot of “ins and outs” to figure out yet. I’ll get there sooner or later . Home life is still the same, nothing new there.
I’ll cut this one for now… hope to hear from ya!
Dan
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English Chronicles VIII
18 December 2000
Dublin Adventure
What a weekend! A friend of ‘the Chief’s’ called him and said he’s going back home for Christmas. Home happened to be in Maio, Ireland, so he threw out an invite. Chief asked if I could come out too, and that a good time was to be had. No problem, “bring the whole dang finance shop with ya, for all I care!” Eamon is a crazy Irishman who joined the US Air Force some 8 years ago, so now he’s referred to as the “Irish Immigrant” when he returns home…
On Friday afternoon, after work, we changed into better traveling attire and headed straight out for the airport. Everything ran like clockwork. Our flight was at 6:30, so we got up to the airports long term parking about 5:30 (no traffic at all!), and made the bus with no delay… in fact we were so “on time”, we had a break for a pint and relaxed waiting for our flight call. The ride over to Dublin was quick, and we made it there 10 minutes early!
Eamon was there waitin’ on us, and told us his friends were gonna meet us downtown around 9:30. It was only 8 at the time, so we headed down to the “Green Room” at the airport lounge and tipped back a couple pints of Guinness. If you haven’t tried Guinness, you’re really missing out! Anyway, we BS’d for a bit before dropping our bags off at the storage room for the night (we had no place to carry them since we were with car and room for the evening), then grabbed a taxi to head downtown. We started off at Mulligan’s pub, a very crowded, yet woman filled ‘establishment’ full of conversation and friendly folk. We stood around for a bit tryin’ out the “Harps” beer, but reverting back to Guinness after a while. Eamon’s friends showed up (Simon, Rob and Ed, I think), and we made our way from the social bar out to the taxis and headed out to Leggs club. Somewhere along the way though, Eamon ended up in another cab from us, so we ended up cruising with Rob and Simon there. Eamon didn’t end up there though, not until later… but we made the best of it. The place was jumpin’ and women were everywhere! I was pretty lit at the time, so I didn’t manage much conversation, but danced a little and chilled out for the rest. It was already near 3 in the morning!
When we were getting ready to leave, we heard some trouble brewin’ and the bouncers came in the doors (swiftly), pushing people out of the way to get to the scene. When they came back, they were escorting our friend Rob out. I’m still not sure what went down, but from what I figured of Rob, he wasn’t the fightin’ sort. Maybe someone was starting something with him, who knows… on his way out, he gave me his ticket so I could get his jacket from the coatroom. We went outside, and there was Eamon, waiting to get in! hehe After missing some taxi’s, he ended up there kinda late, and they stopped letting people in the place, since it was so crowded. Simon had given us his key to his place in Lucan, and directions on how to get there… that’s where we’d be crashin’ for the night. And he was ‘with a young lady’, so we knew we probably wouldn’t see him again that night. We hailed a taxi and happened to get one pretty quick. We started headed out, and told the driver we were headin’ for Lucan, but he didn’t know much of that area. Neither did we! We were kinda hungry too, and were up for some Doner kababs to help with the after effects of drinkin’ Guinness all night. We should have waited to get to the house to eat though, and with not being happy with the drivers lack of enthusiasm to try to get us home, we jumped outta the cab and went to the Kabab shop. The line was extremely long (there were still tons of people in the streets, even after 3 in the morning!). The kebab I got was not worth the wait, but it was good to get some grub in me. When we left, there wasn’t a taxi in sight. And the taxi’s that did pass did just that, pass… we walked around to try to find a taxi area, and finally found the Taxi Queue up the road. It was a long line with available taxis few and far between, but we figured this was our shot. It was raining a bit, with a cold chill in the air (temp sitting around 0C). The slacks I was wearin’ weren’t quite winter weather style, and the socks were pretty thin. Needless to say, I was FREEZIN’ my toosh off!
After almost an hour and a bad temper later, we finally made it to the front of the queue, and a taxi van showed up and grabbed up everyone headin’ Lucan. I crammed in the front seat with another bloke, and warmed my hands over the car’s heating vents. Finally started to get some circulation in fingers. My jacket was soaked and my poor bald head was drenched. We finally made it out to Escrew Gardens, which was the community area Simon lived at. The paper from Simon said “7 Escrew Garden Lawn. We got out of the van and looked around… Escrew Garden View, Escrew Garden Way… there were tons of these subdivisions! We walked around for close to a half hour until we happened upon the right area. Ran inside the house for a quick warm-up attempt, and got ready for a quick crash on the places available for rest. A few minutes later, we hear a key in the door, and in comes some of Simon’s roommates. We thought there might be some trouble, given that Simon hadn’t told them we’d be there, let alone, HIM not being there! Hehe But they were really kewl about it, and Eamon even stayed up for a while to BS with them. I was beat though, so I crashed out on the couch, oblivious to the world. It must have been after 5….
10:30 the next morning, Chief roused me up, “It’s late, we need to get on the road and check out the town while it’s daylight!” I headed up stairs to jump in the shower, but one of Simon’s housemates was in there… Linda. I introduced myself and apologized for not being social earlier that morning. After a quick shower, I came back downstairs and Linda had tea for all 3 of us waiting. Very nice of her, considering we were complete strangers. She hooked us up with a taxi and we were on our way to the airport to pick up a rental car and our bags that we left the night before. Mind you, we did have our smaller backpacks, with change of clothes and such… just so you don’t think we changed back into the clothes from last night (ewww). Hehe The taxi driver was a hoot, and had us rolling from his interpretation of a days work in Taxi life. He kinda explained what Taxi drivers are thinking when they DRIVE RIGHT past you while your waiting on a curb for hours in the cold rain! He just waves and drives on, thinking, “did I know that guy? Nice of him to wave…” At the airport, we grabbed some lunch at the deli store. They made this HUGE sandwich, triple decker with tons of meat and a middle slice of bread, coleslaw and other toppings… it was a great lunch dish!
We got us a nice rental car for only IRE£35 for a day. We drove down to the ‘industrial area’ of Dublin where the Guinness factory and store was located. There was a tour available with free samples of Guinness at the top of the factory. “OK! Arm’s Twisted!” We headed in and checked out how Guinness is made, how they made the cask barrels and some of the history and advertisements over the years. There was a huge display of all the different bottles used over time – very impressive. And Arthur Guinness signed a 9000-year contract for the factory location… I wonder what happens when that contract defaults?? At the end of the tour, up on the 7th floor, there was an awesome view of the city of Dublin and surrounding areas. I tried out the free sample pint of Guinness Extra Cold (and it was just that, EXTRA cold!). As we were heading out, we stopped in at the gift shop to see what kind of merchandise they were pawning off. They actually had some really nice stuff (I bought IRE£75 worth!) hehe I picked up a nice rain jacket, some designer mugs and towel and a metal tin postcard. Too kewl!
We walked our way over to a local pub, where we, of course, had another pint of Guinness (I think it was our blood supply by this point). As we were sittin’ down, an old Irish gentleman, musta been in his late 60s, started giving us a hard time (jokingly of course). Eamon had bought a sheep wool lined vest, and Leo (the old man) was giving him crap about being from Alaska or something. Said something about being an Eskimo. I had a hard time at first understanding the Gaelic in the accent, but it was fun listening. He kept calling me Kojac, and the Chief, “a frosty fellow”. Old Leo, or AKA “the Cincinnati Kid” as he said he was referred to back in his day, had ‘a few’ drinks before we got there, along with some Jameson Whiskey. He told us some great stories, and we were there for about a hour and a half listening to his ‘old soldier days’ from when he was in the British Army. He was even signing some good old Irish tunes, like “whiskey in the jar” and others… he offered me a drink of the ole whiskey, and hesitantly later I accepted – remorsefully. I took back that shot, it musta killed me! After the initial shock, it actually tasted pretty good, but man did it burn going down!
We said farewell and worked our way over to find a youth hostel so we would have a place to stay for the night, a bit closer to the fun spots. After loosing complete confidence in the local transportation system the night before, the last thing we wanted was another recap of waiting in the cold rain…. The hostel was actually just up the street from the pub we were at, and the cost was a mere £15 per person. Not bad for a night’s stay and place to lay the head, huh? Once we dropped off the bags in the 8-bed dorm room, we moseyed on down to the ‘Fire Station’, one of Dublin’s bigger and nicer nightclubs. This was where Simon and many friends were to meet us. On our way, we decided to stop for dinner. We found an awesome little Italian restaurant with fantastic service. The waitresses were really cute too, from Romania/Yugoslavia. The food was delicious (I had a sampler pasta platter, with spaghetti, mostacholli and thick linguini, with a side of cheese garlic bread). Full and happy, we slumped over to the nightclub. We walked into the joint and the place was HUGE – not only long ways, but up too! It was 4 stories high, with people crammed in the whole way… The music was thumpin’, but not so loud that you couldn’t hear others talking. We latched on to the traditional pint of Guinness and made our way around the bar scene to A. find Simon and friends, and B. check out the ‘action’. This place was just swarming with the young lassies. (Did I mention this is where I’m going to retire, like this year?) After we found Simon, we stayed in a little group for most of the night, but I had wondered off on occasion to the dance floor upstairs to get jiggy widdit. The back and forth movement went on for about 2 hours. We tested out the Tequila options a couple times, and made some pleasant conversations with persons of the opposite sex, and eventually retired from that arena and worked our way to the Music Theatre. Chief and I stopped on our way to pick up some Burger King… good drunk food – stops the possible ‘bad feelings’ the next day. Eamon didn’t see it that way. He regretted it later…
After a short stay at the concert in the Music Theatre, we headed back to the Hostel… about 4 or so in the morning, and crashed fast! The next morning we got up and about (Eamon got up a bit too quick, if ya know what I mean…) and eventually checked out and headed for the Prison Museum, where many rebels of the 1916 uprising were kept or executed. Very interesting tour! More on that in the homepage later though…
We meandered to the airport where, after a pint of Guinness and hearty handshake, said goodbye to Eamon and went up to the terminal to wait for our flight. I picked up some fun stuff from the Duty Free, and Chief and I had another pint, this time of Smithwick’s (another beer from Guinness that tasted like Crème Soda). It was a fun weekend, and another trip sometime soon in the future is needed to the fair island of Ireland!
More stories of the holidays to come soon…
Cheers and best wishes, for next week is CHRISTMAS!!
Dan
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English Chronicles IX
17 January 2001
Hogmanay – Also includes excerpts from Christmas and the weekend after New Years
Christmas was a nice time. For Christmas Eve, my friend Chris had me over for a Mexican-style Christmas Party with about 15 other people… we had a white elephant gift exchange, “who wants to be a millionaire” Christmas cracker contest, awesome food dishes and just plain ole fun.
For Christmas day, my neighbors, Paul and Vicki, invited me over for “Tea”. I went over early to make them up some French Toast and Cheesy Scrambled eggs for breakfast, then we talked for a while and watched some telly while drinking some “special” champagne and a couple beers, before dinner was ready. Vicki made up a HUGE, delicious meal, leaving me full enough for the next 3 weeks! Hehe We played some Play Station afterwards; William, their son, kicked my butt in Tony Hawkes Skater 2.
For Boxing Day (the English holiday for the day after Christmas, used to clear up all the Christmas boxes), my friends from down the street, Darren, Colin and Tina, had me up for supper and brewskis. We played some video games and had a fun try at a new card game (somewhat like a combination of Euchre and Blackjack).
I had to work on Wednesday, but had off the rest of the week, so I made plans with Darren to go mountain biking in Thetford forest on Thursday morning (head out about 8 or 9). That morning when I woke up, I looked outside to see if it had rained (checkin’ the mud levels for the trails), and I noticed that something wasn’t right… there was a familiar white coating over much of the landscape outside (correction, familiar to me, but far from familiar to most East Anglians!). I still headed for the shower, but had a feeling that biking was out today. Sure enough, Darren calls me up and says. “Hey Dan, U still thinking about biking today?” I said that it probably wasn’t a good idea, but we could always go hike the trails, so long as we were well dressed for it… so that’s what we did. I brought some military meals with us and we musta spent a good 3 hours out there. Had a great snowball fight too. Hehe I miss doin’ that stuff back home.
Friday I mostly spent prepping for the upcoming 3 days for New Years…
Saturday the 30th
Alarm was set for 3 AM, but my day would start a little earlier. I finally got to sleep about 10, so I figured 5 hours was plenty of time. But, as seems to always happen before a big trip, the phone rang in the wee early hours of the morning. It was my friend, Mr. Jo from Korea. He called to see how Christmas went and what my plans were for New Years. I told him that Christmas was great, and that I was just getting up in an hour to head to Scotland for New Years! We talked for about 20 more minutes, then he let me go so I could get ready for the trip. I’m glad he called early, because I probably wouldn’t have made the bus had I slept til 3. I threw everything in the car and started it up to let it warm. I made up some sandwiches with this new bread I bought in town called “Mill bread”. Very thick stuff, and extremely soft. Took those and a small bag of Oreos on the trip and headed for the base. I got there a little early, so I had time to stop off at the mailbox and into work to check email. When I headed back to the meeting point, there were over a hundred people waiting there… some people were going to Germany, some to Paris, but most folks were on the Edinburgh trip with me. I met a couple and their friend visiting from the States (Dan, Tammy and Nicole) while we waited for our bus to arrive. When it got there, I ran over and noticed that we had the same tour guide as the Paris trip I went on. I talked to him for a minute and stowed my bags and got on the bus. Being the first one on, and the fact that it was a double decker bus, I ran upstairs to the front seats and the big front window to see if seats were assigned or not. Lucky me, no reservations! We headed out at about 5:30 and for the 8 hour trip up north, I had awesome leg room, and a nice view (when the window wasn’t all fogged up from the cold weather outside). I talked with the folks sitting next to me for a while, but mostly wanted to sleep… as did they. We stopped a couple times on the trip for rest and food, but otherwise it was a pretty straight shot.
When we finally got up to the hotel, the “Royal Scot Hotel”, we unloaded ourselves from the bus and threw our stuff in the rooms. I didn’t have a roommate, since I was on the trip alone, but I had 2 single beds. I was sure they’d room me with someone. After I got somewhat organized in the room, a knock comes at the door. I open it up and there’s a girl standing there. She says, “I guess I’m your roomy for the weekend”. I was like, “Kewl!” hehe So we chatted for a bit, then I excused myself so I could head into town before going to the first planned dinner of the evening, at 7. I went up to the nearest mall to find a stocking cap for my poor bald head and some gloves. The snowmobile gloves my Uncle gave me a couple years ago were great, but a bit bulky for a New Years venture. I went back to the room when I found them and took myself a pre-party night nap for a couple hours. Then I went down to the hotel’s bar for a couple pre-party pints of Murphy’s and to hopefully meet some folks to hang out with. I was getting kinda nervous at that point, thinking that it was a bad idea for me to be up here alone, but stuck it through. For the first hour or so, I didn’t say much to anyone, but when the football game came on, everyone talks to everyone, so I started in on the conversations. Eventually, I met up with an awesome group of people that I ended up hangin’ with the whole weekend. When we went to the Dinner, which was a 5 course meal with endless wine and beer, a shot of Scot Whisky and entertainment from a bagpiper and singers, I sat with my new friends (Dino, Steve, Ian, and “Chris”) and after a few of the “free” drinks, the fun really started. The whole evening was a blast, and ended with a trip to one of the local clubs, recommended by our Cabbie, a place called “Eros Elite”. It was considered a ‘slow’ night, but there were a lot of people out there! We all danced and had some more beer, and carried on in the normal fun fashion we were accustomed to. I ran into a group of Eminem wanna-bes there, it was hilarious. One of the even asked where I was from; when I said Detroit, he went ecstatic and wanted to know what it was like being from the same area as Eminem! Hehehe Anyway, sleep came on fast at four in the morning when we finally made it back to the hotel. But my roommate, Meegan, came in about 10 minutes after I did, and we talked for a good hour about how our days went. She was 20, and just happened upon the tickets by being at the club on base. Some guys there asked her THE NIGHT BEFORE if she wanted to go to Scotland for New Years and that they had an extra ticket. She said sure, and got the ticket for a measly hundred dollars! Bee Otch! Hehe Crashed hard after that though, and had to wake up early for a tour of the city.
Sunday, the 31st
7:30 was WAY too early to wake up after the night of partying and drinking, and I had horrible bloodshot eyes. But I scrounged myself up and into the shower, making it downstairs in time to have a quick bowl of cereal and some toast, before running out to the bus that was going to leave at 8:30. My plan was, to do the tour, and head back to the hotel for a much-needed nap, but things wouldn’t work out like that. The tour lasted for 3 hours, and we learned a lot about the city. Did you know that Thomas Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh? Anyway, after the tour, I got talked into going to the Hard Rock Café for lunch with the gang. Afterwards, we roamed the town, searching for party hats for some of the folks with us, and I took my pictures of the Edinburgh Castle and Scot Monument. I spotted a Whisky shop and heard that Scottish Malt Whisky is the best, so I went inside; I came out with 3 bottles more and $150 less, but a nice addition to my “collection”. We met up with the bus and headed back to the hotel. I got some sleep time in, but only about 2 hours. It felt GOOD though.
That evening, we got our passes for downtown and Princess Street and rolled back into Edinburgh. It was only about 7 or 8, so we were there kinda early; not many people on the streets yet. The news called for a blizzard tonite, so that mighta scared some folks off. But, Dino, Steve and I went over to the Hard Rock again to meet up with some ladies that Dino met the night before. I ordered a drink, Long Island Ice Tea, and sipped it for a bit while Dino was lookin’ for the girls. He came back and introduced us to Michelle and Nicolette. Michelle was a cute brunette and Nicolette was a beautiful blonde! As the story goes on, we talked for a bit, then made our way to Princess street to start the evenings fun. We met back up with our “crew” who were near the Scot Monument and ferris wheel. We all hung out for a while, and had some brews while we BSd. It was starting to get cold and you could see the clouds forming overhead. Finally a command decision was made to move on and walk around, to see the sights, but if anything to get blood flowing to our now freezing toes (and I was wearing my wooly socks from Korea too!). We walked down to the “loo” where the girls could ‘take care of business’ and I hung out in front of a small sales stand waiting. As I was there, I got attacked!
There I was, minding my own business, when I am encountered by a couple of American blokes. They had come over from California (Dane and John, I think), and we started talking about the clubs in the area. As we were talking, out in the street, from the corner of my eye, I saw someone fall down. I turned to see if the person was alright, and she started laughing. Her friend attempted to help her up, but the girl on the ground was obviously a little ‘dodgy’. It also became obvious that her friend was a bit ‘toasty’ herself. They stumbled up and held on to each other as they attempted to walk. They came by our way and Dane made a comment like, “She really didn’t mean it”. Then the girl who had fallen turned around and asked, “What did you say?” in a cute Scottish accent. “I only meant that your friend didn’t mean to push you down.” said Dane. That started a big conversation with these 2 young lushes . Well, I just listened to what was going on, when all the sudden, Emma (the girl who fell earlier) just lunged at me and latched on! She talked to me, REALLY close up, slurring every other word. Her friend tried to get her to go with her, but she REFUSED to leave. Her friend asked my age, and I said I was 27. She yelled at Emma, “HE’S 10 YEARS OLDER THAN YOU!” Doah! She didn’t seem to care, but it was time for me to let her go! Hehe So I tried to persuade her to go with her friend, but she just latched on harder. She kissed me a couple times, but my eyebrows were scorched by her breath (filled with alcohol). I tried to get my friends to help, and Michelle and Nicolette had come back, so I worded “HELP!” under my breath to try to get some assistance. They all just laughed at poor Dan’s situation. After a rough time, and almost torn clothes, I managed to literally PEEL her off and send her off with her friend… that situation led to much humor later, at Dan’s expense.
Our group made our way down to check out a concert on stage at the end of Princess Street, where ole Danny Boy started kickin’ a jig. We stayed there for about a half hour, but the cold was getting to everyone, so we decided to head to a pub to warm up. Problem was, the places were so packed, and they weren’t admitting anyone. So we found a coffee shop and got our toes inside, ordered some hot chocolate and hung out upstairs for about a half hour, until we could feel circulation again. We saw our other friends from the big group and found a pub that was open so we all went in. Poor Steve wasn’t doing so good, and had to “step out for some fresh air”. The rest of us enjoyed some Guinness, and talked a bit. Dino, Michelle, Nicolette and I sat down at a table and talked, shot off pre-new years firecracker things, and started a picture WAR. Nicolette hates her picture taken, but that wasn’t going to stop us from getting her on film. Flashes were going off all over the place. After laughing and squinting, we finally calmed back down and noticed that it was close to midnight, so we headed back outside to see the fireworks display. Dino had lost his pass to Princess Street, so reentry for the New Year wasn’t going to happen, so we watched the fireworks display from Queen Street. As the time got closer, everyone counted down from 10, and on queue, the fireworks over Edinburgh castle were sent up, exploding magnificently, and loudly I might add, for an awesome 5-minute display. There were fireworks also going up over the other 6 hilltops, but the main show was the castle. We worked our way back down the street and found an entrance back to Princess Street. As we passed people on the street, everyone seemed in great spirits, wishing a New Year and giving a kiss! I’d never seen as many lips in a tulip field! Hehe After about an hour of this, we went to meet our bus, who agreed to wait outside Hard Rock at 1:15AM. We said goodbye to our lady friends and headed back to the hotel, where we continued the party. Dino, Ian, Chris and myself were all in the lounge to finish off the night, where we stayed until about 5 in the morning and had some drinks with our tour guide, Mike. We met some Scottish folks who just finished their bash in the ballroom. Kenny and Brian were more than happy to talk to us Americans and had a time with story tellin’. Eventually though, as with any night, it was time to retire to the comforts of bed.
