Day 40

Today was a nice leisurely morning. I woke up around 7am (which is
sleeping in!), and then I emailed a bit. I then grabbed my computer
and flopped down in bed and watched the movie Sucker Punch. You may
laugh, but I liked it. I would categorize it as a dark action movie,
maybe. Who knows, I wouldn't mind watching it again.

I went to the office around 11:30, and we went to lunch as a group. I
think I had something called German Meatloaf. I think this need to be
made clear: it was no form of meatloaf I've EVER had in my life.
Imagine a processed meat chunk that tastes like ham, but with the
consistency of baloney. Not so great. But I didn't go to breakfast,
so I couldn't afford to be too picky.

After lunch, we went back to the office and I helped Heather (I'm
taking over for her) fill in the point of contact information for an
upcoming DV visit. It's an interesting process, but can get tedious.
At least the itinerary we're working on is so long, we hit almost
every big player around here. So once I get good contacts from this
visit, it should help immensely in the future. It takes a while to
track down things, and there is a certain order in which you have to
alert the different entities, because some get priority over others.
For instance, an Ambassador would take priority over a 1 star general.

After that, my whole office hopped in an armored truck, and we drove
to Camp Eggers to join our PSD (Protective Security Detail, I think)
group for a going away awards presentation. Four people were
presented with the Joint Service Commendation Medal, along with some
others like the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, etc. It was nice to hear
stories of people excited to go home. It's hard for me to understand
their sadness to leave their friends out here, but I'll probably have
a mix of emotions when I'm coming home too. But don't get me wrong,
I'll be ready to come home!

Afterwards, a group of us went to the PX at Eggers, because we have no
US PX at our compound. I wandered around, didn't find quite the knife
I'm looking for, so just explored. The charm here is that they take
the Eagle Cash card. When we were at NMPS in Norfolk, and again in
Kuwait, we were encouraged to buy an Eagle Cash card, so we don't have
to actually carry any cash on our person. This is a great idea, and
it looked, on paper, like all the bases were covered. Unfortunately,
ISAF HQ is NATO, not US. So no Eagle Cash card use for us here.
Anyway, after that, a group of about 8 of us walked back to our
compound. It was about 8:15pm, and I didn't feel like any work was
going to happen, so I just went to my room. Besides, we have another
12+ hours of fun tomorrow. Time to read some more Frankenstein...