Power Outages

I thought about another thing to write about. We have had them a few times throughout the summer, but lately they have seemed suckier. Probably cause I've been here longer and am more irritable. We have been having power outages. They suck. It is really dark in our room, cause we sleep during the day. So you can't see anything. I don't think I have to tell you how bad the heat is. It actually gets hotter in the room than outside. The first time it went out it was just a bit after 6am a couple of days ago. I hadn't gone to bed yet. I ended up getting about an hour and a half of sleep. It was not a good day. It came back on that night, but went out again the next morning about 4am. It stayed cool enough where I fell asleep. It came back on about 9am. It remained on for the duration after that. We will see how long it lasts. I guess one of the main generators on post has went down, so they swap back and forth running one side of post then the other. I think they should power our side all of the time, but I don't have a vote. We tend to hang out in the gym, or at work cause they have their own generators if the power goes out.

Meeting up with an old Friend

So Ben got to Iraq sometime this summer, around June I believe, but I hadn't had the chance to see him. We are at different locations. We often go where he is, but I hadn't had the chance myself to go there. I found out I was going there a night in advance, so I told him I would be coming. It was really cool to get to see him. It gives you just a little taste of home. Of course, just like always we end up talking about old times and stuff from home. On other news, I get to go on leave on September the 6th. Tara and I are going to go to Hawaii. Needless to say I am really looking forward to that.

Not much to Say

I do realize I have not made a post in a while. To be honest I don't have very much to talk about. I did go to the pool today. It was my first time to go to the pool here at Balad. It was actually pretty nice. I enjoyed myself. I went with my friends Ed and Chris. We talked about the world's next greatest business ideas. I guess I'm trying to get some sun as well. I'm going to get to go on leave next month, sometime between the 1st-13th of September. I think me and Tara are going to go to Hawaii. The dates aren't final, but we should know for sure in a few days. I don't know much else it is still pretty darn hot here, but I think cooler weather could be in sight. It is starting to get a lot more comfortable in the early morning hours. Hopefully that means that cool weather is a little closer.

Germany Trip

Well I got back from Germany last night(Aug. 2nd 0100). All in all it was a great trip. It was nice most of all just to get out of Iraq. We did some pretty fun things, and most importantly drank a heck of a lot of beer. We also got some really good simulator training that was much needed for us. We ate at mostly German restaurants, at least we tried. Sometimes it was very difficult to order off of the menu, cause most of them were completely in German. I ate steaks, schnitzel, cordon bleu, and a calzone. The calzone of course is Italian, but it was a very good italian restaurant, it was also the size of a pizza. The only site seeing we really got in was going to the castle in Heidelberg. It is very old, but I didn't get much history on it, cause we didn't have time to go on the full guided tour. It was very cool though. The had big huge beer barrels in the castle one was 45,000 liters the other was around 247,000 liters they were larger than many houses. We stayed most of our nights a little outside of Mannheim. We got stuck trying to get a flight back here to Balad in Lunstuhl, which is located near Rammstein Air Force Base. I had a lot of fun there. It was a very cool little town. The beer in Germany is some of the best in the world in my opinion. I really enjoyed it, I primarily drank Hefeweizen. I actually developed a taste for it shortly before I deployed, now I officially love it. So that is a brief summary of my trip. After a few days of trying we got out of there. It was a nice break, but living out of a bag was actually getting old even though it was in Germany. Now it is time to get back to work. I will post some pictures in the next few days.

Heidelberg Castle

This is a picture of the castle we went to. It was pretty cool with some great views of the city.