Late the next morning, we got up and about for breakfast and finally headed out around noon. We all shared our stories and relaxed on the bus ride back, but mostly slept! Finally arrived back to Mildenhall around 8, stopped briefly at the Post Office, then drove home with the great memories of Hogmanay forever imbedded in my mind.
This past week I met up with my friend Colleen who I knew in Omaha, and went to Tech School with. She was here visiting her husband who’s stationed at RAF Lakenheath. On Thursday, I met up with them at the pub in West Row and we talked of plans for the weekend. Colleen brought with her some pictures from when we were in Texas a couple months ago. We had a couple pints and played some darts and talked about going to “church” on Sunday.
5 January
On Friday, Chief and Chris came out to the house, where I had some dinner waiting. We went to Jenyns Arms (local pub), then to the Bell (closer local pub), and Zoots, which is a nightclub in Kings Lynn.
6 January
On Saturday, Chief and I went to Bedford to check out a shoe store that sells Doc Martins. I picked up a couple pairs, since they were only £33 each! We hung around town for a while and stopped in a local pub for a pint, then made our way to McDonalds for some grub. We headed back to his town, where we stopped at the local pub in Sutton.
7 January
Sunday – Got up early to catch a train to London with Chris, Chief, Colleen and Phil. Our destination? Church. After breakfast we headed for the Downham Market train station, where we bought our tickets and waited for the train… we found out while waiting that the train would be late, in comparison to the posted times. We had about a half hour to kill, so we walked around town and stopped at the ATM for some cashola. When we got back, the train was even more late, so we had to wait another half hour. We didn’t end up leaving until after 11! On the ride down, we were told that the train couldn’t go all the way through, since there was work being done on the tracks. We would need to change trains in a small town and take a bus to the next station. On our way down though we stopped at a spot where the train picked up “Johnny”. As soon as he came on the train, we knew his presence was there… he was talking REALLY loud to no one in particular. He walked past us to the back of the train and said hello to us… the smell of alcohol reeked all over him. He was an older guy, bad teeth, rough looking, but generally harmless. Thank goodness he kept walkin’ though… only safe for a bit however; as the ticket collector started coming by, “Johnny” worked his way back our way. He asked if one of the empty seats with us was taken. We said yes, as we all had our jackets on there… he just sat down anyway. I had to hurry him off, since I left my sunglasses in the jacket pocket! No damage done though… He pulled a beer out of his pocket and started rambling about everything and nothing. When the ticket collectors came by, they asked for all our tickets. “Johnny” said that they already checked his. This wasn’t good. The collector calmly walked back to talk with one of the others, while “Johnny” continued his mumblings. The other collector came up to us and asked if there was a problem with tickets. A second later, the first collector decided they didn’t want to start trouble in front of the American visitors and said, “there’s no problem here”, and the moved on. I guess that “Johnny” was getting a free ride this time. I have a feeling they’d catch him after we got off the train. Anyway, for the rest of the journey, “Johnny” kept yackin’ at us and enlightened us on why Americans speak English, and not French or some other language… way back when in America, when everyone convened, the question came up, “What language should we speak?” A Frenchman stood up and said “We should speak French!”. An Englishman stood up and said “Shaddap and sit down, we’re speakin’ English!” Now you know. HAHAHA
Anyway, we finally escaped the madman at the final stop for us. On our way out, we ran into some fellow Americans who saw everything we went through… they could only say “Glad it wasn’t us!” hehe They were a 3 generation tier of ladies, mom, daughter and granddaughter. They asked if we could help them get their luggage down to the bus station. Being the gentlemen airmen we were, of course we helped! We finally made it downtown about 2, and headed over to McDonalds for a bite to eat, then went over to the “Church”… all further information on the “Church” is rated R . For more info, please email (link below) for a screening and a reply on the fun had there…
Guess that’s about it for now… a lot to digest. Heh heh Please write back to me when you get a chance.
Talk to ya soon
Dan “the world travelin’ man”
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English Chronicles X
20 – 28 January 2001
Offspring, DC, and Boston
(Today is the 23rd of January, so I am just going to write about the trip out to DC, and the concert, etc… more to come later.)
My college class started this past week (of the 16th) and it’s been homework just about every night! The class is on Western Civilization history, Pre-history to 1715. I’ve already got an essay due when I get back from this D.C. trip. Gotta write on either the differences between the hydraulic societies of the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians, or on Democracy in Ancient Greece. Still not sure which, but I’ve got a week to get it done.
20 January, 2001
For Christmas, I bought my friend Darren a concert ticket to see Offspring at the Wembley arena in London. Plan was, to have several people from work head out there with us and check out London in the process. As seems to happen often, no one took. So Friday, I asked Chief what he was doing, and if he wanted to head down there with us. Since he didn’t have a ticket, he agreed to go to walk around London with us anyway. We got up around 7:30, and were out by 9, meeting Chief near Ely around 9:30. We drove down to Epping, which is about a half-hour outside London and grabbed a tube into town (it’s way too hard to drive around London, and an all-day pass is only 4.90 pounds!). Our first stop, seeing that we were a bit hungry, was the Hard Rock Café. I had been craving a good steak, so I got myself a nice center cut prime. Chief and Darren both got the Pig Sandwich.
Picked up the typical souvenirs and went back to the tube station. Hadn’t figured out what to do from there, so I suggested the London Dungeon. I had been there back in ’96 with Keith, but they had new attractions, so I figured it was worth the revisit. It really wasn’t, but we had fun anyway, learnin’ about Jack the Ripper, the judicial system and other grim facts of old England. The line getting in was about an hour long too! We tube’d it back up to Piccadilly, where we went to grab a brew at Cheers. Ordered some spicy wings and Corona’s and chilled for a bit. After, we headed back to the tubes where we split up from Chief to head to the concert. When we got there, there was a huge crew of people headin’ in, and it was only minutes before the opening bands started. We worked our way inside and went down to the main floor (we had standing tickets, or jumping, considering the music).
The front band was IPA or something like that, and they were pretty decent. During the intermission before Offspring, most of the crowd headed to the lobby, so me and Darren headed up near the front stage. We got to just 3 rows back, and were READY. About a half-hour later, the crowd was getting pumped and the curtains were ready to come down. When they did, the place went ecstatic! They had an awesome garage look on stage. When the first song started, the crowd went nuts and we were jumpin’ and jammin’ with ‘em. Within a couple minutes though, we went from front row to back row, with the huge wave of people just pushing us back. It was crazy! They put on an awesome show, and well worth the trip out! Afterwards, we headed out, got the T-shirts and headed back to the tubes before the crowds came out. We didn’t make it back to Epping til close to 11:30. The drive home was rough, with a huge fog belt over us. Didn’t get home until after 1:30! Darren was beat, and out cold! I finally got him on his way home, and headed up to bed FAST! I was out until 11 the next morning! hehe
23 January, 2001 – Conference in D.C.
Ya know… the day started out pretty good. I set the alarm for 5, with the plan of driving to London Heathrow myself, and taking the bus that left Mildenhall at 5:15. I got in an extra couple hours of sleep and felt really awake when I got up. I did my normal morning routine, finished packing my bag, and was out the door by 6. Perfect. Flight leaves at 10, plenty of time. It was an hour and a half drive, maybe longer if there was traffic. No worries. Well, I had a nice drive through most of the A10, which leads to London, no traffic and cruising about 70. I hit the M11, the main motorway, and again, not much in terms of cars. Rate of speed, about 80. I get on the M25, which is the “orbital” around London that leads to Heathrow on the other side of the city. It started out OK, until I got about mid-way on the 42-mile route. All the sudden, all traffic was STOPPED. For the next 2 ½ HOURS, I crept SLOWLY through each of the on/off ramps. Finally, 3 miles before Heathrow, the traffic picked up pace again. It was after 9, and I was in the home stretch. I could get all checked in and still make a dash for the terminal. NOT! When I got to the airport, I found that I needed to get to long term parking first, which was ALL the way on the other side of the airport. OK, now Dan’s worried. Finally finding a parking spot in Area F, I lugged my bags to the bus, and headed over to the airport. I had to get to Terminal 3. Of course, the bus first needs to go to 1 and 2. After several red lights (long I might add), I got to the terminal at quarter til. I ran inside, and went to check in. Oh, did I forget to mention that SATO (our friendly military travel agents) didn’t have my tickets available at the base, so I needed to pick them up here. So I had to go to another counter to get those. Sweating now, I asked if they could let the pilot know I was running late. Nope, plane’s already boarded, and getting ready to taxi out. Damn…. Now I had a huge headache too. But, the receptionist could see I was having a bad morning, so she checked on other flights. Next one was in 45 minutes, and she waived the change over fee. THANKS! I went over with my new tickets to check in my luggage. The host there said the flight was hardly booked, so she hooked me up with 2 seats, near the window, blocking off the section so I could be “anti-social”. Now a little more relaxed, I walked over to the lounge area and eventually got on the plane.
The flight over was relaxing, though it seemed a bit warm. The TV and radio stations kept cutting out, and by the end of the flight, I had a massive headache. The cold air in Boston was a welcome change, as I headed to the next terminal for my connection to D.C. This is where I am now, and will continue this later.
(OK, I’m sitting at my friend Matt’s place, watching Super Bowl XXXV. In between commercial times, I’ll recap (yeah, I know that’s during game time, but we all know what everyone REALLY wants to watch). Although, I gotta say, the new Matrix camera angles on the replays is pretty kewl!)
When I finally got to D.C., I headed out to get my rental car, then on to the hotel. After such a horrible morning, the lack of traffic was a extremely welcome. In fact, it almost seemed as if everyone was staying out of my way on purpose. It was great! I got in to the hotel and unloaded my uniforms, did some ironing for tomorrow’s meeting and called up Cousin Matt to see what was up for the next couple days. Didn’t do too much that evening, since I was kinda tired from the flight, so I just read my history book a while, then crashed.
Next morning we gathered for our conference, after a small breakfast in the hotel diner area. Around “halftime”, Mr. Jones, my Resource Advisor for OG, and the 2 fuel guys, Eric and Jay, headed to lunch at Mike’s (based on the recommendation of the hotel receptionist). Ordered me a nice, juicy steak, since it’d been a while, and grabbed up a beer. We had an hour and a half for lunch, but most of that time was waiting on our food. Gotta stick to Mcy Ds when time is limited. The rest of the conference went slow, especially being tired from the big lunch. We got done somewhat early, around 3:30, so I headed upstairs, got changed, called up Matt, and rolled out to his place. Matt hadn’t got home from work yet, but Laurie and the kids met me when I got there. I don’t think that Nicholas recognized me without the goatee I had when I came out in June this past summer, because he gave a strange look at first when he came to the door. We went to meet Matt at one of the local bar and grills, had some dinner, played some table football and caught up on the past few months. Back at the house, we watched some TV, and helped the kids put together some Legos in the Mars Scorpion crawler. (Ahhh the good old days of legos) hehe Laurie went out for a girls night out, so after the boys went to bed, me and Matt watched some TV and I had some Guinness. We talked a bit longer, but both of us were tired from the long day, so crashed around 10. Since I stayed the night, I had to get up kinda early so I could clear out my room at the hotel later.
In the morning, I said goodbye to Matt, Laurie and the kids and headed back up the hotel for this day’s meeting. We were to head up to the DESC HQ to learn more about the computer side of the programs we were there to learn. It was a mess, and we ended up not learning a thing. But, we got out there early and headed out to the airport. Since I had a rental, I told the guys I would take them with me to the airport, instead of bothering with a taxi. They were skeptical at first about trying to squeeze 4 people and luggage into a car, but I had a Grand Marquis, so there was more than enough room! As we neared the airport, Reagan International, the guys questioned why we were there so early. Turns out, their flight left out of Wash/Dulles, not Reagan! Doah! No worries though, it was only 2 and Eric’s flight wasn’t til 4, so we cruised out to Dulles and I dropped them all off, then headed back to Reagan for my flight. Now, you would think by now, I should know military time, so my flight was at 20:00. Stupid me interprets that as 6PM, and I get there an hour “early”. Well, as you know it was really 8PM, but the flight receptionist was kind enough to bump me up a flight to the 5:45. Kewl. Get out to Boston even earlier!
Boston – Thursday, 25 Jan 2001
Arrived in Boston, some homework out of the way, and Matt is there to meet me. James “Matt” Ware, as you may recall from the Korean Sagas, was stationed with me at Kunsan for just about the whole year I was there. When he left Korea, he decided to become a recruiter and got an awesome assignment to the Boston area. Anyway, I signed up with Matt to do some Recruiter’s Assistance, which let me get a trip to visit him and check out Boston while helping him “win over” some potential new applicants. First night we headed back to his place, got everything organized, uniform-wise, for the next day, played a couple games of chess (of which I massacred him! Heh heh And don’t let him tell ya otherwise, truth or not! ), and crashed early so we could get ready for ‘work’ in the morning.
Friday
Next day we head to the office, where another “RAP’er” (one who is doing the Recruiter’s Assistance Program), fresh from Tech School, helped us out. We talked to several people (Matt calls him his kids) about what the Air Force has in store and the family that begins and evolves very quickly. Surprisingly that took up the whole day! We chilled out at night, watching U571 and again crashing early. I was still beat from the plane rides. On Saturday we stopped into the office for a while to stamp envelopes and wait for one of his applicants to call. When we finished up, he called up his friend (and fellow recruiter) to head out for some dinner. We had some great Mexican and followed up with a trip to the theatres to see 13 Days (about the Cuban Missile Crisis back in ’62, starring Kevin Costner). Great movie, had me on the edge of my seat for the whole flick, even knowing the outcome! Hehe
Sunday we embarked on a tour of Boston, visiting Paul Reveres house, and church where he had the lanterns set, one if by land and two if by sea. We checked out Cheers, and went to the Paul Revere tower, which had an AWESOME view of the city from the 70th floor! Along our visit we saw the Boston Harbor, the Boston Tea Party boat, central park, and finishing at a nice Italian restaurant in Italian town. We headed back home to watch the pathetic Super Bowl (could there be any more interceptions?), and the great new commercials, which were weak in themselves, although I still like the “What are YOU doing?” one. Exhausted from the long day, I sacked out around 11, after reading some more homework and a bit of the PFE.
Monday rolled around and we headed up to the office again for some clean-up and more calls. Matt had to take the Government van back and pick up the GOV car, so I stayed behind with another RAPper to do some “busy-work”, stamping more envelopes and sending Chris out to put up signs around the ‘hood. I talked to a parent who called asking about getting her son to sign up, and managed to get her and her son to stop in to talk to Matt. Ahhh my good dead of the day . Anyway, after Matt came back and talked to the new applicant, we headed out for the airport. Another wonderful visit to a new place, and away I was. The return flight was relaxing; I got to read some more and slept a lot. Got back into London the next morning at 6, and headed up to work for a while, went to my History class, took a quiz and turned in my essay. That night I CRASHED HARD! Felt so good to sleep….
Too bad I can’t turn these Chronicles in for my term papers…. Hehe They’re just about as long! Hope you are doing good; please let me know what happening with ya! Take care and talk to ya soon.
Dan da man
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English Chronicles XI
15 – 19 February 2001
Scotland Snow
This weekend was a long one, with Presidents day on Monday and a wing goal day on Friday, we had to take advantage of it… so after a long discussion (of about 2 minutes), we choose Scotland as our destination point. Of course, it’s mid-February, so it’s still winter season, and what better to do in the Highlands of Scotland than snowboarding!
After work on Thursday, I headed home to get the car packed up. Darren stopped over with his bags and chief was only a half hour later. He had 2 boards and a rack system that worked with my bike racks, so we swapped those out, loaded up the boards and took off. It was about half 5 when we left with an early pit stop at McDonalds. Being as late as it was, we broke up the trip and stopped in Carlisle (in North West England, close to Scotland. We made excellent time and had very little traffic. We did however run into some thick fog when we got close to Carlisle. That was our queue to stop for the night. We didn’t have anything set up, so we looked around a bit, running into most places being fully booked or extremely overpriced. Plus it was after 11PM, so most places were closed too. In fact, on place we stopped at had no cars there, so we thought we might be in luck. But when we finally got a person to talk to, he said “we’re shute!” “Shute?”, I said. “Yah, Shute!” “What’s shute?” “Closed!” Ahhhh…SHUT! hehehe But we finally found a B&B for £30 a night (awesome price) and crashed. Felt good to sleep after a full days work!
Next morning, Ian (our host), had a traditional breakfast waiting on us. This consisted of portage with whiskey, poached eggs with fish and tea. Interesting! Hehe We loaded up the car again, and were on the road by 8. We drove around Glasgow, and headed towards Edinburgh to refuel. The ride north went quick, the motorways were really clear. We reached our destination (Aviemore) by 12:30. Got checked in at the Lynwilg B&B and headed downtown for lunch and a check-out of the town. Did a little shopping and drove up the Cairnmorg (the ski mountain) to see what the conditions were like. The sun was shining bright, with a light cool breeze and the mountains and lakes were an awesome sight. The snowcapped peaks were amazing. Sheep dotted the landscape. The tranquil silence made the weekend extremely relaxing. We enjoyed some dinner at the Skiing Doo. I tried out the Haggis (sheep's heart, liver, kidney, wrapped in the intestines)… yummy! Also had the special sandwiches there and a couple beers.
At night, we headed in town to check out the Aviemore nightlife. Although the village is small, it’s a ski resort area, so there were quite a few people in town. We hopped around from pub to pub checking out the scene. It took a couple places, but we finally found a group to talk with in the 3rd place. We stayed out until about 1AM just having a splendid time <grin>, but we really should have gotten home earlier. Had we known the next day we would have hangovers and all, I think we woulda cut drinkin’ a bit earlier too…
We set breakfast time with our hosts for 8AM (WAY too earlier after last night), but we dragged ourselves downstairs for portage and scrambled eggs, showered up a bit, got into the whole snowboarding gear and headed up to the mountain top. When we got there, the place was a bit crowded and needed to stand in a queue to head up to the slopes by bus. We waited in line for a good half hour, but when we finally got to the top, we found a short line at the lift ticket booth. The next long queue was for the lift to the upper slopes. This wait was about the same, a half hour. OK, we finally made it up to the top, and after some encouraging training from Chief, he split off and headed up higher while Darren and I practiced on the easier area. After busting our @$$es a few times, we finally got more of the hang of it, and decided to try a real slope. Sure, our knees, elbows and @$$cheeks ended up black and blue, not to mention that I still had a decent hangover headache going for me, but hey, we had fun trying! We broke midday for lunch at the Chalet. They had some awesome Scottish beef pie and chips (fries in American), and I elected for the Cadbury’s hot chocolate. Awesome stuff. We hit the slopes a few more times, then returned the chalet for a couple brews, Darren enjoyed his Pepsi.
We met this older guy called Les. He was a skier and had a huge, unmanaged beard that looked really kewl. Every time Les would take a drink of his ale, he ended up tinting his mustache with beer-head. I got a good chuckle out of it. He even treated us to a beer, the Scottish tradition for visitors. We talked with him for a quite a bit, all the while scoping out the Scottish snow bunnies. We noticed a lot of great looking women on the scene. We finished up our beers and headed down to the bus stop to wait on the transport back to my car. We made it back to the room, showered up and headed out for Dinner at the La Taverna, a nice little Italian restaurant in Aviemore. They were only taking reservations, but we asked if we could wait for an open table. We sat at the bar and they offered us £0.40 slices of pizza, which were huge! And delicious! Anyway, about an hour later, a table came open, we had a great dinner while Chief made googlies at this girl across from our table. (Sad, really! Hehe) We headed back to the B&B and were getting ready to head out again, but nature took over, and I was out cold. Didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep until about 11:30, when I woke up long enough to find my bed. Chief was up, partially, so I asked if he was ready to go out… Yeah, right!
Next morning we enjoyed the same breakfast and headed back up to the slopes with a better understanding as to when and where to be. The lines were not a long, and we got in tons more snowboarding and got a lot better than the previous day. I guess the tops of the mountains were very icy and crusty, so Chief came down to our level and boarded on the Green runs. We broke at midday to head back for a shower and roll up to Loch Ness. We headed into town for a quick bite first, then on to Inverness (the capital of the Highlands and northern most city of Loch Ness). The Loch was quite an awesome site, as the pictures will tell (on my website eventually). We sat down in a local pub in Dores, had a couple beers, then headed back up to Inverness to check out the city life. Had a good time in the pubs there, in fact, we were out ‘til 3AM! (more available upon request) The ride back to the B&B was LONG and tiring. But we kept getting rings from the girls from the first night. They had made it back down to Glasgow and wanted us to come visit! Sounded good to us, but it didn’t end up working out. We obviously got a late start the next day and were draggin’ @$$ the whole way back. It was a nice view on the way back, but man was I beat! (literally, if you count the bruises from snowboarding!) hehe
We met this older guy called Les. He was a skier and had a huge, unmanaged beard that looked really kewl. Every time Les would take a drink of his ale, he ended up tinting his mustache with beer-head. I got a good chuckle out of it. He even treated us to a beer, the Scottish tradition for visitors. We talked with him for a quite a bit, all the while scoping out the Scottish snow bunnies. We noticed a lot of great looking women on the scene. We finished up our beers and headed down to the bus stop to wait on the transport back to my car. We made it back to the room, showered up and headed out for Dinner at the La Taverna, a nice little Italian restaurant in Aviemore. They were only taking reservations, but we asked if we could wait for an open table. We sat at the bar and they offered us £0.40 slices of pizza, which were huge! And delicious! Anyway, about an hour later, a table came open, we had a great dinner while Chief made googlies at this girl across from our table. (Sad, really! Hehe) We headed back to the B&B and were getting ready to head out again, but nature took over, and I was out cold. Didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep until about 11:30, when I woke up long enough to find my bed. Chief was up, partially, so I asked if he was ready to go out… Yeah, right!
