Kandahar

Oh boy, getting a nice whiff of the poo pond right now.  Feels like you're sitting inside of a septic tank.  Thank you British.  I'm in Kandahar now.  So, conveniently on the boardwalk here there is some decent free wifi.  Funny thing is when I was pulling up my site here everything on the top banner bar was in Arabic, or something (what we like to call 'durkas').  I think I may have flagged my site accidentally when I was trying to log into my dashboard to create this post.  I couldn't read the durkas to find the link to click.  So, for all of you reading, this is not an inappropriate site.  I hope any flag doesn't stay there.  I may have to figure out how to clear it.

I haven't took as many pictures of KAF here yet, but when I get some I'll post them here if I can get a good wifi connection to upload them.

Kandahar...what an interesting place so far.  This place is coalition ran, so a different country runs it in a rotation after a certain period of time.  Right now the Canadians are running it (Kanada-har, ha ha!).  All the food here is European based.  Us Americans are naturally guests here since we don't really run the show on base.  The food here isn't the best because of that.  At the least, the selection isn't as good.  There is some good stuff - I've become a master at the panini grill for sandwichs - but it doesn't compare to the good food and variety in Bagram.  However, I had a really great steak last night thanks to the chaplain BBQ.  I'm in a transient tent that is meant only for people staying a few days either waiting for R&R, leave, for a job trip, or to get into permanent housing.  We're waiting for permanent housing, but the tent has become "permanent" to us for the time being.  I've created my own little fort/man cave over 2 bunk beds trying to keep privacy and security.  The rest of the guys have a large man cave compound.

Who would have thought, after going through Kyrgyzstan and Bagram having hot showers there, that they can't figure out how to keep hot water to the showers here in KAF.  I've had luke-warm and cool showers a few times since getting here.  Thankfully, this morning I had a nice hot shower.  That was nice for a change.  You don't want to know what the condition of the showers & bathrooms are like either.  Hopefully soon we will be getting into permanent housing in a mod or something.  Mods are like converted metal container buildings.  The rooms are setup 4-6 people to a room, I think.  They have indoor plumbing which is pretty sweet.  They also come with internet connection packages.

Something that is nice about this place being coalition ran is there are different PXs for different countries.  There's a small French PX, small British PX, Dutch PX, American, and there's even a duty free shop.  It's pretty cool to be able to get some European favorites if I want to try something.  Chocolate in particular.  The Brits have their own nice cafe' and coffee shop that has a Starbucks feel.  It's a pretty nice place.  We have something called Green Beans Coffee.  Their coffee is pretty good despite where we're at.  They have gift cards you can get through their website and send to us.  Feel free to hook us up, if anyone is interested in sending gift cards www.greenbeanscoffee.com.

Cheers for now,
Aaron