Next morning we enjoyed the same breakfast and headed back up to the slopes with a better understanding as to when and where to be. The lines were not a long, and we got in tons more snowboarding and got a lot better than the previous day. I guess the tops of the mountains were very icy and crusty, so Chief came down to our level and boarded on the Green runs. We broke at midday to head back for a shower and roll up to Loch Ness. We headed into town for a quick bite first, then on to Inverness (the capital of the Highlands and northern most city of Loch Ness). The Loch was quite an awesome site, as the pictures will tell (on my website eventually). We sat down in a local pub in Dores, had a couple beers, then headed back up to Inverness to check out the city life. Had a good time in the pubs there, in fact, we were out ‘til 3AM! (more available upon request) The ride back to the B&B was LONG and tiring. But we kept getting rings from the girls from the first night. They had made it back down to Glasgow and wanted us to come visit! Sounded good to us, but it didn’t end up working out. We obviously got a late start the next day and were draggin’ @$$ the whole way back. It was a nice view on the way back, but man was I beat! (literally, if you count the bruises from snowboarding!) hehe
The trip was fantastic though, and only cost near £200 for each of us. It was sweet. We were talking about testing out the Alps next time. That’d be too kewl.
Aside from the holiday trip, I’ve been keeping busy at work and home; making the budget for next Fiscal Year in the office, boning up on military history and customs for my promotion test (which is finally done), and writing papers and studying for my history class. I just finished up a term paper on the only republic of England (back in 1650). Interesting stuff! Finals are the week after next, so I’ll be a homebody for a while getting ready for that. Website should be updated soon... it's a bit under construction, so please ignore the error messages. www.geocities.com/dreanged1/index.html
My friend George called me this past week telling me he would be in Greece for a couple months, so I need to head out to visit with him; right now the plan is for April… going to hopefully make a stop in Italy to visit newly “acquired” family there (My Uncle Tom recently told me we had relatives there and gave me an Email address; I’ve been talking with my cousin Fabio since! It’s really awesome!)
That’s about it for this edition… till next time, keep in touch and keep safe!Always here somewhere… Dan d’ man
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English Chronicles XII
25 March 2001
The Grind and the Mines
Over the past 3 weeks, I’ve been workin’ my butt off trying to learn future year budgeting, as we are in the process of making next years financial plan for the base. It’s been a huge training curve for me, since this is all new. Most workdays therefore, have been around 11-12 hours! So, the most I’ve done aside from work is sleep… in fact, I even had to cancel out of another trip to Dublin for St Patty’s day because of it. L But, we pretty much finished up last Friday, with a presentation to the Wing Commander on what his budget entailed. Last thing to do now is get approval from our headquarters and we’re done!! Yeay!
This past weekend, I found myself in a remote, dark and isolated location. No, not the padded room of the mental ward (though pretty close from all the prior weeks work). I went caving in the Derbyshire mines!
Over the weekend we had our “summer hours” change over of time. The bad thing was that it was Saturday night and the trip to the mines was Sunday morning, which meant I lost an hour of much needed sleep for this tour. Our meet time was 0600, which meant I had to be up no later than 0430 to get ready and out to the base. (And if you do the math, that’s 0330 in the “old time”.) Lessley opted for this trip, so she met me at the base just before 6 and we went inside to meet our guide, Dave W. There was only one other person going on the trip, Glenda, which meant we’d have a lot of time, one-on-one, with the guides.
We headed out by quarter after 6 and slept on and off across the trip which was north and west of Mildenhall. Most of the journey was farmland views; pretty typical of the area we’re in. But when we got further west, more of the forest and scenery came out. Still, much of the land was agricultural, and many of the dividers were fences made of piled up stones. I was surprised at the sheer number of these “walls” that seemed like they could take months to make… each! Inside a majority of the areas were grazing sheep and horses, seemingly not affected by the recent outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease.
As we neared the Derbyshire (pronounced Dar-beh-Sher), around half 8, more rustic and relaxed looking houses appeared; very homey and welcoming. It was a bit cool out, and the land was coated with a light fog. We went into a small bakery/breakfast restaurant to wait on the local guides who would take us down into the cave mines. We ordered some breakfast and tea/coffee, and sat by the fire, while Dave went to call on the guides. Turns out, they forgot about the time change and hurried out to meet us. When they came in, they introduced themselves; Dave (not Dave W), an older chap with a full beard, thin and well worn by many obvious trips to the caves, and his cohort Brian, a bit younger than Dave with an Irish look about him, was more heavyset and stocky.
They sat down and went over what we were to expect. Dave showed us a map of the local mines and natural caves, and outlined the ones we’d be spelunking. The first would be “Merlin’s Mine”, which would give us a good practice run on rope use, rappelling, ladder use and climbing and crawling. Then we’d move on to “Nickers Grove”, about 500 yards from Merlin’s, for the “real deal”. He folded away his map as we finished up our breakfast, then headed out to the vans. Following our guides we drove to the starting point, at a T-junction off a main road. Dave and Brian geared us up, with waterproof one-piece suits and wellies (Wellington boots), battery harness and helmet with light, and rappelling gear.
We hiked up the road a little ways and cut up into the forest along the hillside until we got to the first of Merlin’s cave entrances. Outside the cave, we practiced using a “figure 8” and ropes for rappelling off the side, while attached to a tree. The “drop” was only a few feet, but it prepared us on how to use the rope for a faster or slower decent. When we were comfortable, we headed in.
The cave was damp, but not as cold as I thought it’d be. We started off with a stand-up walk, but were soon reduced to hands and knees as our headlamps shone our way ahead. There were several puddles of muddy water to waddle through and on occasion knocked the old helmet into the low ceiling. It was really exciting though, being in and away from civilization. Dave explained some of the intricacies of the lead and showed us some examples of what the mines had done many years earlier. He broke open one of the “rocks” and inside was a sparkling delight of lead and other minerals. As we continued on, we ran into a couple of tight squeezes where I literally had to exhale all the air in me to wiggle through. (Need to loose the beer gut! Hehe) After about an hour and a half of crawling around the “practice run”, we worked our way back out and went back to the vans for a quick break before heading to Nickers. We were only half covered in mud by this point, but it gets better.
As we hiked to Nicker’s Grove, we took in the outside air, which seemed much fresher than it had before going into the caves. We listened to a story on how “Nicker’s Grove” got it’s name and where the term “nick” comes from (slang in England which means to steal something). As the story goes, back when the lead was a huge commodity, miners would do anything to get more access to the lead, sometimes even killing other competitors. But, there were also honest miners who went through a legal process to take a mine, if it wasn’t in use. There was a spool for pulling lead from mines on the outside of an entrance. If the spool was in use, it would be kept clean and smooth; if not, it was obvious by sight that the mine was not in use. To legally “assume” ownership of the mine, a miner would cut a mark into the spool while a person of authority observed. After a month, they would go back and place another mark in the spool. If you had 3 marks (or nicks) in the spool, that proved that the mine was abandoned, and you could take over control. Hence, nicking the mine.
We reached the next entrance and scouted about for the alternative exits to make sure they were accessible. With helmets in place and lights on, we ventured in. The first stretch was walkable. Water on the ground was above the ankle and the air was a bit stale. The moisture inside was obvious as the walls were coated in light dew. There were a couple holes to get past, but nothing too extreme. Soon we were back on hands and knees, again bumping the helmet on the low ceiling; you could here the occasional, “dang it!” The first major obstacle was to work ourselves halfway down a 50-foot drop (or pitch as the pros call it). Dave and Brian set up the riggings and we rappelled (or apsailed, the English term) down to the halfway point where another corridor started. To get to that passage, we had to swing over and catch on to the ledge and pull ourselves in. Once everyone was safely in the passage, we continued on.
The next obstacle was a downward climb over rocks and drops, where instead of apsailing, we used ropes and rock ledges to work our way down. This was only about 15 feet down… no sweat. The rest of the crawl was fairly good, and we found our exit. Now the choice was to either end here, or crawl back through where we could use our climbing skills in the areas we had come down. Glenda opted to end it, and headed back to the vans. The rest of us took a short break before heading back the other way. On our way, we found a small bat hibernating in a tiny nook in the wall. It was out cold, and had no idea we were checking it out. Too kewl!
You ever realize what muscles you rarely use? You do when you start scaling up a wall, hanging on for dear life! Back at the second obstacle, we shimmied our way back up the hole, over the rocks and ledges. When everyone was up, we took a short break and Dave had us turn out our lights. If you think you’ve seen pitch black before, this is way different. There was NO light what-so-ever… he had us imagine what it was like for the miners, who at the time only had candles on their helmets, affixed in place by wax. As I mentioned earlier, it is quite damp in these caves, and the ceiling drips on occasion. If water landed on the candle, it went completely dark! Scary thought since they were in the process of digging the mines out, and might not know how to get out! Anyway, we crawled our way back to obstacle one, a 25-foot climb up the vertical pitch. This involved a wire ladder no wider than maybe 6 inches and a special technique of “hugging” the ladder as you climb. The rest of the way was easy walking, with an occasional bump of the helmet, but we all made it out safely, though maybe a bit more sore! Overall, we had spent over 4 hours in the caves… too awesome! We checked each other out when we reached sunlight (well, with the overcast of England, just light), and we were covered with mud from head to toe! Hehe Got some great pictures of that, which’ll be out around the same time as all the other pictures I’ve been promising.
Hiked on back to the vans where Glenda was waiting on us. Started getting changed and cleaned up, and as we were putting things away, there was a screeching noise in the street, followed by a crash! Sure enough, someone was turning a T-juncture right next to us, and the car behind didn’t stop in time. The traffic on this road was bad, so we had to wave down cars to get them to slow down. No one was hurt, thankfully, but the one car was pretty well smashed. Someone got a phone and called for help, while someone else grabbed a hand broom and swept away most of the glass. What are the chances of that, huh? So, we continued our business while they took care of their problems. Dave gave us some closing remarks and we thanked him and Brian for taking us along on the journey…
We hopped in our van, got comfy for the long, sleepy ride back, with a pit-stop at Burger King for a quick bite and a refill on fuel (petrol as they call it here), then it was on the road for the 2-hour trip home… Once back, tired and sore, but full of fond memories, we all said our goodbyes and to home and bed we all went!
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English Chronicles XIII
16 April 2001
Holland For Easter Weekend
The morning was typical for one of these trips, up at 0330, at the base by 0500 and on the road in no time. The holiday this time was to Holland and the Bulbfields, as well as a trip into Amsterdam. We took a lazy drive to Dover with a stop at Cambridge to pick up some folks from Alconbury. Lessley accompanied me on the vacation, and we pretty much slept on the way to the ferry, listening to the radio stations fade in and out along the way.
On the ferry, we took in the views of the cliffs of Dover and walked around a bit. Got to meet one of Lessley’s friends from Korea, who is stationed at Lakenheath now. It was a bit chilly though, so we eventually found our way inside. Hunted down a coffee shop and ordered a cappuccino for Less and a hot chocolate for myself and sat at the windows facing the front of the boat so we could see where we were and our entrance to the Calais port in France.
On the road again, the radio was back on, this time with a French commentator and occasional US music. We stopped in the Netherlands for a quick lunch at McDonalds before rolling on to our hotel near Amsterdam. We had signed up for the group dinner that night at the hotel (I ordered the Turkey), and had a blast. We had a couple hours to get changed and cleaned up before dinner. When we got downstairs, there were several tables ready for us with our groups name on it. We sat down with 6 other folks at one of the tables and started small conversations. After a while though, we ended up being the loudest table having the most fun. When dinner was served, and I don’t know how this happened, but I was the last person to get my food, and all they had left was fish! Fish wasn’t even an option when we ordered. It turned out that one person (who sat next to me) had asked if there was fish, but they said no. Somehow they still wrote it down, but she had already gotten the turkey. So, they took the fish back and said it’d be about 20 minutes… as it was. But we kept making jokes with the waiter for the rest of the night about the fish, saying we’d rather have fish and crème for dessert, instead of fruit… many fish jokes arose… it was hilarious!
A few of us worked our way to the bar after dinner for a few drinks. The bartender was a lot of fun, and spoke pretty good English. He enjoyed pulling bar tricks on the customers, though I had seen, or at least knew of most of them. I decided to bring out the beer/dollar trick. No one had seen it before (trying to pull the dollar from under the bottle without knocking it over). Soon, I had everyone in the bar trying their hand at it. This included most people from the trip, the hotel manager and the desk attendant! It was a riot! Anyway, we were there until about 11 before headin’ to bed.
On Saturday, we had a wake up call at 0730, breakfast at 0815 and rolled out 0900 for the infamous Dutch bulb fields. We talked with John (the bus driver) the previous night to hook up some special arrangements. As the tour woulda went, we woulda spent the whole day at the bulb fields then headed back to the hotel before going out to dinner. We asked if we could cut out early and get a ride to Amsterdam to check out the city. He agreed, and when he brought that up to everyone else, more people went with that plan. So, we checked out the flowers and layouts for a couple hours, though most of the flowers hadn’t bloomed yet. Then we split around 1:00 to head downtown. The traffic was pretty thick in the city, so it took us about an hour and a half to get to a parking spot near the museums. By the time we got into the Reicht museum (Hollands National Art Museum), it was about 3:00. Less and I walked around checking out the variety of paintings and sculptures, though we only had about 2 hours before the museum closed. We had also planned to check out the Van Gogh museum, but figured it closed around the same time.
After we finished our browse around, and both with slight headaches, we moved our way outside, where it had started to rain. It was only drizzling, but the temps had dropped too, making it quite cold. All we wanted to do was walk around Amsterdam and check out the awesome architecture and design of the buildings and canal ways, but most of the time our heads were down trying to avoid the rain. The rain soon turned into a mix of rain and snow, and fingers, toes and noses were getting cold. So, in light of the weather, we made numerous stops in the local souvenir shops, pretending to look at all the gifts they had for sale, but mostly just warming up. Of course, we also made some extended stays at the pubs, warmed up to a hot drink, or numbed the cold by drinkin’ a Corona or Guinness. Walking around though, in the rainy weather, made it difficult to get navigate around, so we ended up headin’ to the opposite side of town before we found a map and saw where we ended up! We moved back to the west side of town and found some of the landmarks that helped us find the bus meeting point. By the end of the evening, we looked like pathetic drowned rats. The bus was early though, and we made sure that John knew he was our savior for the evening. After getting out of the drenched jacket, I sat down in my “assigned” seat, leaned back and nodded off as we drove back to the hotel. Time: 11:30.
Easter Sunday started and no one even remembered that the day was special. Today’s agenda: Volendam, a couple tours and the city of Windmills. Again, the wakeup was at 0730, with breakfast at 0815 and a departure time of 0900. I hafta admit, I was really impressed with everyone, since this was a rare occasion that everyone through the whole trip thus far, were on time for everything!
Our first stop was to the Diamond shop in Amsterdam, where we learned what makes a diamond expensive or cheap, and other interesting facts… time that coulda been used for more exploring around town, and with the fact that the sun was shining and the temps were up a bit. Of course, after the tour, we ended up in the gift shop; but as you can guess, “gifts” were quite expensive, since most involved, oh I don’t know, DIAMONDS maybe? Shoulda known that by the end of the “training session”, it was raining again… and miserable. So back on the bus we went, with our next stop being the clog factory.
The rain had let up a bit by this point, so when we arrived, it was a nice stroll to the factory. Inside, our host met us and showed us how clogs were made in the old days (where it took all day to make one pair of shoes), and the current way, where shoes were made like spare keys and could produce about 50 pairs a day. Kinda kewl actually. And once more, we ended up in the gift shop, where we spent most of this tours time. Again, this coulda been time exploring ‘dam when the sun was out… but as you would guess by now, when we got back outside, it was raining again… hard too… and it was even colder!
Next place we checked out was the cheese factory. They, believe it or not, explained how cheese was made! This was followed by, if you haven’t figured it out by the continued pattern, the cheese gift shop. They had samples of the different cheeses, and they tasted soooo good. I bought a few lumps for myself. On now to Volendam…
We set off to Volendam, one of the older villages of Holland that had many of the older ways about it. The village was a fishing town, as could be seen by the numerous boats in the nearby harbor. The sun was shining and I saw a glimpse of blue sky. The clouds broke for about 15 minutes, but again started to drizzle. That was off and on for about an hour. This was mainly a huge shopping area though, and very touristy. I wish we coulda just gone to a nice small village where no one was around, but I guess I need to do that on my own time, huh? It seems kinda silly to me that our exploration of Holland led us to every place to spend money, but few places to really SEE Holland! Anyway, I had a nice stroll around town and checked out the harbor area and some of the large sailing ships they had coming and going from the port. Grabbed some food too, and some miniature pancakes that are specialties in Holland. Really good with the orange liquor they topped it with! Back on the road though, we made our way back to the hotel for a quick fresh up before the return to Amsterdam for an evening candle lit cruise. Less opened up the bottle of Dutch wine she bought at the cheese shop, which was made with grapes and raspberries. It was very sweet, but also had some kick to it.
Drove back downtown to the Victorian hotel near Central Station, where we were dropped off. Some went on to eat dinner with the group, but half of us went on our own to see the city some more. Less and I walked down to the St Nicholas kerk (church) and wondered some of the back streets, hopefully ones we hadn’t already gotten lost in the night before. Somehow, we ended up in the Red Light District where tons of “naughty shops” prevailed and women were seen in the local windows and doors, only partial dressed. Of course, we hurried past this area to the pubs and had ourselves a couple pints of Guinness to get the evening started right. We came outside at the meeting time (20 til 8), and most everyone was already waiting. John drove us down to the canal where we unloaded and moved down to where the boat would meet us.
Setting off on the boat, we cruised around the many canals of Amsterdam. On this trip, we were given endless wine, cheese and nuts, and a commentary on some of the history of the city. As we cruised the canals, we passed by Anne Franks house (I guess for the 5th time) and saw the lit up city at night, which was gorgeous! After a few glasses of wine, we were all “doing pretty good” and got a bit loud too. The German’s who were on the other side of the boat heard a song we weren’t paying attention to until they started singing, “Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world”. We all started laughing because EVERYONE knew the song… so everyone started singing… it was hilarious! Dave took an awesome shot of my mug in the candle light, which I’ll have posted soon… it’s a great pic – makes me look a bit Diablo-ish! Hehe By the end of the trip though, Dan wasn’t feeling too well, from all the wine… I’ll letcha guess what happened from there (since I don’t remember it too well my self!)
Next morning, we headed out for home, with stops at the Belgian Chocolate factory and the winery. Took the ferry back, drove up to Cambridge to drop off a portion of our crew from Alconbury, then headed back up to Lakenheath. Drove over to Less’s to pick up my car and got home in time to do a load of clothes, then hit the sack for some MUCH NEEDED sleep! Hehe
Next time, our daring adventure seeker heads to Greece, in an attempt to visit a friend, and maybe find the much elusive creature called – THE SUN!
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English Chronicles XIV
19 – 26 April 2001
Greece trip
Yassous!
I had been talking with my friend George from back home near Detroit for a while about possibly visiting with him while he was in Greece visiting his relatives. After a couple months of discussion, we finally came up with a good game plan, so here’s the tale of Dan the Adventure Seeker as he embarks on Greece.
I checked out plane tickets online trying to find a good deal. Most of the prices ranged from $580 to $1510, but I kept checking for almost 3 hours when I happened upon a great deal at only $199 roundtrip!! So of course I snatched it up as quick as I could. This would get me from London to Athens, where George told me he’d meet me.
Thursday finally came about, after a nice 4-day weekend in Holland (which meant only a 2 day work week!). I had a nice, lazy start to the morning, getting up around 07:00 and headed out of the house by 09:00. I went up to the base to leave my car with my boss and met up with Chief, who took me out to the airport. My flight left at 14:00 and I arrived in Munich, Germany around 16:00. I had a couple good Deutch beers while I waited on the connecting flight to Athens, but forgot to set my watch back on hour for the time difference from London! I heard my name called over the PA (in German with Rea somewhere in the middle). So I went up to the counter, and I said, “I thought boarding wasn’t until 18:45?”
“Yes, and it’s now 19:15!”
Doah!! So I ran back, got my bags, left my other half of the 3rd beer, and scooted off to the plane. Took a short nap over, ate dinner, and landed around 23:00. George was at the gate waiting on me. We BSd a bit while we waited in the long queue for a taxi. I guess that waiting in a queue was highly unusual since most people in Greece simply go in line where ever is most convenient. Eventually, we got in a taxi and headed out to Athens to check into the hotel George had set up. After dropping off our bags, we worked our way into the city to walk around and check out the immediate area. Hungry for dinner, we stopped at a Goody’s for a hamburger, then went over to the internet café so George could check his accounts. I went up to the bar for a drink and talked to this chap from San Francisco (I think his name was Griffin or something like that – total hippie who seemed to have had a few Js in his time ). We talked for a bit, because he had lived in Korea for some time, so we compared stories. I went to check on George and we scanned through his messages and headed out back to the hotel around 03:00 for some sleep.
Friday rolls around, with a really lazy start of about 10:30. Already on a good start to “Greek life”. Hehe After getting showered and dressed with headed out around 12:00 to meet up with Georges friend, Mano (Manolis). He took us downtown to a kewl outdoor café for a cup of coffee/tea, where we shot the breeze for a while before going up to the Acropolis to check out the ruins. The city was remarkably huge, with different cities within the main city. From the top of the mountain area, you could see all of it; just an awe-inspiring sight. The acropolis itself was amazing and we talked about what some of the great philosophers must have thought about 2000 years ago in the very spots we were standing. The columns were enormous; how they constructed them without cranes and lifts is beyond me! A museum near the acropolis showed some of the statues and sculptures from the time and some of the artwork that has made Greece famous. After a couple hours, we headed back down the hill and Mano took us back to the hotel so we could check out.
On the way back we stopped by a travel agent to get our boat tickets to Crete. The boat was scheduled to leave at 20:30, and it was only 19:00, so we should have had plenty of time, right? Well, after we checked out, we hopped in a taxi, which took us to the metro (how it took us over an hour to do that, I’m not sure, but I started to figure out that Greek time is not real time… ). On the metro it was after 20:00, so we had only a half hour to get to the boat, and the metro trip was a 20-minute trip! When we pulled in to the Perios station, we booked to the dock and asked how to the get to our boat. Ours of course was all the way on the other end of the pier! So with only minutes left before takeoff, we ran our @$$es off to a ship steward that yelled to us to hurry! Finally on board, sweating and out of breath, we checked in, got up to our room, showered and changed, and went up on deck to check out the views of Athens. Somewhere down the line, we opted for dinner followed by some beers at the Disco club. Around 03:00 we made our way back to the cabin room to catch some sleep before the boat docked in Crete.
The boat docked Saturday morning in Hania, Crete at 0530, where we got the “wake-up knock” at the door. We collected our stuff and got off the boat, hailed a taxi and drove off to George’s Theo Haralambos’s (Uncle Harry’s). It was only after 6, and we didn’t want to wake anyone, so we dropped off our bags on the porch and took a walk around the area where George showed me some of the key landmarks to help me find this place in case we got split up during the week. After about an hour, we went back to the house, where we met Uncle Harry and Aunt Katina, and Aunt Christini (Christine) and Uncle Andreas (Andrew). George helped translate most of the trip, since only a small portion of the family spoke English. We talked with Harry while Thea (Aunt) Katina made some great breakfast. Fresh eggs (straight from the chickens in the back yard), fresh bread, snacks, sauce and tea were on the table in no time. Man, was that a great, and filling, breakfast! It literally wore me out, and I had to take a quick nap (well, the food and the fact that we only had like 2 hours of sleep on the boat). Woke up around 1100, and met cousin’s Korina and Manolis, and Frosso and Manolis. Around noon we went down to the Limani, which is the fishing area, café and lighthouse hangout area in town. George’s cousin Kiriakos, who I met in Detroit a couple years back, was waiting at one of the cafés for us. We had a couple beers there, and talked about things in England, since that’s where Kiriakos received an acceptance to college to finish his Bachelors degree he started in the States. He asked us if we had any plans for the night, and invited us to his birthday party that night. Of course, we had no plans, so we graciously accepted. Meet time was 18:00 at the market. We broke up from there, George went to the internet café, Kiriakos went back home to call his friends, and I walked around the Limani to see what was around. George and I headed back the house around 17:00 to change and went back to the Market and waited on Kiriakos and friends to show up. Around 1900, when everyone made it, we walked over to the “Turkish Well”, a restaurant in the middle of the Limani area that served, uhhh… Turkish food! The food was great and the company was better. Though most were talking in Greek, most understood and spoke English. We joked around a lot (and I introduced the dollar under the beer bottle trick again), BSd and ate for a couple hours before heading over to the Rock House club for drinks and great rock music. There I met the father of some of the friends, who was a really kewl guy. He ended up treating to most of the drinks and shots through the evening and even later treated us to “breakfast” (which was at 04:30). A new treat for breakfast, explained as the ultimate prevention for hangovers, was Batsas, a lemon flavored soup with stomach as the meat item. (Mmmmm stomach lemon soup!) It wasn’t as bad as I thought, though I hafta admit, I wasn’t thinkin’ of much at the time after as much as I had drunk. But sure enough, there was no hangover the next day! We finally made it home by 05:30 and went straight to bed!
A few hours later, into the Sunday morning, we woke up and I had plans to head out to the Limani for some pictures by noon. But, in the traditional Greek style of time, I somehow didn’t get out of the house until 15:00! Of course, breakfast and conversation were to blame, though who could blame that awesome combination… But during that time, I got to see my first chicken plucking, after Aunt Katina rung its neck and threw it in the hot water to loosen the feathers. Anyway, I told George I’d meet him at the internet café by 17:00 and headed out on my own. I walked down to the pier and around to the lighthouse where I took some (I hope) great shots of the town and water. The walk around to the light house was about 20 minutes, so I was running kinda late by the time I was done with the “photo shoot”, and ended up at the café 15 minutes past our meet time… but no George(?) I headed back to the Limani and got myself an ice cream and waited for him for about another 20 minutes, before I called his cell phone.
“Dan, you don’t want to know where I am, just give me about 20 minutes and I’ll meetcha down there. Katerina will meet us there too.” (Katerina is another of George’s cousins, actually, Kiriakos’s sister, and I met her in Detroit this past summer when I was traveling from Korea to England). So I hung out and went to a couple of the tourist shops where I picked up a kewl statue of Socrates. I went back to the chained area and called back to George who said he was down there and to wait for him. He and Katerina, along with her friends Sophia and Lefteri came strolling up and we all said our hellos. We all headed down to a café in the deeper part of the Limani, past the lighthouse, where we had a couple beers and some chips and fruit, while we talked about whatever for a while. It started to rain a bit, and a chilly breeze came across, so we decided quickly to head back to Katerina’s for a couple movies and pizza. Lefteri and Sophia drove back home and George, Katerina and I took a taxi to her place, where I met George’s Aunt Lola again (met her when I met Katerina back home). When the other 2 arrived, George, Lefteri and myself headed down to pick out the movies. Ended up picking The Hollow Man and some other B-movie and zoomed back to the house in time for pizza. We watched the rentals til about one in the morning, then went back to Uncle Harry’s, where the gang was playing cards. Both Theo’s went to bed and me and George played cards with both Thea’s til about 02:00, then headed off to bed.
The next morning brought us into St George’s Day, which is a day to celebrate those named George. Of course, my friend was one of those people, along with his uncle and his cousin. We got up around 0900, and planned to go down to pick up a rental car by 1100, but of course, with breakfast and “standard Greek time” we didn’t actually get out of the house til around 13:00. We walked down to the rental shop and picked up the car, a Hyundai Swift at half past one. Took the 2-day rental on it. The we headed over to the internet café so George could check his Emails. From there, we got out the map and headed out to the infamous “rock city”, just west of Hania. This place was really neat, in that all the places were made of small stones. There was a church, a couple houses, even an restroom where the toilet was made of stones! An awesome view of the surrounding mountains could be seen from the top of the bigger house. We stopped in the nearby town for lunch (some delicious Suvlaki/gyros with potatoes) and a brewski. From there, we drove out to George’s home village of Niopos, where his grandfather lived. It was a quiet and small village, and some of his relatives still lived there, though with the evening plans tied up, we didn’t have time to visit. So we scooted on out back to Hania, and on to his Aunt Lola’s to meet up to go to Uncle George’s for the St George’s Day evening meal/party. Everyone (Lola, Katerina, George and me) dressed up a little, and we rolled out around 19:00 to Uncle George’s. There, his wife, Aunt Evangelia, greeted us at the door and ushered us into the social room. George taught me a saying for this day to tell his uncle, “Chornia Pola” (which means a wish for Many Years). Well, George didn’t get a chance to explain that I didn’t know Greek, so as soon as I said that, his Uncle started going on in Greek about everything and then some, but finally realized that I had NO IDEA what he was talking about. Then George came in to translate. So we sat down, and his Aunt offered us coffee, but since I don’t really like coffee, I graciously declined. Big mistake, because then his uncle broke out the whiskey! George wasn’t keen on the idea, but also accepted a glass. We held up a toast to the Georges and sipped some back. Aunt Evangelia offered us some sweets, while everyone kept up a conversation. After an hour or so, we made our way to the restaurant. St. George’s Day was in effect there, as it seemed there were multiple parties honoring individual Georges. At our table, we had about 17 people. New to me was Stephano and Vakis, sons of uncle George. Stephano is a pharmacist, and Vakis is a copper. Katerina broke out the video camera and took some awesome, and hilarious shots of everyone at the dinner. Also got to see traditional dances and listen to live Greek music. After dinner and drinks, we departed the restaurant and headed back to Aunt Lola’s to drop her off. Then George, Katerina and myself went down to the Limani to meet Stephano for a drink at the café. We hung out with a couple of the café servers and BSd until 4AM. After we dropped off Katerina, we made it home by about 4:30.
Tuesday rolls around, but we get up “early” (0900) so we could go on a planned trip to Vai with Lefteri and Sophia, and were planning to be out by 1000. Of course, after breakfast and showers, we didn’t get out of the house until after noon! (Go figure, huh?) We shot out to Katerina’s place, then went over to meet Lefteri and Sophia, and it was then that Lefteri told us that the trip to Vai was about 9 hours! So, needless to say, we changed our plans and headed to Iraklio instead (a bit closer at only 3 hours drive). The cruise out was awesome; we had a nice high up view of the clear, blue water, windows were down to enjoy the great, cool breeze. The mountains and the sky reflected off the water. We stopped along the way to take some pictures along a kewl cliffside. When we arrived in Iraklio, Lefteri asked to head up to the Super Store, which had some equipment he needed. George looked for some new summer clothes, and I just roamed around a bit. We then went downtown to grab a quick bite to eat, with plans to visit a historic spot, Knossos, with temples and art older than the Parthenon! We grabbed up some sausages rolled in bakery dough (pig in a blanket maybe?), and jumped back in the car to try to find Knossos. We got there at about 17:30, only to find out it had closed about a half hour earlier. DOAH! Well, it was a nice trip anyway… and we ventured on back to Hania about 18:30. On the way back, we looked for Spili, which is a splunking cave, but had no luck locating it. So, on to Hania, with a quick stop in Souda Bay, before taking Lefteri to his car. We split out to find their friend Aristea around 21:00, before going up to a café that had an awesome overlook of Hania at night. At the top of the hill, we stopped at a cemetery and memorial place, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the name of the people being honored. Anyway, we rolled over to “The Owl” café to see what Hania looks like at night time with all the city lights visible under the moonlit night. Started with a nice alcoholic milk shake (yummy!), followed by a couple beers, and a light snack. We went outside and took a group picture, then headed back to town, drove to Uncle Harry’s to pick up our clothes, then on to Katerina’s where we planned to stay for the night. We got there around 0100, and watched some of the videos of this day’s trip and the ones from St Georges, then crashed out.
Wednesday morning I was up at 09:30, got ready and discussed plans on getting back to Athens. George called up the airlines, but they told us that the pilots planned to go on strike Thursday. The boats were the same way. So we headed out to the travel agents to try to book a boat tonight that would arrive early enough the next morning to allow me to make my 08:45 flight. No prob, in fact, they even had a 2-person room this time leaving at 20:30, and arriving around 05:30, and it was less expensive than the 4-person! So, to celebrate, we headed down to the beach to soak up some sun. On our way there, we stopped and picked up Katerina, then headed for the sand and sun… great day for it too… 80 degrees, no clouds, topless beach! Lefteri and Sophia showed up and we made some plans to meet at the boat port, since we should have plenty of time to chill at a café for a final visit. We left the beach, with nice tans, and headed back to Aunt Lola’s for dinner (Mmmmm shnitsel). Lola gave me a going away gift, a plate and 2 mugs designed by George’s uncle with different symbols and drawings. Too kewl!! We said goodbye and left around 19:15 and headed over to Uncle Harry’s for final farewells there too. Outside in front, the neighborhood kids were playing basketball and football (soccer to you Yanks) hehe, so I decided to freshen up on my B-Ball skills. The kids wore me out! Then George’s cousin Corina made up some desserts and served them to us (this is after the huge meal we had at Lola’s, and couldn’t say no!) hehe Both Thea’s were out, so we said our goodbyes to the Theo’s and cousins, and were on the way to the boat docks around 19:40. Of course, we had to drop off the rental before heading out, so we headed back downtown to the rental place, dropped off the keys and grabbed a taxi. No time to visit with Lefteri and Sophia, since our boat was ready to leave in a few minutes, so we made sure they were not coming out and just got on the boat. After settling in the room, we went out to roam the ship. Off the back of the ship, the sun was setting over the mountains of Crete… the sky had a beautiful array of colors; red, purple, blue, yellow… just awesome. After enjoying that for a while, we headed inside, bought a chess board and played a few rounds (George will try to tell ya that he beat me every time, but I assure you, he kicked my @$$ all games!) hehe Anyway, around 23:00 we headed outside for a “smoke break” and then on to the disco club for some drinks and music. Crashed out back in the room around 02:00.
Our wake-up “knock” was to come at 05:30 (assuming the same rules applied from the last voyage), so I was a bit pissed when George woke me up early, fiddling around with his light. I covered my eyes when he turned them on, and as my eyes adjusted, I glanced down at my watch… 07:30! I said, “Dude! Am I reading my watch right?! Is it seven thirty?!?!” George replied, “Yeah!!” We hustled up and got ready, ran out the door where some folks were cleaning rooms. George asked them how long we’d been at port. “Oh, about two and a half hours.” DOAH!! So, we RAN to a taxi, and asked him to take us to the airport as fast as he could… know though, that the airport is all the way on the other side of Athens… Anyway, the driver was awesome and got us there with 18 minutes to spare. I got inside, and of course, the ticket desk was all the way on the other side of the building. So RUN again we did, and got up to the counter. Standing behind the Lufthansa counter was a pair of beautiful German ladies, and on the other side talking to them was an older German man. I gave my ticket one of the young ladies, and the man asked me what flight I was on (he worked there also, I assumed as a manager of some kind). I told him, and he said the gate had already closed! “You need to be here an hour before the flight to get on.” I said, “I’ve still got 15 minutes, has the plane left? I really need to make my connection in Munich to catch my flight to London!” He replied, “No, the plane hasn’t left, but it needs time to taxi and get ready for takeoff at the prescribed time. The drop dead time is 30 minutes before take off, that’s the deadest time to show up.” I said, “So there’s more than one level of dead?” Anyway, he showed us the ticket purchase counter where I could buy another ticket at a later time (I think it was 16:30). George was still pissed, and wanted to argue with the man some more… I went over to talk to the purchase counter. As I was working on my new ticket, the man comes over and says, “The flight hasn’t taken off yet, because the fuel trucks are on strike, so you can make this flight now. Come with me.” He also said, “The plane will need to go to Turkey, Incirlic I think, to refuel before going to Munich.” No prob… at least I might make the connection, then get back on time. Chief was going to pick me up at the London Airport, so I did want him to hafta wait. I grabbed my bags and headed over to the gates. When I went through the XRays, they found the knife George gave me and took it out. They said I’d have to go back to the front desk to check this in. I told them I only had minutes to catch the plane, but they wouldn’t listen. The German man came out, and told them to give him the knife and that he’d take it to the plane’s captain. They started to argue, but he laid down the law and said, “I am running the show here, give me the knife, and I will take it to the captain!” (Dude turned out to be really kewl!)
He escorted me to the gate, and I asked him how long he’d been in Greece, seeing that he was German (in fact, he was Austrian). He had been there for about 7 years, and before that he lived in Africa for almost 30 years, in places from top to bottom. Too kewl, huh?! Anyway, I saw him bring the knife to the captain. When I got on the plane and settled into my chair, an announcement came over the PA: “A fuel-truck has arrived, so we will not need to stop in Turkey”. There was much rejoicing. I sat for about 25 minutes while the plane refueled, then the engines started up… I started to relax. The PA came up again, “Well, fuel is no longer our problem, but now the control tower is strike!” Doah!! So again, we waited. They allowed people to get off the plane if they wanted, or stay too. I stayed on and planned to sleep for the time, and the flight attendant was mice enough to scrounge up a couple pillows and a blanket. There was only maybe 5 people who decided to stay on. After a few restless minutes, I changed my mind from sleeping, and asked for a drink… orange juice with some vodka… yum! Well, we waited another hour and a half to take off. Finally in the air, I got some sleep, and we landed in Munich at around 13:30. I went to check on the connecting flight, which mine was at 12:05. So my new flight was for 17:00. I asked about my knife, but no one knew about it… I have a feeling it’s not going to be found. I also tried to call Chief to let him know I wouldn’t be there… well, he wasn’t either. He was in Germany TDY! My boss went out to wait for me, so I had to send a message to Stansted to let him know I’d be… oh… 6 hours late! When I finally got there, he was waiting on me, thank God. I apologized profusely and offered to buy him dinner and a brewski (but he’d already had a couple waiting on me), and he had to get home to pick up his kids. So, after an hour’s drive home, I made it to the base to drop him off. I went up to check some email, then skated for home around 22:00. I was BEAT, so off to bed I went, still wishing I was back in the beautiful, hot sun of Greece…
“That’s all I got ta say about that”
–Forest Gump
Back home, a week later (7 May), I threw a small barbeque for my neighbors, and also invited over Chief and Lessley. It was a great weekend (in fact, it was a 3-day weekend, making it all the better), though a bit of a cool breeze was in the air. My neighbors Tina and Colin brought over some meat (Colin works as a butcher and had tons of meat in the freezer, and Tina wanted to get rid of it!); they had steak, sausage, ribs and sirloins. I also had some chicken and finally grilled up some of Tara’s Chavetta’s sause. Mmmm Mmmm. Chief showed up around 7, and my next-door neighbors, Vicki and Paul came by around 7:30. Their kids were there of course, as was Darren and his friend Andrew. Lessley couldn’t come out due to Airman Leadership School assignments and PT. We grilled for about an hour and a half trying to cook up all the meat… what a task!! Anyway, we chilled out in the back yard around the table (I wish we had a camp fire), and BSd and had some brews and wine. By 9:30 or so, pretty much everyone was gone, and I had Darren and Andrew help clean up. (That’s the way it’s supposed to be, right?! )
This past weekend (12 & 13 May) was awesome… the sun was out and BLARING! The heat was great, and I actually tuned up my suntan I started in Greece. On Sunday, I went to check out Thetford forest, and they finally opened up the trails again (they were closed due to Foot and Mouth disease prevention), and found some GREAT mountain bike trails that I’ll probably hit this upcoming weekend. Other than that, I pretty much just hung out and RELAXED!! Felt good…
Anyway, that concludes this edition of the English Chronicles. Upcoming editions will include: Training in Rock Island, Ill; Excursions in Italy; and Graduation Celebrations (not necessarily in that order)
Until then, be good, and may the Schwartz be with you….what a woild, what a woild…
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English Chronicles XV
May – June 2001
Air Fete and Illinois
Memorial Day Weekend
25 – 28 May 2001
Friday was a prep day for one of the busiest times of the year for those of us stationed at RAF Mildenhall. The weekend coming up was Memorial Day’s, and that meant Air Fete, the largest Air Show in all of Europe, and the whole base is tasked to work it.
On Saturday, I was assigned to the day shift, which included set up and sales. Our booth sold hotdogs, sausages, hamburgers, sodas and brewskis. At first, there wasn’t much of a turnout, but by 10, the place was hoppin’! Anyway, the day went and the evening came… Lessley had graduated ALS and pinned on Staff, so I treated her to a CATS show in London. If you’ve never seen CATS, it was awesome! Make sure to read up a bit in the playbill before watching though, so you understand what’s up!
On Sunday, I had the afternoon shift, and it was busy from start to finish. It got a bit silly after a while, then I started talking in different languages to the customers, just to get a good laugh. It worked for me anyway! Hehe.
Monday, though it was Memorial Day, we still had to get up at #@*$ in the morning to do a FOD walk (looking for trash on the runway so the planes don’t get ruined). But after 8AM, the day was free; but I pretty much just went home and slept, then trimmed up the lawn. Fun stuff right?
Rock Island, Illinois
4 – 16 June 2001
The plan was good… to bed early Sunday night, then get up at 3AM to catch the 5:15 bus to London Heathrow. Only problem, I over slept past the alarm and didn’t wake up until quarter after 4! Talk about rush time! I threw everything into the car and headed out on the A-10 cruisin’ at 75/80 mph. At that rate of speed, I “shoulda” been able to get to the base by 5, drop off the car and hop on the bus. However, comma, as I was cruisin’ up the road, lo-and-behold a herd of COWS in the middle of the road! The traffic wasn’t too backed up considering how early it was, but there were a couple of lorries (rigs) that couldn’t pass the herd. Finally a lorrie came from the other direction and managed to scare the cows off the road. As I passed, I could see the scared look they had, which kinda scared me too, since they might run back out at me! Hehe But, I squeezed by and was back up to 75 in no time. I got to the base with 10 minutes to spare, but had to drop off my luggage and run the car to the other side of the base for my friend to watch, then run back over to the terminal before the bus took off. Hot and a bit sweaty, I finally got on the bus, shlumped into my seat and took a short nap while the driver took us to the airport.
The flight over was uneventful, though I did get to see a couple good movies (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Down To Earth”). On arrival to Chicago, I rushed through the passport area (kewl since there was a separate Military line with no one in it!), and skimmed passed the immigration area (I had cheese from Amsterdam I didn’t want confiscated), and headed down to the waiting area for the rental shuttle. I stood outside waiting for the Thrifty shuttle… here comes Avis, there’s National, and Hertz… hey look, Avis; National again… and 2 more Hertz… 30 minutes later, still no “Thrifty”. I asked if I was in the right area, “Oh yeah, should be here soon”. Waited another 5 minutes, then went in to call Thrifty; “The bus should be pulling around about now”. Went back out, and waited another 15 minutes. Nothing. Called the local agency, they asked which terminal I was in. “Not sure, I just flew in from England”. Oh, you need to be over in Terminal 2, you’re in Terminal 5. Woulda been nice to know a bit earlier, huh?! So, I finally got to the rental agency, picked up my car (a Dodge Intrepid, real nice!), and headed out to Rock Island.
No problem finding the hotel, and when I got there, I had a note from my friend Janet, who was stationed with me in Korea, to call her. After getting my bags in the room, I went to meet her and we headed out to the mall, and I grabbed some Wendy’s for dinner. Went to bed early, since I had been up, technically, for 27 hours. Next morning we got up early and hit the workout room in the hotel, then met up for breakfast with one of Janet’s friends from Davis Monthon AFB, Donna. It was a bit early, only 6AM, and we didn’t need to be to the school for our first day until 8AM. So, with a slow breakfast and good conversation, we waited for the bus (to follow, since I had a car) to Rock Island Arsenal. The days in the classroom were typical, though we did try a different place for lunch everyday, so I’ll keep the boring classroom stuff outta here.
Thursday, some new friends from class and I headed out to one of the Casinos, “Rhythm City”, and played the games for a while, before leaving with my head high, though pockets a bit lighter. On our way out, we were drafted for karaoke, and each sang a song. I did “Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong, doing my best to simulate the awesome voice of the great Sachemo.
On the weekend, I headed up to see me ole mammy. Friday night, after getting out of school early, I headed up north on a 7-hour drive to the UP of Michigan. The cruise through Wisconsin was nice; windows were down, and the evening air was flowing. I mostly listened to some CDs, though when I got around large cities I’d tune in to the radio to catch up on the Rock/Alternative scene that I don’t get too much of in the UK. By the time I made it to Marionette, the sun was close to setting. Crossing the bridge into Michigan and continuing up the M35, I took a minute to take in the pre-summer air. All the memories of the U.P. came flowing back to me, as I let the smell of the trees tantalize my nostrils. (I’ve been reading a bit of Shakespeare, so he’s been kick in a little – sorry… hehehe) With the time change over, I finally arrived to ma’s at 12:30 AM. Although it was a bit of a drive, I wasn’t extremely tired. Mom was waiting up for me, and, after a nice, long hug, we sat down for a while to talk. By 2 though, the eyes were getting droopy, so we both headed off to sleep.
In the morning, I had a pleasant awaking from my sneaky little brother, Andy, and his faithful companion, Leo. I pretended to stay asleep until they left, then I snuck downstairs while he was eating his breakfast and gave him a huge bear hug, which both scared him and made him laugh. Momma made us some breakfast, and we talked for a bit, and made plans for Uncle Mike’s birthday party that night. Mom told Andy that she was both our mom, but he didn’t believe her (I did mention that he’s only 6, right?). Then mom took out some cake, and set up some candles… it was a week early, but mom had birthday cake ready for me! Andy helped me blow out the candles, and we enjoyed some sweets in the late morning. Mom told me that 100 years ago, on my date of birth, was when her grandpa was born. That was too kewl! I was born on Father’s Day, as was he. And this special year, yet again Father’s Day, he woulda been 100 years old!
After a while, Andy and I headed out on a bike ride down to the base lake. Andy took the lead, “knowing exactly where to go”, so he said. Somehow we ended up at the school playground, where we hung out for a little while, then we went back to the road and he remembered where the lake was. He was very confident in knowing where he was going, even when I questioned him about it. Hehe Sure enough, we ended up at the lake as promised, and went down to the beachfront. There, we saw tons of tadpoles swimming on the shoreline, and of course Andy wanted to capture them and take them home. I let him know though that this was their home, and that’s where they were happy. So he was content to let them swim in his hands for a while before putting them back. I went to sit down for a minute, when I hear, “Brother Dan, check this out!” He saw a huge bass in the water, dead but huge, and the tadpoles were nibbling on it. He wanted to “fish it out”, but I assured him it wasn’t a good idea. He had to show off his find though to the big kids nearby. We tossed rocks in the water, then took a break from the water and went over to the …uh… round, spinny thing that kids ride on…. Uhhh… can’t think of the name of it… like a merry-go-round. Anyway, as soon as the other kids around saw that someone was pushing, they hurried to get on too. I started ‘em out a slow pace, but started to pick it up when I saw them getting a bit cocky and showing off. Soon I had all of them holding on for their lives! (One kid was quoted saying, “this is the fastest we’ve ever been!!”) Andy was having a riot on there. After a few times in each direction, it was back to the water for a bit before we had to leave, since Andy had a birthday party of his own to go to that afternoon.
We had some time before the party, so Andy and mom broke out the bubble makers. Mom showed the large bubbler, which was really kewl, and Andy followed suit afterwards. After mom got Andy set and on his way to the party down the street, her and I took off to the shoppette for some supplies, then down to Lake Sporely. We each shared in a brewski while we took in the quiet surrounds of the lake. I really do love the lakes of upper Michigan; I never tire from them. It was a bit windy though, so we headed back to the car and chilled for a bit before mom started feeling guilty about not being at the house in case Andy needed something… moms, gotta love ‘em. Hehe
When Andy came home, we headed out to the Barabe’s place to visit for a while. Jim “Pa Barabe” (or “Hambone”) was working with Adam and James (his sons) on the new rear deck that accompanies their new pool. They also added a steam room from the last time I was there. Things were lookin’ great. We sat down for a while with everyone, “Ma Barabe” came home with Elizabeth and we all had a nice chat, and enjoyed some the cheese I brought from Holland and wine from Germany. “Pa” showed me his “new” car, a 1956 Chevy, and what a beaut’! He let me start it up, and the baby purred, and, revving the engine, the whole car shifted… it was too kewl! James was working on another of his “projects”, this time a lawnmower-engine-powered 4-wheeler. The thing was tiny, but it could really move! He even added nitro to it… just nuts! Hehe Aside from all that, we mostly relaxed in the first Michigan sun for the season, and it really felt good (too good, since I ended up with a sunburn on my poor bald head!).
After our visit, we said our goodbyes and made our way out to Mike and Karen’s to give a little razzin’ to the old man (I mean, celebrate a great milestone of a great man) on his 50th BIRTHDAY! When we pulled in, we snuck to the house and met up with Karen, who had big hugs waiting. Mike wasn’t far behind, and had greeting hugs of his own. We checked out the new additions to the backyard while Mike made up some of his famous steaks. Karen also busted out the lawn games (birdie golf and ??? another one, but I don’t remember offhand). Andy and I played a bit, then got the call for supper… darn, not steak again. Hehehe After dinner, mom and I sprung out the Bday gifts. Mom and Andy had some great gag gifts for starters: Depends diapers, laxatives, hair coloring for men, etc. Then the real gifts; mom had an awesome lawn watering brass twirler, which Andy also loved since it meant playing in the water. And from me, a picture of the Eilean Donan Castle I took back in ’96 to remind him that “old is only in perspective”. Karen got out the cake and ice cream, and Mike had no probs taking out the inferno, uh, I mean candles. Of course, at this time, it was still 3 hours before his real birthday, but we had to leave still, had to let the “old guy” get some beauty sleep . We headed home and got some sleep ourselves. I always sleep really good when I’m “home”.
In the morning, we called over to Mike’s to make sure he survived the night. As the phone rang, I waited, and on the other end, a voice answered (sounding a bit like Mike’s), “Old folks home…”. Hehe I asked if there was a patient named Stabile, and whether he was doing OK. “Yeah, I checked on him just a few minutes ago, and aside from some breathing problems, he’s doing just fine.”
(More in the middle soon…I’m kinda jumping around now ) hehe
Graduation day came along, and right after class, I headed down to St Louis to visit with my old roommate from Omaha, Greg “Sutty”. Getting there was pretty easy, though it was a quite a drive at 5 hours. I got to Scott AFB around 3 and found Greg’s work. He’d been hanging out waitin’ for me, since he was free to go as soon as I got there… he took me around the base for a quick tour, then on out to his pad for a short break before his softball game. He plays with the “over-40” crowd, even though he’s only in his early 30s
Too be continued… (well not really; as of 15 May 2004, I haven’t added to it)
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English Chronicles XVI
20 – 27 June 2001
Italy
This trip was in the works for a few months. My Uncle Tom first hooked me up with information on our cousins in Italy, and forwarded an Email he received from Fabio (my 16 year old cousin and the first relative in Italy to make contact with us through the internet)! From there I worked on some ideas on how and when I’d get out there to visit. Somewhere along the way, Tom though it’d be great for him and Tammy to also do a vacation, and where better than in Italy with his FAVORITE nephew, Dan! That turned out to be a great idea, as you will see unfold in the below story. A couple months before heading out, I found a nice class on Italian. Tom did the same, though I think he came away with a lot more knowledge than I did. Hehe … anyway, here’s the story:
20 June
Wednesday morning was a slow morning. My flight wasn’t until 5:45 in the afternoon, so I decided to sleep in until 9AM. That’s a lot different for me, considering I’m usually at the airport by that time! I leisurely packed up my stuff, only a duffle bag and a backpack for this journey, hopped in the car and went up to Lakenheath for some last minute supplies. The cough that started while I was back in the States had been kickin’ my butt for the past few days; my voice was gone, and my sinuses were horrible. I almost canceled out on this trip, except the docs at the base gave me some good medicine to clear up most of my ailments. To be on the safe side, I bought some travel tissues and extra water to keep me in-line on the flight. Around 2, I cruised out to Stansted airport, where I hung out for a while waiting on the Lufthansa agents to open their booth (I was told their booth was in section G). Come to find out, an hour and a half later, their booth was really in section D, and had been open the whole time! I was still well under the gun for time, so after I checked in, I went to the Internet Café in the terminal (why is it that if flying is the safest form of travel, they need to call it “terminal”?) to check my emails and send one off to Tom and Fabio to let them know where I’d be.
I arranged with the travel agent to hook me up with an exit row seat, which always has tons of legroom. We flew out on time, and arrived in Frankfurt with plenty of time to get to the next connection flight. As I waited, I picked up a “USA TODAY”, and stood by, checkin’ out who’all was going on this flight to “the mother country”. There was a tour group from China and Korea, and I used my limited Korean to say hello (anyong haseyo) to some of the nice folks, who were quite impressed with it! Though it then brought on a whole slew of Korean, so I had to tell them “Hangul”, then show with two fingers close together that I couldn’t speak much Korean. They understood, but we still tried to communicate with hand-language. I found out that one man was from Ichon, and that he didn’t care for chocolate much (since he gave me his chocolate bar from the meal).
Finally arrived in Roma about 12:40 in the morning. After negotiating the terminal maze to get out of that place, following the “uscita” (exit) signs, I reached the outside doors. The idea was to catch the train to Rome, then hail a cab to take me to the B&B Tom and Tammy were at. Unfortunately, the last train was at 11:37PM. Luckily, a couple cabs were there, more than excited to pick up a passenger, though the cost was 100,000 ItL! (About $50). On the ride to the B&B, even this late at night, the streets were crowded. Folks seemed really happy, honking their horns, yelling, having a good time. Turns out that Rome had just won the soccer championship (Roma Campione!!). Once we neared the center of town, traffic started to pick, but instead of being patient in the queues, the taxi driver though it prudent to head over and drive on the rail tracks! Hey, he went in the correct direction, and even with cable cars passing on the other side, it was no problem! I like this already!
Anyway, about 40 minutes since leaving the airport, we pulled up at 7 Via Luciani; I paid the driver and headed to gates to be let in. It was almost 1:30 by this point, and the name I was “Mrs. Cifola”, so I figured that was the room Tom and Tammy were in. When I buzzed, I got an older Italian woman’s voice, and I asked for Tom Stabile. She came over to her window and signaled to me that she’d come down to open the door. Even this late at night, she was extremely friendly and had a pleasant smile on her face. She showed me upstairs to where Tom was, and they were up and ready for me. After she made sure I was settled in, we said “bona note” (good night), and she saw herself out. Tom brought over a brewski and we sat outside on the deck in the awesome 68-70 degree night air and talked until just after 3AM! The airport had lost Tom and Tammy’s bags, so they were feeling a bit ragged from wearin’ the same clothes for over 2 days. Sleep was needed, and we headed to bed, with a wake up time planned for about 7 or 8.
21 June
Lazily woke up around 7:30 and headed for the shower; Mrs. Cifola came up around 8:30 with breakfast, which consisted of breads and biscuits (cookies) and tea and coffee. Enzo, Fabio’s dad, told Tom he’d meet us at 10 down in front of the B&B. Turned out, a lot of family showed up: Enzo, Maurizio, Fabio, and Christof were waiting out front! Maurizio and Christof showed up on the motorbike, and Enzo and Fabio were in the Russian-mobile (a 4×4). We talked for a bit outside, getting acquainted (or in Tom’s case, reacquainted), before we piled in the truck to head downtown. Enzo dropped us off, and then went to find a parking spot. We waited almost a half hour for him to come back! (It’s pretty packed down there!) We walked down to the subway station, and then went to city center. When we came up to the “surface” again, there in front of us was the Coliseum. We didn’t plan a whole lot of time, so we couldn’t stop and check out the inside; but we did make our way to the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier”, which was really awesome, with a great view of all of Rome. We followed that up with a trip to St ???s Church, only to find out that entrance to this church required long pants (no short trousers). Of course, I was the only one with shorts on, so I stayed outside. But I did get to see some of the guards in action and checked out the artwork along the outside of the building. After a while the rest of the gang came out and we headed off. Fabio had a dental appointment, so Enzo took him to that and said he’d meet us at the Spanish Steps. Christof took us up to the dome of the Church (I was allowed to go there), which was WAY up a doodoo load of stairs. Great exercise!! Hehe The view both inside and out was outstanding… from the inside, you could look down on the pulpit and all the folks gathered inside, along with some fantastic artwork done on the inside of the dome itself. From the outside was another great view of Rome, all around panoramic! After a while though, it started getting quite crowded, so we made are way down ALL those stairs and headed for the Spanish Steps elsewhere downtown to meet Enzo and Fabio. Before we left though, Enzo received a phone call that Tom and Tammy’s bags had arrived!! JOY!
From there, we took the subway back to the cars, and headed over to Enzo’s place, to meet the rest of the family and for some HOME MADE dinner. We met Romanina (Fabio’s grandmother), Daniela (Maurizio’s wife) and Antonietta (Enzo’s wife). They were workin’ on dinner, and we all talked for a while before it was ready. I wasn’t prepared for the “customs” of dinner here, so when the “first round” came out, I had no idea there was more to come. The appetizers were awesome, so I had a lot of everything… I was very hungry from all the exercise that day! Enzo remarked that I eat too much, but I thought it was odd that no one else was hungry… only to find out the “second course” was on its way out! Mmmmm Pasta! We all dug into the pasta dishes and some delicious green lasagna (must get the recipe!), and enjoyed some of Enzo’s homemade wine. Again, I was hungry, so I filled my plate… yummy! Only to find out again, that the “third course” was coming out … meat time! They brought in some scrumptious veal, and I drooled though thinkin’ “how the heck am I gonna eat this after all that pasta?”, but managed to make room… Ahhh… finally done… no, wait, a fourth course?! Of course, desert! Hehe I was dying by the end, making a note to self on how many meals I should prepare myself for…
After dinner, we all pulled out pictures of the families, and talked and laughed about everything, and around midnight (mezza note), Enzo returned us home to the B&B, where Tom, Tammy and I talked about the day over a couple beers before finally crashing out… I still had to take some medication… the cough started coming back. Once the codeine kicked in, I was out cold though… ahhhhh…
22 June
The next morning we had the same breakfast, and checked out by 10. Enzo and Fabio met us downstairs and packed out gear into the truck for our trip to MonciSterna. (MonciSterna is the village where my great grandfather lived before he moved to the States many moons ago.) Along the trip, we stopped halfway for some refreshments and a break. We arrived at the village around 12:30, and Romanina was already there. There’s only 2 places in MonciSterna, and talk about nice and quiet! We saw the old house where my great grandfather lived, though no one lived there now. On either side of this house, though, we 2 other houses, one for a summer house for Romanina and family, the other was lived in by other relatives who I got to meet… Gino and Anna (Gino is the son of Palma, who was the brother of my great grandfather). Gino’s mother lived with them, she’s 98 years old! It was great to see her! Also in visiting was Amerigo; Gino’s and Romanina’s brother. Out and about the houses were tons of olive trees, chickens, a couple dogs, some sheep, three horses, and just awesome scenery. The property is situated along a mountainside with a view of the closed town, Arpino. Enzo and Fabio took us on a trip to Arpino Castle and down to the town itself, where we met MORE relatives, Massimo, Ornella and their children Martina and Michele. Massimo is in Tom’s generation, son of Peidro I think, who is Amerigo, Romanina and Gino’s brother. I really need to get the family tree! Hehe Anyway, after we visited for a while, we headed back to the house. Maurizio, Daniela and Christof arrived around 7 and we had dinner, which were some leftovers from the night before and some new food… I figured since leftovers were involved, there’d only be one meal… I was wrong… still 4 courses! Hehe After dinner, we relaxed and talked until almost 1AM before we all finally retired to bed (ahhh dormiri!)
23 June
Finally woke up around 10, I was beat… it’d been a long few days already, packed with fun, but sleep is always welcome! Hehe Romanina made up some eggs for me and there were biscuits and milk on the table for breakfast. Christof and Fabio took Tammy and I on a tour of the area, checking out the garden, the olive tree field, the horses, and even checked out the “fort” they used to hang out in when they were younger. Along the tour, we saw a couple kewl, shiny-green lizards! When we got back to the house, we went through some OLD pictures with Anna, Amerigo and Gino. I have never seen kewler pictures before… they were in great shape too! Later that afternoon, Peidro stopped in with his “companion” (girlfriend), and we all enjoyed some dinner.
To be continued… (once again, I never got around to finishing the story, but as of 15 May 2004, I’ve already been reassigned to Italy, and have many more stories from the Italian peninsula!)
Moncisterna
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English Chronicles XVII
Independence Day 2001
Boston, Skegness, Wales
The weekend before the 4th of July, I headed out on a “point-of-the-finger” journey. I kept to the local area when I let me fingers do the choosin’, and came up with Snegness, a beachfront city north of Boston. Driving out, with no idea, really, where I was going, allowed me to take a really relaxed, slow pace in the drive. I followed the signs through Kings Lynn, then to Boston, and finally to Skegness. The overall trip was only an hour and half, but since I left the house just after three, it was already pretty late in the day for beaching. But, as I grew close to the coast, it seemed like I had chosen the wrong “point”; it was mostly desolate looking, with farmland and fields instead of built up housing areas, as I’d expect for a beach-town. However, as I got closer, things changed. Suddenly, casinos, amusement parks, and stores of all sorts surround me. I went from one level of surprise to another… never did I expect this MUCH attraction items from what looked like a small dot on the map. I found a parking spot in a “Pay and Display” car park. Arcades and food vendors surrounded me as I made my way to the beachfront. The sands at the beach were nice and soft, knowing this only because I took off my shoes. The beach wasn’t crowded by any means, just enough people to make it known that it was a real beach. It was a bit cool, considering we were actually in decently warm English weather (my judgment was skewed by the recent trip to Italy). After I walked the coast for a bit, I went back up to the main drag and checked out the casinos and arcade rooms, got some ice cream (mmmm Ice Cream) and eventually headed back to the car to head home. On the way back, I made a pit stop in Boston, which is one of the larger Port Towns in England. I took a walk around the “old market” area and visited the local church, which was immense! It was situated on the riverbank and had a great view of the rest of town. After some window shopping, I headed out again and I considered seeing a movie at Kings Lynn, so I hurried out that way. I figured I’d try a short cut going through West Lynn, but that didn’t lead anywhere, and made me late for the show, so I decided against going in late, and just went home for some sleep.
Independence Day yielded a 2-day break mid-week, Wednesday and Thursday. I decided, after sleeping in on Wednesday, to take a day trip out to Wales and try out one of the biking trails I’ve been reading about for some time. I guess about the time I got the bike on the car and had my overnight bag packed, it was just after noon. I was on the road, heading south towards London, then, going around the orbital (M25), I started off west on the M4. I reached the boarder of Wales in about 4 hours, and what a difference in scenery a short drive like that makes! From farmland to mountains… just awesome! I called in advance to make reservations at a local Youth Hostel in Marloes (one of the most westerly points in Wales) and arrived there around 9 after taking a scenic tour of the area. I got settled in and headed down to the pub for a bite to eat and of course, a Guinness. I talked to an old man near the Hostel that drove the school buses. He was up there in age, and had some stories of the area during the second world war of aircraft flying overhead and how an airfield had been just on the other side of the town. Interesting! About 10, I headed back to hit the sack for an early rise in the morning to start the bike trek.
I thought I woulda slept in, but I actually woke up around 6:30 and was showered and ready to roll by quarter after 7. After a walk down the road to see the cliffs we were positioned on, I drove out to Tenby (or Dinbych-y-Pysgod in Gaelic), which was the starting point in the book for the bike trek. I found a parking spot eventually, and offloaded my bike. The first point of interest was right there in front of me, a small island off the coast with a church situated in the middle, St Catherine’s Cathedral. Also in town was an awesome view of the boat docks with their hundreds of watercraft in bay. I rode out of town towards Manorbier, which was home to an old Norman Castle surrounded by moat, and a nice beach, viewed from my location up on the cliffs. I continued on to Freshwater East, with another great view of the ocean and beach, took a short break there to take in the scenery. From there, I pedaled up through Lamphrey to Pembroke (Penfro) and saw the Pembroke castle there. I was starving by this point, as it was noon and I hadn’t had breakfast! I tried to find a restaurant to eat in, but no place opened until 1… so I found a little fast food place, where they made me up some fish and chips, and a nice fruit smoothy to go with it. I talked to a couple folks in the shop about the bike ride and they told me some great spots to go to. After letting the food settle, and a pit stop at the gift store, I was on the road again, heading towards St Florence, which supposedly had a church with kewl statues; however, somewhere along the way I made a wrong turn and was heading back to Tenby?? It was for the best though, since my knee started to bug me and, by the time I neared the town, it turned into serious pain! There were many uphills on this journey, which was a bit much since I hadn’t been riding in a while, so I probably irritated something. Anyway, made it back to the car, and did some walking around after reloading my bike. I checked the odometer, and I had gone about 25 miles! After another view of the town, it was about time to head back so I’d be able to sleep for work the next day. As I drove back, the dark clouds started to gloom overhead. Good thing I left when I did! Huge down pour! (My poor bike!) hehe It was about 3 when I left Tenby, and I was home by about 10. The traffic on the M25 around London was horrible, and it took me about 2 hours just to get through that! Doah! Anywho, home finally, safe and sound, and worn out, I shrugged off the days clothes, snuggled into bed and was out in no time…
The next Chronicle should detail out my misadventures in Cambridge and London, and another biking trip… hope to see you there!
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English Chronicles XVIII
18 July 2001
Just another weekend around town…
Cambridge pubcrawl; bike ride through Norfolk, Canoeing, BBQ.
The next Chronicle …
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English Chronicles XIX
August and September 2001
Cycling Summer
It’s been quite a while since I’ve written last, though I think work is primarily to blame for that!
Since the last time, which I think was from Italy, we had several changes in our office at work that caused the start of massive overtime. First, my supervisor was removed to perform training and was out through October. Then, with the terrorism at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, my other coworker was tasked with cop duty. That left only me in the office for quite a while. Keep in mind, that this is my first year in Budget, and this period included year-end close out of the finance books. Needless to say, it didn’t take much to get on my bad side. J The only release I could find was on the weekends…
During this past summer, I’ve been out exploring the UK; mostly Wales and western England. I’ve had my bike with me on every trip, and took advantage of the almost perfect days.
Weekend of August 19
My friend, Joy, who I met back at Rock Island, came out for a 5-day weekend. While she was here, we went to see Stonehenge, where we also saw Tim Allen (from Home improvement), and went down to London. There we saw “The King and I” musical, and toured around checking out the famous attractions, such as Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace and the St Albert Monument.
Weekend of August 25
My first big trip away took me to northern Wales, up near the Snowdonia Mountains. It was a 3-day weekend, so I wanted to take advantage of the time off. Leaving around 0900, I traveled straight across the country, leaving the farmlands of East Anglia by 1030, and started into the forest areas by 1100. My CD player had cut out on me, showing an error message that one of the CDs had jammed up. What I was really impressed with; BBC Radio 1 came in loud and clear, the whole way from Denver to Wales! Once into the Welsh realm, the mountains began to appear, and really let my car know they were there, too. You can always tell when you’re in the mountains when your car drops from 70 to 50 MPH in less than 15 seconds… J Finally reached the end of the motorway, and merged on to the A5, which is a nice country road through northern Wales. I never tire of the beautiful, lush green of the Welsh region, as the pictures will show!
I found a nice, out-of-the-way Youth Hostel in the center of the region, and arrived around 1300, Saturday afternoon. The caretaker at the Hostel was new, and this was her first night. Though they didn’t officially open for the night until 1700, she let me take my bags in and get situated. I headed out to get acclimated to the surroundings, driving up the small roads, through the small villages. The speed limit was 60, but in most cases you couldn’t (and wouldn’t) drive faster than 30-40. Not only did the great scenery keep the speed down, but the hairpin turns every 5 feet assisted in this also. I found myself low on fuel, so decided to find a petrol station. Thank God for the “All Star Prepaid Fuel Coupons” from the BX, the cost of fuel out here was near $5 per gallon (87 pence [$1.28] per liter)! The prepaid coupon only ran 55 cents a liter, which is about $2.10 per gallon.
By 1730, I was back to the Hostel, and decided to go for a little hike along the local trails. The trails though, we not really trails, just wayward tracks that lead through a grazing field with sheep loose to feed. But I pressed on, thinkin’ there was more than just this field, and found an awesome hillside range, which, after reaching the top, had a great view of the countryside and some of the lucky occupants’ houses. I stayed out there for a little while, sitting on a rock and taking in the fresh air before heading back through the “sheep dung” trail to the Hostel. I headed out again to grab something to eat at the local pub, along with a traditional pint of Guinness. This evening was going to be short, as I wanted to get some rest for tomorrow’s bike ride. So I went back to the Hostel and crashed out around 2100. There was only 3 other people in the place, so I had a whole bay to myself!
The next morning, I lazily arose and got my biking gear together. I reloaded my bike on the car and headed out for Betws-y-Coed, which is a small, valley town with mountains on either side. Before entering town, I noticed a small restaurant that served breakfast, and since I was starving, figured this’d be a good stop! The grub was good, and for the price (3 pounds) was a good deal. The cook was the owner, and liked to sing while making up the meals. In the back of the diner, there was a waterfall that you could pay to go see, but I didn’t take that opportunity. Instead, I finished my breakfast and headed out to town. I arrived at the Information Center around 1000, and got some maps of the area for biking. There was a really good trail jut up the road that spanned 14 miles. I set off and biked through town, reaching the local bridge over the river and falls. I wasn’t expecting it, but the first jaunt of this journey was straight uphill, on a long, steep ascent. I made it most of the way, but this was much steeper than I had been used to, and ended up walking a short distance to the top. As the path continued, the views became more and more beautiful. At one point, I found a small lake at the top of the mountains, with a breath-taking view of the mountains and trees reflecting on its surface. Though the trail was well marked most of the way, there were a couple points where it didn’t lead in the correct direction, and I found myself lost. But, after regrouping and finding some signs posted, I was back on track. The hellacious climb earlier did have its rewards. Several downhill runs gave me a nice break, and was going speeds as fast as 32 MPH! But as always, the downhills are never as long as the climbs. What takes about 20 minutes to go up, only takes a couple minutes (if that) to go down!
At the bottom again, in the town, I returned to the car, and locked up my bike. Then set off for the town to see what it had to offer. I made a quick stop for ice cream (I think I deserved it!) and went to some of the art stores and outdoor rec stores. I also went to take a closer look at the river and falls, which seemed to be a huge attraction, as there were tons of people on the bridge and down by the water. By 1630 though, I was ready to head out, and made my way back to the Hostel, then off to the pub for some dinner and beer. At the “Loggerhead” there was a path across the road leading to a park area. I found a nice hiking path into the mountains, so decided to take a short stroll. It turned out to be really short, since the sun was setting faster than I figured, and I headed back to the pub for the food I originally made this trip for. Hehehe I ordered some Fish & Chips and pint o Guinness to wash it down, and had my meal outside by another river.
After dinner, I headed back to catch some sleep, so I could try out another trail from the cycling book. Back at the Hostel, a family had arrived from South Africa. We all talked for a while before I excused myself to hit the sack. In the morning, I was up before the caretaker, so I decided to warm up the car before waking her up to ask for my bike from the shed. As the car warmed, I planned to take a couple photos of the hostel, and get my gear loaded up. Plans changed when I realized that I left my keys in the car and the doors had locked! Explaining my situation to the caretaker, I asked her for a hanger to try to open the locks. She also phoned AA to see if they could come out to help. Since my car was running, they put me on high priority. The father from South Africa helped me try to open my lock, but neither of us could get it to work. The caretaker brought me some tea as I continued to work at, and 20 minutes later, the AA truck arrived. I was thinkin’ “Kewl, he’s got one of those high tech slimjims or something that will make it easy to get the door open!” Nope, he only had an industrial strength hanger! J… but, still, he was able to get the lock open, and boy, was it nice and toasty in the car! After thanking the AA man, I went back upstairs to thank the caretaker and the folks from South Africa, where I had another cup of tea waiting for me. We sat back down and had another conversation, before I had to go.
Weekend of September 3
It was Saturday, and I was home in the morning for about 3 hours, before deciding it was time to go “somewhere”. I opened up the map and found Yorkshire had a nice forest park and cycle route, so that was going to be the destination. As I was throwing stuff in the car, Darren stopped by to see what I was up to. I told him I was heading to York and asked if he wanted to go. As I turned to hear his answer, he was already running home to ask if he could head out! We got the bikes on the car and were on the road by noon. Having replaced the CD Changer, we were able to jam on the way up, stopping only once for fuel and to grab a bite to eat. By 1900, we were in the area, and found the hostel shortly after. This area was renown for its waterfalls, so we went down to check some out. There was a kewl park, and the large river had many falls along it. Darren and I even walked across the river on some rocks that were protruding out. Got some great photos from here – check ‘em out! After, we headed up to the pub for dinner, then back to the hostel to catch some sleep for the days bike ride ahead.
Darren had his mobile set for 0700. After loading up the backpacks and fillin’ up the camelpacks, we road out to the start point in Hawes. The route was 20+ miles, and we had some challenging climbs along the way. But we also had some great downhills that brought our speed up to 34.6 MPH! We past a large lake, and visited the tallest falls in England, the Hardrove Force. It started to rain as we ate our MREs by the falls. We made our way back to the small village, and went into the pub for a nice, hot cup of tea. The end leg of the journey was a welcomed flat one, and we arrived back in Hawes by 1500. Talk about your all day bike rides! Hehe
We then loaded up the cars, got changed in the hostel, then drove back, making a pit stop in Nottingham to visit Hooters! Our waitress, Nikki, was HOT, and she liked talking to the crazy American. And she found it funny that the game of cricket, that was on the telly, had really confused me. J Anyway, 30 spicy buffalo wings and a pint o Guinness later, we were back on the road for home, and finally arrived around 2230… time for a good nights rest before work in the morning… fun fun!
Weekend of September 8
I’ve been getting really pissed off with people at work lately, and really needed this weekend to relax a bit. I didn’t invite anyone to go, just went solo, and immediately after work on Friday. I drove home, changed real quick, called up the Youth Hostel near Southern Wales (in the Forest of Dean), packed up the car and was out the door by quarter past 5. Of course, being a Friday, the roads were a bit packed. It took me over an hour to get out of the rural roads! Not a big deal though, I had my music blarin’, and was ready to chill, so I was in “That” mode. The lady at the Youth Hostel said I had to be in before 1030, which was final call for check in. I wasn’t sure if I’d make it that late, so she said just to give a call if I was going to be late. Kewl! I was starvin’ most of the ride over, and finally spotted a Mcy Ds at one of the round abouts, so stopped in for a bite to eat, and filled up the gas tank with one of the coupons I got from the base. I finally reached the Hostel about quarter til 10, and saw that the “St Briavels” Hostel was actually an old 12th century castle! They had a small shed where I could safely store my bike for the night, and roomed me up on the third story tower, which was quite eerie, mainly cause of the age of the place. But if ya know me, I’m into that kinda thing! Hehehe When I brought my stuff up to the room, there was one other guy there, sleeping? No, he was awake, and said it was kewl to turn the lights on. I apologized for wakin’ him, but he said he just laid down, so no harm done. He was actually over in England from Germany on a working summer break, and on the weekends likes to travel out to see the country-side. Sven, a Ford worker from Cologne, and I talked for a bit before I finally got the overwhelming tiredness feeling, and realized I had just worked a full day and driven a good half a day, and that SLEEP was probably a good thing.
Next morning … (I’m writing this now, several months later, so please excuse me as I try to remember) I arose early and had breakfast with the entire youth hostel of people. I met a good group of folks, some from Birmingham, others from southwest England. But my mind was on biking. Shortly following breakfast, I had my bike on the car and, with map in hand, found the start of the next trail. This was not one of the longer rides in the book at 17 miles, though it traveled through some great territory. It started with an uphill on the main road, followed by a NICE long downhill to a turn off point, with an optional sidetrack in the woods. Of course, enjoying mountain biking, I was all over that! Part of the way through the smaller single tracks, I ran over a small bridge. Only problem was, my back tire didn’t follow suit, and ended up in the water over the edge. I tried my best to keep my balance, but it was useless, and I ended up in the water too… also in the water were stinging nettles! And what a joy they are! My whole left side of my body was stung, and although it was annoying, wasn’t too painful. The only thing that bothered me was the sting on my nose!
Defeated by the trail, I wound up finding my way outta the area and into the local national park. I stopped in to check out the maps and see what the park had to offer. I rode up the trails and into the statue trail. Passing some nice wooden carvings and stained glass artwork, I ended up coming out on the road. Across the street, some people were dressed up in some traditional garb, singing and dancing … in the STREET! Bazaar, but interesting. I watched this display for a couple tunes before continuing on my original path. With all the extra “optional” tracks I went on, my bike route ended up being over 34 miles! Over double the normal paths intended mileage! And it was nearly 5PM by the time I finished. Packing up the car, I decided to check out what the rest of the “Forest of Dean” had to offer.
Driving up the dual carriage way, I found signs leading to Symmon’s Yat. Not knowing exactly what that was stirred a curiosity nerve, and I followed the signs to their destination. This “Yat” place turned out to be an excellent lookout point over the mountains and the rivers below. I took some awesome pictures before finding a walking path that lead down the riverfront, way down at the bottom of the mountainside. Keeping in mind that I had just ridden over 34 miles, my legs informed me to take it easy on them as we (my legs and I) made our way down the hill. At the bottom, I found a small town which obviously thrived on us visitors. The river was flowing heavy westward and there were kayakers in the water. I took several photos and walked upstream to see what else was down here. I discovered a school for kayaking, which is something I’ve wanted to do for some time. But alas… I was 5 minutes late and the store had just closed. Perhaps tomorrow. Walking back up the hill was my first argument with my legs. They hated me, though I couldn’t blame them. J Finally weaving my way back to the car, I started ‘er up and headed back to the hostel for the evening’s planned dinner.
Over the night’s tea, I started talking more with some of the other occupants that were here from the Birmingham area. They asked about my bike ride and asked about their adventures. Most were here in a hikers group, the “Sandwell Ramblers”. That evening, they invited me along to one of the two local pubs to shoot some pool and of course, have some Guinness. How could I argue?! The grandkids of one of the hikers and I became instant friends as we played pool and listed to the music from the juke box. As the night dragged on, I met a couple of the ladies from the group (cute I might add), and we talked for a bit through the night. Finally, as always, closing time was upon us, so we all made our way out and back to the Hostel. We were warned ahead of time that the hostel closed it’s doors at 1030. We arrived back just after 1100, and we had to try to remember the combo. We all remembered the numbers, but the sequence was never accurate. We figured it out and were in the main sitting room, continuing our conversation we all started in the bar, along with some old, bad jokes, before I was challenged to a game of chess. It was a tough game (though Matt, U woulda been proud of me!), and it lasted a good hour or so. After some time of sweating as I knew a couple pieces were doomed, I eventually found an opening that led to a tremendous victory for the Yank from Mildenhall! All the while in playing the game, I continued to talk to Sue and her sister, thinking that things were going quite well! But, now that it was after 1AM, and with another bike ride planned for the morning, we all broke “camp” and headed to our respected cubby holes.
The room I shared the previous night with Sven had suddenly been overcome with mass amounts of people. One in fact, stole my bed! Not wanting to create a scene though, I kindly walked over, picked up my bag and headed downstairs to wash up. I met several of the folks from the evening, and they invited me to crash in their room, where it was just the 3 of them with 6 beds. The math worked for me, and it was on a couple floors lower. Great! A good nights sleep again… ahhhh…
In the morning, my legs really let me know that I punished them too much on the bike yesterday, as I somewhat limped to the breakfast room. Knowing I was going to be useless on the bike, I thought in my mind what the new plan would be. As I was contemplating this, the “Ramblers” talked about their last hike over in the national park. Since I had made some friends here, I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask if I could tag along. There was no problem with this request at all, as they all said “sure!”.
To be continued
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English Chronicles XX
17 November 2001 – ???
Deployed Mission
Part 1
The week prior to this deployment, I got wind of an assignment for me; temporary duty to Turkey for 3 months. I was supposed to go to help the forces there, since they were over-tasked with aircraft and needed help in tracking funds for some of the crew. Once I received official work, which was 2 days prior to departure, I had to run around the base to get all my official and personal stuff taken care of. This included picking up winter gear at supply and canceling my Italian class. I also had to set something up so my car could come in without me being there. A real pain in the @$$! Anyway, it was Friday morning, and as I was completing the checklist they gave me, I got a phone call telling me to return to the office immediately and report to the commander; something’s changed. Sure enough, 3rd Air Force needed someone to go on a classified mission (I can say now that it was to Bulgaria in support of Operation Enduring Freedom), leaving first thing Saturday morning! Well, of course this changed the gear I was in, and I had to report to the 3rd Air Force HQ to get my brief on the assignment; after which, I needed to check in with the hospital to verify I had all my shots up to date… only needed the flu shot… let me tell ya, ole Danny boy was relieved! So, into the mission:
Saturday, I needed to be at the base flight terminal by 1100, so I headed in early to pick up some last minute supplies and check in at work to pick up last minute work requirements, and the safe with our funds. Around 1040, I headed out to the terminal with one of the guys from the office, who helped me carry in the hundred pound safe. The plane I was getting on, with the 11 other members of the team, was a C-21, which is a small, 2-jet engine plane, which I thought was going to be uncomfortable and shaky. Turned out, it was a VIP plane, and had tables and recliner chairs, fresh cooked food (we had steamed chicken, vegetables, handmade pecan pie and tea), and even had regular and secret phones on the walls! Very posh! On the flight over, I caught the sun set, which was the first time I’d actually seen the sun head down to the horizon, cross over and disappear, taking the small, thin line of light down and out, leaving the rainbow of darkened colors on the sky. I just couldn’t take my eyes off for almost an hour!
We arrived in Bulgaria, at the Bourgas Airport, around 1700, and worked out the rental car issues. At the airport, a Bulgarian Air Force Major met us, and helped us set things up. One problem we ran into right away was that the airport would not take credit for refueling the C-21 so it could return to Germany, insisting only on cash! We had to work with the U.S. Embassy (in Sofia) to have them accept our Fuel Card. They finally worked everything out and the plane was on its way out. So, we were alone in the world of Bulgaria… That evening we took a trip out to the camp to get an idea of what was going on, and to meet up with the Army, who had been there on another mission for the past 2 months (I think it was Operation Joint Guard). When we arrived at the hotel, we were told not to get too comfortable, as we’d only be there a night, and then it was Camp Sarafavo from there on out. In that light, we decided to make the best of our evening “away” and headed out to get some local cuisine and some beer. We ended up staying out until after 1AM, playing pool and basically chilling out.
I crashed hard that night, and had an early wake up to check out and pack up for the move to the camp. Let me tell ya, the first glance during daylight, this place seemed to be OK, though very small. The Army had been living here for a while, so it couldn’t be too bad, right? Well, after we had our initial in brief, we got situated in our rooms. Rooming up was mandatory, and the rooms were tiny! They each had 3 beds in a space smaller than my home bedroom, and it was freezing in there! The camp director brought out heaters and later provided smoke detectors (wow, safety!). The bathroom had combination shower, sink and toilet, all in a small cubed area, and no shower curtain or tiled floor, the water just drained into the floor as water splashed all over everything. The room only had 2 outlets, both German style, with one being used by the “short-leashed” space heater. As we found out that night, it didn’t put out much heat, because the room was freezing as we worked on our evening projects.
My roommate, by the way, is the contracting guy, Cliff “John” Beasley. We were teamed up since he made purchases and I paid for them. Did I mention, that was my mission here? I was sent down as the Disbursing Agent, in charge of funding and purchases for the Operation. Currently, I’m overseeing almost a million dollars in operations, and it’s getting bigger every day. Fun fun!
Anyway, back to the room… so we had 3 beds in this small room, a small work table and a small dresser type unit that didn’t really amount to anything. There was one chair and a small stool type unit that we used as the second chair. A radio (with one station) is mounted over the main entranceway, and most of the time plays Bulgarian commentary. In the evenings though, it plays some American music, but mostly pop. We took down one of the beds and set it up against the wall, using it as a hanger rack and clothes storage area. We moved the table into the center of the room to use as our “office space” and set up the tiny dresser as the ironing board.
A little background on the camp: this was formerly the Russian and Bulgarian military’s summer camp, a resort area for a relaxing get away for their military forces. But that was before the fall of the Russian empire, and with the set up geared to “summer”, the buildings have large thin glass windows overlooking the forest in the back, and insulation is not needed. In the winter however, it gets QUITE cold in these little rooms. When we finally got to sleep, around 1130 or 1200, we found out that the beds weren’t very supportive. The under-springs were extremely saggy, and when you laid down, the bed sunk in VERY deep. Needless to say, sleeping under 3 big covers, still cold, and sagging to the floor, it was a horrible first nights sleep at the camp.
Now it was Monday, the first real day to get stuff done. First problem though… the shower nozzle was missing! We ended up having to “shower” in the sink, just drenching the head with water and washing up as best as we could… it really sucked! But we made due. On to the day: Cliff and I worked out a plan to get some things bought and worked with the other functionals in the camp to see what they needed to get by for the next 90 days. Some of the other areas represented here were Security Forces, Services, Communications, Fire Department, Health, Transportation and Operations. Cliff and I hooked up with Rich, the Army’s Contracting/Finance guy (civilian), who grabbed a translator so we could go downtown to make some initial buys. He showed us where to exchange for Leva, and where to get some good deals on shopping for supplies and such. We also hooked up a couple of early contracts to help keep the food coming in after the Army pulls out (on Thursday/Friday). They wanted out before Thanksgiving… The day turned out to be really long, and I think after we logged everything in, we finally got to sleep around midnight. The first day of work in the former Soviet Block country was over, and saggy bed or not, I was ready to sleep. One good thing, the rooms had been supplied with a second space heater, so the rooms were really toasty! I got down to only one blanket for the night… ahhh… almost bearable.
Tuesday started with a series of on-going meetings that would begin at 0800 and 1500 daily. So we needed to make sure we were up early enough for breakfast, and to have our reports ready for the Colonel. This time, even though we had a report in to fix the shower faucet, no one came out, some we used the trusty leatherman to crank the pipe to send some water up to the showerhead. SUCCESS!! So, we actually had a hot shower… second obstacle, we needed to make sure that the water pressure was low enough to allow the water on the floor to head down the drain, other wise, it’d rise up and flood the room (to include the space heater that was in the small hallway – good electric shock!). But we did what we had to and managed OK. The meals in the DFAC (Dining Facility) were actually really good, and I had myself some biscuits with gravy, hashbrowns and eggs. Offset with a nice papercup of tea. Our 0800 meeting led to another series of items we had to purchase for the day, and to set up further contracts to lease out the local airport and begin work on the linguist contract. We also needed to negotiate and settle the contract for the camp, once the Army left. Later in the afternoon, we ask one of the linguists to come downtown with us to look for some fax machines and printers, so we had Tomislav “Tommy” come with us. He knew the area quite well, and showed us how to get around downtown. Tommy was from Macedonia, working at Camp Able Sentry as a translator there. Believe it or not, he was very happy to work with us, being that he was getting paid $1400 a month, which was more than double what most people from Macedonia made! He’s a nice older man who’s been speaking English since he was 17.
(I stopped typing this last week, so this is a quick rundown of what’s been happening since)
When we started making trips downtown to make purchases, we headed out to the highway, and standing in the middle of the merge ramp was a donkey! (Would ya look at that ass!) Cliffy moved out and headed home this week, and the contracting guy is Jim SeChrist. He’s one of those wild and crazy guys… perfect companion for this nutty guy, right! He started us up on a small joke of being Tango and Cash, so we started calling ourselves that. Being off base, we wear civilian clothes, so no one knows if we’re military. So just to make sure we confuse people to the maximum extent, we named Jimmy “Cash” and “Tango” for myself. When we make payments, we tell the clerks to fill out the forms with “Tango and Cash”. They get a kick outta it, and ask if I’m Cash… “No, he’s Cash, I’m Tango!” hehe
On Monday this week, we met up with the Lumber shop (Seba) and were introduced to “the Big Dawg”. He’s the owner of the company, and we’re more than certain that he’s part of the Bulgarian Mafia. He’s got connections everywhere, and when we finish with our meetings (we head over to his office daily now), he offers us some Johnny Walker, Black Label (as customary of course). We’ve even headed downtown with him and his partner (Nelly) for drinks at the hotel. The OSI (Office of Special Investigation) are hanging out there, and they were curious what we were up to, so we explained to them that we were doing business with them (buying our supplies and all), and that we were sure he was mafia. They said it was actually a good idea to get in good with them so we could keep “good community relations”. The Big Dawg “made” us the other day, so now we’re officially Mafioso. Also, we got a new interpreter, Yovka (a beautiful, young chick from Sofia, who we “stole” from the chow hall to work for us – every guy on base is jealous!) HAHA. We nicknamed her Yo, then Mary Yo. We haven’t come up with a good “Handle” for her yet, but should have one soon. Oh! And last Saturday, we almost started an international war (actually, I think we did)! We just had a huge snowstorm and the it was the nice, thick, packing version. When we went to pay for new car rentals, we saw some kids putting together some snow and laughing at us. We noticed this, and decided that hiding was a good thing, and started lobbing snowballs at ‘em. Of course, they retaliated and soon, all Heck broke loose! The fun ended after about 5 minutes, when Yo decided this was WAY too embarrassing, and said we needed to leave. Just when we were about to win the war, we had to retreat, tuck tail and run… of course, the kids took this as a good opportunity to nail us from behind and took full advantage! Heheh Anyway, that was fun!
This whole week, we’ve been humpin’, trying to get things bought for the camp. Our hours have been roughly 16 hours daily, but unlike being back at the main base working on the computer, this has been all outdoors work, talking with local vendors, wheeling and dealing, schmoosing, etc, which makes the day go by fairly quick. By the time we return to the camp (with all of “Santa’s” gifts), it’s already after 6PM, and I still need to balance the funds and fill out the daily reports! Assuming I balance the first time around, I can usually hit the hay around 8 or 9. If I’m off, even by a penny (or stitinka), I need to do additional forms to say where that penny went. That’s after an hour of pulling out my hair to find the difference to begin with, only to discover that the payment made earlier that day had a rounding factor (such as a cost of 1100 Bulgaria Levas equals $508.7424, where we loose a quarter of a cent when we round to $508.74). If you have several vouchers, it adds up! Anyway, it’s been good so far and I think when it all slows down we can, hopefully, relax a little and start checking out the town and countryside a bit.
That’s it for Part 1, more to come as the situation develops! Thanks for reading… PEACE!
Dan
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English Chronicles XX
17 November 2001 – ???
Deployed Mission
Part 2
Did I mention the wonderful holiday we had here? I was able to spend Thanksgiving in a former Soviet block country! I don’t think I ever planned on making that statement, but I guess there’s a first to everything. We had a nice lunch, with all the typical trimmings, to include some awesome stuffing, scrumptious sweet yams and of course sliced turkey breast!
Things are finally starting to settle down a bit and we’re able to take our time when we’re downtown to find the supplies we need and talk to Big Dawg and friends. “Cash” and I have been making a name for ourselves both on camp and downtown. I think since connecting with the Big Dawg, we’ve moved up in the chain of business and it seems takin’ care of business is a bit easier. In most cases now, we simply go visit Big Dawg, let him know our needs, and in 2 seconds he’s on the phone with someone he knows who can hook us up! From that point, he takes out a bottle of “Johnny” and we relax and talk while we wait for one of his boys to bring the goods back. One time, and this is gonna sound scary, we had a need for some electrical supplies. When we got to Big Dawg’s, we asked about fuses and connectors, and things like that, and asked where we could find them. He informed us that no one in the local area sells such items, but he just “happened” to have a box full of components he just received from Germany. Turned out, he had EVERYTHING our guys needed! Very interesting if ya ask me… But who’s complainin’?
We started bringing folks from the base on the beat, kinda like a ride-along the cops give folks to show them what happens in the life of duty. Most of the time, we just drop them off downtown so they can get a view of the town and get some shopping in. Almost everything here is dirt-cheap. They even have McDonalds here and for 3 Big Mac meals, it’s only 11 levs (about $4.90)! I picked up a nice pair of leather dress shoes from Italy, only 100 levs ($45) and a nice new outfit for doing business in (since we’re still required to wear civvies downtown) for under $50.
On the camp, we started hanging out with the services crew and the PerSCo guys. Everyone now has a nickname: we’ve got “Patton” (chief of services), “Mr Burns”; “Flash”, “Easy”, “Spanky”, “Lucky”, “Stone Cold”, “Buffy”, “Ox”, and I’m still under the code name “Tango”. “Cash” and I have been supplying the beer from downtown and helping to keep morale up. Most of the cops know us now, and we usually bring in some Mcy D’s when they’re working crappy days in the rain or cold. I think the Bulgarian Police also know of our connections downtown… most of the time, they won’t move outta the way if your walking by (thru the gates or where ever), but when Cash or I come thru, they look up and move to the side… it’s very interesting… hehe
We just finished rearranging the office to allow for a more secure area for the safe and allow folks to pick up supplies without interrupting us. Soon we may start making payments, so we’ll need to move some more things around to allow for a customer service area, but until then, we’re keeping status quo.
If ya noticed, I use “we” a lot in this chronicle. Cash has made sure that everything we do, we both take credit. If I make a payment to buy something, it couldn’t be done without him, so “we’ve” bought that… hehe… it’s kewl, and it’s the way it’s supposed to be. Anyway, we’ve found a nice Irish Pub in town and have been frequenting the establishment quite often. We’ve even had some of the camp gang there with us and other times just the translators.
Today is Thursday, and we’ve accomplished a few more things. But what a hellava day! Last night, our door for our room was somehow warped, so we couldn’t shut and lock it. We had to leave it open all night, with only duct tape holding is mostly closed. We have another internal door, so we were able to keep the heat in our room. This morning, the Civil Engineers stopped by to try to fix it, so I had to stay in the room to wait for them. In the meantime, one of the other rooms down that hall had a leaky shower or toilet, and it not only flooded their room, but the folks below them too! So they took priority on the totem pole of work loads. Eventually though, the guys came out to work on my door, and they ended up having to chisel away some of the door to make it shut (temp fix). Later we had a ton of work come down from folks in the camp needing new supplies and such. So we spent the afternoon running around. We also managed to piss off Big Dawg, since we we’re supposed to meet him for lunch! Today is also the Bulgarian holiday “St. Nicholi”, and the day of Bourgas (the name of the local city). We planned to meet him at a restaurant, but those plans fell through due to work requirements. Oh well, we gotta do what we gotta do, right? Tomorrow we planned to play soccer against some of the local businessmen in a competition they hold annually here. Just for fun and games, but Cash and I can’t make it now, since we’ve got other plans for work. Hope our team does well though… we should find out that night!
We finally got post office service and my mailing address, while I’m here, is either my normal mail (which will take an additional week or so to get here), or:
SSgt Daniel “Tango” Rea
OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM
100 CPTS Deployed
APO AE 09340===============================================================
English Chronicles XX
November 17 – ???
Deployed Mission
Part 3
I hate the cold… I REALLY HATE the cold. Do you understand what I mean?! I REALLY REALLY hate the cold. Now that that’s outta the way, let me tell ya what brought that on… this past week, the winds started picking up off the Black Sea – keep in mind that it’s WINTER here, and the fridged air of the Sea multiplies even slightly cold weather. It’s the kinda cold wind that blows so hard you can feel it through your pant-legs when you’re walking. It’s the kinda cold wind that, when you turn a corner from a building that was kind enough to block the wind, the first and only thought from your brain as it turns into cell-cycles is “Christ! That’s COLD!” And that was our opinion of the weather for the past 5 days. Today, Monday, 10 December 2001, the winds died down a bit, making walking around the outdoors terrain more tolerable. But, there’s always a trade off when you want something nice:
Due to the weather being so (pardon the French) sh*tty, we decided to forgo a trip downtown to eat dinner Sunday night, and instead headed over to the DFAC (Dining Facility) for a bite to eat. Since we didn’t have any work downtown that day, the car sat in the parking lot the whole day. In fact, we left it out there from the evening before, when we had returned from official business in the city. That being said, this morning, we went to make our usual business runs (Big Dawg’s, Billa, Office 1, etc), but were surprised when we got to the car, and the automatic door remote wouldn’t work. Now, this had happened before, so I figured it was just the cold. We tried all different places around the car to see if it was just a bad angle. Well, finally we gave up, and Cash suggested I just do it the old fashioned way by placing the key inside the lock. I gave it a shot, weary that the alarm would go off. Oddly enough, it didn’t. Looking inside the car, I figured out partly why. The radio was missing, meaning that someone tampered with the alarm. Maybe this wasn’t a lost cause though, so I decided to try to start the car. Wouldn’t even turn over. Next guess, the thieves musta taken the battery terminals off to kill the alarm. Popped the hood and nothing was detached, though a small cloth was in where the terminal’s positive wire was. Somehow they must have bypassed the alarm. Interesting… SO, we had to call in our cops (“the Sheriff” was on it), and were curious how the Bulgarian guards didn’t see a thing; and our car was park RIGHT OUTSIDE his shack…hmmmm. Anyway, after we gave a brief statement, we had to get another car (in this case, a nice Peugeot 306) so we could head downtown (we were already late for our appointment with Big Dawg). While we were with Big Dawg making some deals on lumber, we received a call telling us to return to the camp to give a statement to the Bulgarian Police. OK. But another call came in, just seconds later, saying we needed to go to the Police headquarters downtown to talk to the officers there. Turns out, the Bulgarian guards on duty said there was no way anyone could steal a radio without them knowing, so it must have been gone prior to us parking it! That pissed us off… accuse US?! We’re “made” men, ya know! Hehe Mafioso! Anyway, we headed over to the police station to give our reports, and instead, they finger printed us! We asked why, since WE were filing the report, and besides that, there’d be tons of our fingerprints, since we drive the car ALL THE TIME. Not only that, but we give rides to other folks from the camp, including our translators, and asked if they needed all their prints as well… nope, just ours. All this over a stinkin’ radio that’s part of a rental car at that! We were disappointed too, since we had just put on new winter tires… Did I mention that I already got pulled over twice?! Hehe Once for speeding and once for not turning in a turning lane. Come on, like I understand Bulgarian! Both times they just let me go, since I didn’t understand anything anyway. But now the cops have my prints… hmmmm…. Anyway, after we got back from the Police Station, we pulled into the camp where the police were still looking over the car, along with the Rental Car company people, who were assessing the damages. The US cop at the gate was laughing at us, since he already knew we got fingerprinted downtown, and it turned into one of those “all-over-the-camp” jokes. Good thing it wasn’t MY radio!
Other than that, things are rolling pretty good. We got to try out an Italian restaurant, where we’ve heard for almost a month that the pizza was awesome. And it was really good stuff! The past Saturday, we tried out the infamous Chinese restaurant, where they served HUGE portions of food. We were dying when we left outta there! We’ve also secured a nice little Irish Pub as our own, and know the owner, so we get special treatment when we go in. We’ve got our own table and they know to have a pint of Stolichno ready when we get there. And I finally bought myself a nice WARM leather jacket, complete with chinchilla neck-warmer. Hehe And we talked the Civil Engineer guys into building us a couple shelves for our room. Now we just need the Comm folks to run us a line into the room and hook up AFN for TV and we’ll be set! I haven’t had time yet to download the pictures I’ve been taking, but should have some free time this weekend. Hope to have them out there for you soon.
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English Chronicles XX
November 17 – ???
Deployed Mission
Part 4
Yesterday (Sunday, 16 December), the weather warmed up enough for it to snow again. By the time I woke up, the snow was probably an inch deep, though the wind only lightly blew across the fields, erasing the footsteps of the troops who left earlier in the morning. It was nice enough outside, that I was able to go to the gym in shorts without freezin’! I went down to the beach to swim for a bit, but the water was a tad nippy, so I forwent the dip in the sea. Instead, I snapped some pictures of the beautiful surroundings and walked around the camp to see how everyone was doing. In the evenings, we started singing Christmas carols. We normally pick one unlucky, unhappy person to pester, knocking on their door, and singing as loudly and poorly as we can; but it still seems to lift the person’s spirits.
Today, I learned of a new fuel for vehicles… the Mercedes takes normal unleaded, as well as propane!
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English Chronicles XX
17 Nov … 23 Dec ???
Deployed Mission
Part 5
24 December 2001 (Christmas Eve)
Just as I was beginning to understand the Bulgarian culture, we get the order to redeploy. For the longest time, I was confused when talking to a local and they’d shake their head (no) but say “Da” which means yes… finally, someone explained that shaking the head means “yes”, nodding means “no”, and tilting the head side to side means “OK”. Dobre is Fine; Blogadaria is Thank You; Ciao (as in Italian) is Good Bye, “Osim Bebi Otep” is “I want to have your baby”. But, all that “education” is for naught if we up and leave after only 30+ days. Turns out, our humanitarian mission with flying supplies and food to the Afghans was coming to an end, since the effort would continue via land support. So our air refueling tankers were no longer needed and our mission in Bulgaria had come to a close. This word was given a couple days ago, though rumors had spread earlier than that, almost a week earlier. Of course, with any pull out from a deployed location, the tempo is as fast as the entrance.
Normally, there are several phases in a deployment: Advon, Set up, Sustainment, Exit and Caretaker. The Advon team is the team that goes in first to scout everything out and get the operations started. I was on that team with a handful of other specialties. My job on this deployment was Pay Agent, which is basically the runaround guy for buying things, with the Contracting guy. On top of that, I do the complete budgeting for the camp, control the funds, and process Military Pay and Travel paperwork, and occasionally cash checks.
The set up phase is normally pretty intensive and involves many days of long hours. In this case, the team of Tango and Cash worked over a month with only one day off. Most days consisted of 12 hours, trying to track down the equipment people needed to operate in their job (why they didn’t bring their own equipment still baffles me). The thing most people failed to realize is that Bulgaria is still an up and coming country, so most of the high tech items are simply NOT available.
Sustainment is the period between set up and exit, which lasts as long as the mission does. In this case, it only lasted less that one week. Though we weren’t working 12-hour days, it was still pretty busy keeping up with quality of life issues (an attempt to make the camp more like home).
Once we got the Exit orders, the commander had everyone prepping for teardown of equipment and tents. For Cash and I, this also meant contract terminations, paying for damages and legal claims, settlements on vendors, etc. It also meant that another handful of people (namely Cash and I, Patton and Buffy and a Trans guy) would stay behind to make sure everything was taken care of (caretaker phase). Reason for this is to ensure the locals don’t get angry if we leave loose ends. Diplomatic stuff that allows us come back if we need to. Since this was the U.S.’s first operations out of Bulgaria since World War II, it’s a giant leap to securing good relations with the former Soviet country.
All that being said, we’ve just recently closed down Camp Sarafovo and moved downtown to the local hotel (Hotel Bulgaria). This is the nicest place in town, and is right in the center of the city. On the final day the deployment was supposed to be here, we secure rooms in the Hotel for the 5 of us. The only problem was, it started to snow; heavily! Although the snow in Bulgaria is beautiful, it also makes the local airport runway very slick. Because of this, the final plane, with our deployed commander on it, was grounded. This caused us more work, since we had to book rooms for 60+ people to stay until the weather cleared. And since it was Christmas Eve, no planes would be flying anyway til the 26th. Well, being Christmas Eve, the commander decided that we should have some time to blow off steam, so we all went downtown, ate, drank, had a few snowball fights, and relaxed. I finally got tired around 11:30 and headed to bed… it’d been a long TDY thus far…
Christmas Day, 2001
It started out as, “rain in the morning, turning to snow by 9AM… but we shouldn’t have more than an inch or two”, says our weather technician. 27 hours and a foot of snow later, we’re still in the hotel, snowed in, with no place to go. Sure, from the 16th floor of this hotel, the buildings on the ground look extremely festive, but when your horizontal view is snow blowing almost straight across, you get that chill that makes you appreciate the new warm heaters in the refurbished rooms above the 12th floor, and the fact that we are no longer staying on that camp with the “breezy” summer cottages!
Some strange occurrences with electrical items have led me to believe that the power supply out here is not very regulated. First, when turning on the lights, half of the bulbs blow out. My electric razor’s internal battery dies after only a year and half (my last one lasted over 10 years, so I’m thinkin’ it’s not the battery’s fault). Next, my computer’s batteries is stuck on recharge at only 3% charged, which basically means, I better hope this wonderful power supply doesn’t go out because I’d instantly loose anything I was working on! Speaking of power outages, we had about 8 or 9 in the camp that I can remember.
Anyway, our Services gang put together a nice, last minute Christmas party in the hotel, complete with full buffet spread, orchestra and alcohol, all with only 5 hours of planning! Turned out awesome and everyone had a great time. After, some of us headed downtown to the Elite club for a night of dancing and music, followed by a return to the hotel’s Mesanine bar for tea, then to bed (finally) around 2 or 3 AM.
I forgot to mention, if you mailed anything to the “OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM” address, the mail is being returned since we’re no longer at the camp, so when it comes back, please resend it to my home address in England… hopefully it’ll come back before March!
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English Chronicles XX
17 Nov … 23 Dec ???
Deployed Mission
Part 6
8 January 2002
We managed to get a lot done in the past couple weeks following our notification of redeployment. Shopping for gifts, massages at the hotel, new clothes, tons of great pictures and, oh, I guess a little bit of work too. When we first moved into the hotel, there was a small group of people still stranded because of the snow. The main reason it took so long to get them out (FINALLY, after 2 weeks) was because snow in this part of Bulgaria is very unusual. In fact, we’ve been told, apologetically, many times, that “we are not used to this weather, we are sorry it is here.” This was the first major snow Bourgas has seen since around the mid-60s! Must be El Nino…
With all the snow, some people were able to enjoy Christmas. Most of them left before New Years, and we only had about 25 people around for New Year. Not too much happened on that day, since planes were scheduled to be in around 3AM, and most people had to sleep. Our small team partied down in the Latino Club in the basement of the hotel, and there were fireworks shot from the top of the hotel at midnight.
Anyway, once everyone else was gone, our caretaker team was able to start close out actions. The final team consists of Cash and Tango (Jimmy and I), Patton and Buffy (Services), Radar (Trans) and Hawkeye (Medic). We also kept on one translator, Gabbi (Toni) and the Bulgaria Military allowed Crazy Major Kostov to stay with us as our liaison. We shut down the camp completely, started work on the airport, called in trucks to land transport our remaining cargo home, and set up final payment arrangements with the US Embassy.
As soon as the remaining trucks finish loading up and roll out, we will be able to drive over to Sofia (capital of Bulgaria, and location of the Embassy) to ensure the final payments are made. Once we get verification that everyone has received their money, we will get to fly home! Our guess is that we will drive out of here on Saturday morning, and should arrive later that afternoon. We’re planning to drive a van and bus there, and will stop at several places along the way to take pictures and take in the scenery. On Sunday, since the Embassy will not be open, we’ll check out the slopes to see what snowboarding in Bulgaria is like.
In the meantime though, we’ve been stuck at the hotel here, sitting in our newly appointed office (the Mecanin bar on the second floor of the hotel), sipping on cappuccinos or hot chocolates with Baileys, or having a brewski. In the mornings, we work out in the gym (I’ve gotten more of a work out in the past week, then I do normally back at the base!), followed by drinkin’ freshly squeezed orange juice in the Mecanin. Afternoons consist of lunch, usually a Shopska salad and Schnitzel with lemon. Believe it or not, I’m actually eating tomatoes! (Mom would freak out!) In the salad, they’re brilliant! There’s a special Bulgaria cheese, too, that they sprinkle on top – that with cucumbers, some vinegar and oil, and a little salt and pepper, it’s and awesome salad! If we don’t eat in the hotel, McDonalds is usually the next avenue for food. The prices are awesome, at 3.50 levs for a value meal (you can get 3 meals for under $5!) Evenings, we tend to head downtown to try out the local restaurants and do some shopping. I’ll tell ya what, if it wasn’t for the fitness time in the morning, I’d be one fat b@st@rd! At least we have some time finally to relax – those 14 to 15 hour days were killin’ us! Once we get most things closed down, we’ll probably pick up the pace again when we get to Sofia.
Tomorrow, we head back to the local orphanage to bring more money for their medications and a TV/VCR and some Disney movies. Later in the evening, we are scheduled to meet the Regional Governor to present him with a lithograph of the KC-135R refueling plane, and Friday afternoon we will meet with the director of the Bourgas International Airport to present him with the same. Other than that, we’re just working on our LOEs (Letters of Evaluation) and award packages. More than likely, we’ll receive several medals for being here: Armed Force Expeditionary Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, and either an Achievement or a Commendation Medal. If we receive these, you can check them out on my personal page (www.geocities.com/dreanged1/PersonalPage.html). I should also have an update on a couple of newspaper stories from “Stars and Stripes” on Bulgaria. (see last page)
More to come as the story unfolds… ciao for now! [Disregard this, the story continues below]
Danny boy
http://www.goeocities.com/dreanged5/Bulgaria.html
Well, may as well continue on here, seeing as the mission is over and I’m already home. So here goes the rest of the story:
The next morning, we all planned to head out to the orphanage, but there were a couple of road blocks, in that the van we had was kinda small. So we could only drive out like 5 people. Knowing this, Cash decided to stay behind to catch up on paperwork, as did Patton. Hawkeye needed some extra sleep, and I don’t think Radar’s heart was in it that morning. So, besides me, Crazy Major Kostov, Buffy and Gabbi. Gabbi’s son was supposed to join us as well, but circumstances dictated otherwise.
Once on the road (I was driving of course), we “traversed” the weather (as was once stated by a Trans guy) and took to the mostly cleared highway 20 miles up until we came to the small road leading to the Iksha village. As we made our way up the mostly snow-covered road, reduced to single lane as it was never ploughed, we parked near the orphanage and headed inside. On this trip, we brought along the money raised when everyone headed home, which gave the center enough money for medicine through the rest of the year; a TV/Video Player from Cash; some heaters; and some movies we bought downtown. We got to play with the kids for a couple hours, singing and laughing, reading stories (though none of us could understand each other). It was just fun and heart swelling to see the kids so happy. From what I gathered, interest in orphanages throughout Bulgaria is extremely low, and the kids there rarely get visitors. After saying farewell to the kids, the center director escorted us out and wished us well, asking if we’d be back. ‘Maybe’ was all we could think of, as we didn’t have the heart to say we were leaving for home already.
Back at the hotel, we got things ready for the final days and set up our appointments with the vendors to let them know we were leaving. Cleaning up after a deployment is normal, and some vendors just aren’t happy with you leave (or take the money with you). We had one of those kind of vendors… he was the owner of one of the rental companies, and he stated earlier on that he would not refund any of the prepaid month, even though we only used them for a week. After Cash tried to compromise with him, reaching no agreement, the guy had the nerve to ask about payment for damages, parking fees and fuel. With a straight face, and a little bit of underlying anger at the situation, Cash simply said “No” to each of his requests for more money, saying that if he was unwilling to compromise, so were we. One thing that also played in this “game” was that we planned to use 1 of the remaining vans from his company to get us to Sofia (along with another van that was rented in Sofia that we were returning). The guy said that “only the person who signed for the car could drive it” (which is also not what we agreed to since most people on the camp needed access to the cars) and, that in fact, Cash was not the person who signed for these cars. Well, going over the edge a bit, Cash just had us give the man his keys back, after we cleared out our stuff, and said we’d simply hire a bus to take us out there – we didn’t really need his van anyway. But, in keeping with professionalism, Cash still extended his hand, stating that there are no hard feelings, and thanked him for doing business.
Once we were comfortable that everything was squared away, we made our plans to head out to Sofia. It was now the Saturday, 13th of January, early in the morning, when we got our things set up for the bus – all the bags were in the lobby by 0530, and the bus was right on time at 0600. We carefully packed our belongings between the van and the bus and were on the road by 0630. I drove the van, with Major Kostov as my driving companion, while the others rode in the bus. I asked to stop at the gas station, as the van was in desperate need of windshield wiper fluid. Something was lost in the translation, because the bus driver just drove past the station and onto the highway. I called the other team on the cell phone, but they were just as baffled as I. I told them I’d stop and catch up to them later.
After getting the fluid, and some water and sandwiches, the Major and I headed out and listened to the radio and talked as we watched ahead, waiting to see if we’d catch up to the bus. Down the road a ways, the radio seemed to be getting quieter, so Major Kostov tried adjusting the volume. I let him know that I’d tried that before and the buttons were broke – but he persisted. Finally though, the volume button gave way, turning the radio up really loud, as we jammed down the road. The Major had a cocky grin on his face, as he “defeated” what I could not. I gave him his due respect for “fixing” the radio, then asked if he could turn it down a bit. “Sure” he said, just as cocky. After trying to push the button several times, the radio’s music didn’t diminish as planned. I kept a straight face though… after all, I’m just driving here… J I’ll give it to him though, he stuck with it, and actually disassembled the radio, as we drove along. After what seemed like an hour (though it was more like 20 minutes), he snapped a face part back in place and suddenly the volume controls were again operational! “You da man!” was all I could say… “Yes, I am the man!” he said proudly.
Suddenly, my cell phone rang. I didn’t realize it, but we had been in “comm-out” for some time, mainly because we were in a very rural part of the country, and only now returned to a bit more civilization. It was Radar, saying they just stopped at a rest area. I asked where he was, and whether they were on a mostly uncleared part of the highway. He wasn’t sure, since he wasn’t driving, but said he just past a couple Nuclear plants to the left and was on the right. Just seconds further, I found his mentioned landmarks, and up a little more I saw the bus. Ahhh…. Reunited!
The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful, and we mostly listened to the Bulgarian news as the Major translated for me. The weather in the mountains was nice, though back in Sofia it was going to be another overcast and chilly day. The Major was excited though, because good mountain weather meant our snowboard trip would be great. That put me in a good mood too. I learned that the Major had learned English many years ago, and hadn’t actually spoken it in over 6 years! I was really impressed, as I am with anyone who can speak English fluently – it’s a very tough language to master, and all the brainwork it takes to translate from a foreign language to your own is phenomenal. But he explained that he learned English so well, that he actually thinks in English… that amazed me, but I guess it’s possible!
Reaching the big city, I once again remembered why I didn’t like the city life. Traffic was bumper to bumper and the roads were in pretty bad shape, snow-wise. The city was noisy, as is expected from a capital, and the people crowded the streets. Still, there was a nice sense of history – old buildings and churches, statues and monuments were all over. I made it a point to return during the next couple days to see the sites.
We all decided that this evening was one for relaxing, so we didn’t go out to do much that evening. Next morning though (Sunday), Radar had a flight and headed out. The plans for snowboarding fell through, and while Cash, Buffy and Patton escorted Radar to the airport, I stayed behind and wound up venturing out with Major Kostov to see the sights of Sofia. Since the Embassy was closed over the weekend, what else were we to do? He showed me around town, passing by the office of the president of Bulgaria, where we happened upon a changing of the guard! We continued up the street. The longer we were outside, the more the chills of the January cold set in. The sidewalks were still a bit icy and wind started making its way through my shoes. I had also left my gloves in the room, thinking that we’d be indoors more often. He pointed out the parliament building and the Russian Church.
Later, we happened on the St Alexander church. Immense in appearance from the outside, the right upper dome was under construction. The rest of the church though was beautiful. It has many of the styles you see from Russian pictures, with rounded dome tops, covered in gold. Paintings and sculptures encased the whole building. We went inside, and immediately you could hear singing. The inside was just as beautiful. The walls were covered, top to bottom with paintings of Christian artwork. Ancient candle-held chandeliers graced the walkways, though the actual candles had been replaced following the advent of electricity. You could tell though that at some point in history, one of the monks (or all) was required to get a ladder to light the hundreds of candles to illuminate the rooms. The sounds of the voices in the choir rose as we neared the center of the room. It sounded like there were speakers everywhere, some sort of surround sound in the church, but in fact, the voices were above us on the second floor, and their voices simple reverberated throughout the church. The singing was in an older Bulgaria language, as was the intermittent benediction by the priest. I closed my eyes listening to the singing, and knew that if I could come to something like this everyday, it’d make all the daily woes disappear.
I sat down on a bench, while Major Kostov went to light a few candles for his family, friends and members of his family that were no longer with us. I again closed my eyes and listened to the music make its way through the church. I lost track of time and opened my eyes to see that the Major was waiting on me. I smiled and knew it was time to leave. We headed up the street through a collage of street-vendors, looking at the old artifacts from the Russian days; flasks, knives and medals from the Red Army; old paintings; other relics. We continued on, passing by a tribute statue, before heading to the coffee shop to warm up. Inside we just relaxed as we thawed out our hands and feet… ahhh… I had a couple cups of tea and watched the people outside do their normal routine. Across the street, children were riding sleds down a small hill in the park. I had forgotten all about sledding and wanted to go out there myself! It brought back memories of the hill in Michigan we used to ride on every winter, but the name escapes me at the minute. Anyway, after about a half hour, we decided to check out the Russian Christian church – Major Kostov had never been inside one, and we were both curious about any differences from the Bulgaria churches. We were cautious in entering, not sure if there were different rules, or if you had to a member of the congregate to get inside. Walking in though, it was just a normal church like the others, painted from top to bottom and pictures of various saints lined the floors for worship. A beggar gypsy and her child were at the door with their hand out for ‘charity’. There weren’t too many places you could go without seeing them around. The kids would pester you as you walked by, asking for stotinkies (local coins). (But mom, now you have good proof that Gypsies do exist, and they do BUY children, so remind Andy of that the next time he acts up! HAHA)
We left the church after a couple minutes (and a couple candle lightings), and chose to go to the Natural History Museum. I don’t remember ever going to one of these, so I was interested not only in the concept, but to see what Bulgarian natural history involved. It was more of a zoo of sorts, with some live, but mostly stuffed animals from all over the world. There were reptiles in aquariums; huge boas, turtles, geckos, etc; a room for birds, one for larger animals, like lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), and we reached the one for butterflies before we got a phone call from Cash. “Where ya at?!” Our meeting time back at the hotel was 1330, and it was quarter til one at the time. “We’re at the museum…” “Well, get back here!” I wasn’t sure what the hurry was, but we made our way down to the exit and walked back toward the hotel. Along the way, I remembered that we were meeting for lunch at Pizza Hut, which explained the urgency… Everyone was HUNGRY! Haha
We all gathered, and I went upstairs to my room to grab my gloves and hat (dang it, it’s COLD out there!) We headed over to the restaurant and had us some pizza, followed by a visit to the local malls. The prices were much higher than the corresponding items in Bourgas. At least 3 times higher! Whereas a nice shirt in Bourgas cost about 20-30 levs ($9-14 or £6-9), it was closer to the range of 60 levs! That evening, we went out to an Irish pub, and had a blast! We drank Murphay’s and ate some awesome food. I had steak –Mmm mmm… delicious! Later, we found ourselves a bit bored, so Jimmy started up a drinkin’ game. It was called “Swish, Boing, Bounce, Boom-shackalacka”, and was played by bouncing or passing an imaginary ball around the table. If you don’t pay attention when the “ball” gets to ya, ya take a two-finger drink of your beer. Major Kostov was a bit leery of this game, and sat out the first round. We later conned him into playing, and we just had too much fun, accusing everyone of missing the pass or the bounce over the heads, etc. I’ll show ya how to play next time I’m in town, OK? You won’t regret it (much!) HAHA
Monday morning rolled around, and we got up early so we could head down to the Embassy to take care of business. The embassy was just around the corner, and we walked over. Following the September 11th attacks, the road to the U.S. Embassy was closed off, and a guard had to check our IDs just to get to the street leading to the building. Once finally inside, another screening process took place. Finally we were allowed into the main hall, where our host, Sergeant Johnson, took us up to his office to discuss final arrangements and set up our tickets home. They gave us an escort to the finance office located on the other side of town, where we drove in a tinted out SUV at MACH speeds through the city streets. I’m glad the driver knew what he was doing! Getting inside the finance office was just as much a pain in the @$$. Once we coordinated everything to make the final payments on the airport and camp, we headed back to the Embassy to pick up our flight reservations. Everyone was out to lunch, so we had to wait in the lobby. An Army sergeant was posted at the main door, checking IDs and watching the multitude of cameras. As we stood by for about a half hour, we noticed that the sergeant reached for her hat and put it on… made us curious. Moments later, an older gentleman walked from the elevator, said hello to us as he made his way out the big metal door to the outside. Once gone, the sergeant removed her hat, and returned to her job. A little later, we asked who the guy was – “He’s the U.S. Ambassador”, she said calmly. Kewl!
We received our flight reservations and headed over to pick up our tickets from the travel agent. Afterwards, we all went home to repack our bags and get ready for the flights out the next day. The evening meal was McDonalds, though we easily could have gone somewhere more Bulgarian. Just weren’t in the mood to look around. I had nothing else to do in the night, so I read a book that the folks from back in England sent me, “A painted house” by John Grisham.
Tuesday morning, 16 January, we got up and got ready. We had breakfast downstairs before getting our bags ready on carts. We didn’t hold our breath too much, thinking there was still some kinda chance that we wouldn’t leave today. After all the freak snow storms, we knew anything was possible, and that we could end up in Bulgaria until 2008! Haha! But, everything turned out OK, as we saw off Patton and Buffy around noon, followed by a 2 hour wait for our flight. We gathered our bags (all 14 of them) and checked in. They were surprised by our mass luggage, and of course, we had to pay excess baggage fees. Turned out we set a new record! Most of the stuff though was Progear, stuff folks left behind that we had to take with us. Then we said goodbye to Major Kostov and wished him well, promising that we’d keep in touch. You could see a tear in his eye as he shied away, not wanting us to see him cry… OK, so maybe it didn’t really happen that way, but who’s gonna argue with me?! We passed through the Customs area and waited in the lobby until our flight was called.
We finally boarded the bus that lead to the plane. Coming through the main door, the purser (Simon) asked for my boarding pass. It was in my pocket, so I asked him to hold a folder for me while I retrieved it. The folder had an emblem from one of the units, and he asked if I was in the military. I said yes, but still wanted to keep it low key. He mentioned that his brother was in the forces. I said kewl, and made my way to my seat. We managed exit row seats, extra comfort, but were still dismayed that our counterparts heading for Germany swung Business Class seats. But we planned to make the best of the flight and started talking up the stewardesses. Before long, they could tell that we were nothing but trouble, laughing at our silliness, and went to talk to Simon. A few minutes later, he came over, making a slight commotion, asking for our boarding passes. He had a sheet of paper with him that he examined, as he stated, “ahh yes, Mr SeChrist, Mr Rea, yes, I’m so sorry, we’ve made a mistake, and these seats are not correct. You should be up in the front. I’m very sorry about the confusion, please follow me to your seats. Again, we’re very sorry for this…” He escorted us up to the First Class seating, all the while, we knew we weren’t really on the list for those seats. He made us comfortable, and offered us wine, again apologizing for the confusion. Finally he winked, letting us know to keep quiet about the seat change over… no problem, we thought!
After establishing we were with the Air Force, he went on to tell us that he used to be in the RAF, and asked said to make sure Osama was taken out. We assured him we were doing our best! Haha So over the rest of the flight, he made sure we had full wine glasses, an awesome meal, with some kind of cherry dessert. We weren’t sure though if they were cherries or not, so we asked. Instead of an answer, he shrugged and gave us more dessert! The stewardesses were back to talk with us, as we continued to joke with them. With a slight buzz, I gave them my Dr Evil impression, which they loved. I also checked out the view from the window, which gave way to instant snapshots of the mountains through the clouds and the evening sunset.
Finally landing in Gatwick, we made our way through customs and immigrations, and collected our bags. We had to count ‘em all a couple times to make sure we had all 14! In the main lobby area, we met up with “Tunisia”, a friend of Jimmy’s, who drove us back to the base. Ahhh… home soil. I dropped off most of the progear and loaded up my car with my own bags before heading home for the night… ahhh again…. My own bed. I was fast asleep, knowing that it’d take a little while to get back into the real routine again.
Some links to Stars and Stripes (links not guaranteed to work)
USAFE commander pays a visit to airmen in Bulgaria
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=1776&archive=true
Mildenhall air crew stepped up the pace in support of Enduring Freedom
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=1868&archive=true
86th Services Squadron hikes morale of troops in Bulgaria
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=1696&archive=true
It’s frigid on the Black Sea coast, but troops in Bulgaria keep the planes flying
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=1701&archive=true
Cold War rivals U.S., Bulgaria now working together to secure airport, base
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=1855&archive=true
Holiday absences make hearts grow stronger for military families
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=1448&archive=true
Bulgarian base, usually quiet in winter, now bustles with refugee aid activity
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=1286&archive=true
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English Chronicles XXI
Tuesday, 05 February 2002
Norway Day Trip
At the last minute on Monday afternoon, I was “informed” I’d be heading up to Stavanger, Norway the next morning to visit the GSU (Geographically Separated Unit) there. It was only a one-day turn around, so I left early to get some rest. In the morning, I was up just after 4AM, and on the road within an hour to meet my 6AM show time. I arrived a bit early, and the doors to the AMC Terminal didn’t open until exactly 6. I went to the car and got all the paperwork I needed for the trip, along with my camera, a book (the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, book 1), a bottle of water and my passport. I figured I’d try to make a run to the chow hall before the plane took off, only to find that it, too, didn’t open until 6. And Burger King was the same, so no Croissanwich for me!
Back at the terminal, the doors finally opened and I checked in with the lady at the counter. I asked what time the flight would leave, and if the cafeteria upstairs was open yet. “0745 and yes, the cafeteria is open.” With that, I went upstairs, dropped off my bag and ordered a breakfast burrito and tea. The tea came out first and I added my milk and sugar and sat down to wait on my breakfast. The tea was piping hot, so I drank with slow sips. Nothing much to do, I checked out the monitors identifying the times of other flights. Planes that day were heading to Ramstein, Bangor, Fairchild, Scott and Aviano. Out of this base, getting anywhere is fairly easy. By 0630 my food arrived, and I took my time to enjoy it, as well as not burn my mouth on the hot eggs and ham! Shortly into the meal though, the intercom announced that it was ready for passengers heading to Stavanger. Dang, and I didn’t even finish my tea! I scarfed down the remaining bit of burrito and drank as much tea as I could gulp down before noticing that the flight person was up there looking for me. I hurried downstairs, and he did mention that the call was earlier than he expected too, and that we’d probably end up waiting anyway… Sure enough, we went out to the van to meet up with the plane. On the way to the Naval hanger, the driver looked around trying to find her location, and admitted that she had never actually been to this hanger. A couple wrong turns and a couple questions later, we arrived at the hanger. Awaiting us was the Navy Chief of the flight, and he instructed us to wait inside the lobby room until the plane was ready. Most likely, a half hour… figures.
Our plane was a small C12 prop plane, and only had 6 seats. On take off, the wind (that didn’t seem to strong on the ground) whipped the tail of the light plane back and forth in a fishtail motion. Higher up though, the winds died down and we were OK. Once in the air, I started to read my book, only to be overcome with tiredness. I dozed off in no time, awakened later by a little bit of turbulence and a stiff neck from the awkward seats. We were still over the North Sea. I opened the book and started to read again, and made it through the prologue and the first chapter before we saw the Norse border. On the southern coast, tens to hundreds of small islands covered the view. Short bridges connected most of the islands and some even had tunnels coming up from the middle of the island (from where, I had no idea). The landscape was gorgeous, with rolling hills leading into large mountains. Though there was overcast (similar to England), the water was a beautiful shade of blue. The hills were a lush green, even for the winter season. Small houses (as they appeared from the plane) were actually quite large in size as we gradually made our decent to the runway. And the homes were built just about anywhere, on hillsides, on the islands, near farms… anywhere.
We arrived shortly after 10AM, Norway time, and drove to the NATO base, where I was given a small tour. It wasn’t a small tour due to time constraints, rather because the area was very compact. All four buildings were in close proximity to each other. The weather was remarkably warm, and the sun was trying to poke its head out. Anyway, we got underway in the job almost immediately. Finishing up around 1130, we swung over to the NATO dining room and had some lunch. I had the Lamb Stew with rice. Mmmm – was that great! Coming out of the dining area, the weather had changed drastically. Rain started in as a drizzle and the cold air set in. We went back to the office to grab our jackets, which only a half hour ago was unnecessary. Once in warmer attire, we strolled over to the shopping stores, where I picked up some souvenirs and chocolates, along with some low priced, high quality Whiskey. The other 5 folks from the flight were there as well, and we could tell our flight back would be a little heavier. I was taken back to the flight line to meet our plane for it’s 1500 departure. Talk about your fast turnarounds! Once on the plane, I snapped off a couple photos finally, and eventually took out the book. Again, I became tired fast (must be the low shaking on the plane), and faded off to sleep. Midway back I woke again, and finished off the second half of chapter one. On our decent, similar to our take off, the winds had us in a fishtail effect. But we had a smooth landing, none-the-less. After collecting our gear, we headed back to the terminal. I made my way out to my car, made a pit stop at the commissary for some milk and dinner supplies before cruising home for the night.
I guess it was a pretty good day of hooky, anyway, right?! Tomorrow will be another day, back in the office and doing a normal job. Still in my mind are the memories of what my job should be like – military style, in Bulgaria. But, with only 3 months left on this assignment, and Italy as my follow on, future thoughts keep me focused – and as time goes on, so does the excitement build.
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Journal of Daniel Rea Photography 