Day 42

Wow, 6 weeks today, huh? Feels like longer in some sense, and shorter
in others. Plebe summer was 6 weeks and I'm not sure which feels
longer...

Today was a sleeping in day, though I generally fail at that. I woke
up and chatted with Emili online, and then I read some Frankenstein on
the Kindle. It was a generally lazy morning. Around 10:30am, I took
over my ruck-sack, and two seabags, and left them in the hallway
outside the room. There isn't really room for them at the moment, and
it seems like every room has a big stack of crap outside the room.
That should give you some idea on how small the rooms are. They are
incredibly smaller than the rooms at the Naval Academy, if that gives
you any perspective. I met one roommate, Rich, who is an Army O-4. I
wasn't received warmly, so that was very cool. They evidently don't
want a third roommate. While I can't blame them, there's nothing I
can do about that, and there's no use being rude to me.

Then I lugged my body armor and helmet to work. There are just too
few places to keep this stuff, so everyone keeps it in the office. We
have a few stands for the armor, and I ordered 12 more the other day.
I didn't do too much today, except email out an itinerary to a few
people. The visit isn't for a while, so no one is rushing yet. I got
another computer/email account today, along with some logins to some
useful sites. So I'm slowly acquiring tools to do the job here.

I also stopped by a foreign exchange because I needed a bar of soap
today. Since I'm not into using a lufa at the moment, I only had two
choices: 2 pink varieties, and 1 called Imperial Leather. Needless to
say, I got the latter for 1.20 euros. Luckily I had 3 euro coins in
my pocket. I'm not even sure it's soap, but I'm going to try it. I
also noticed that when people don't speak english as their primary
language, they don't understand sarcasm and jokes. I can't remember
what I said at the cash register, but she gave me a very puzzled look.

So last night I was a little emotional and a little tired. What
better time to email the financial planner! I explained that money is
only money, but time you can never get back. Perhaps not as eloquent
as I wished, but he understood my meaning nonetheless. Basically, I'm
starting to plan a Caribbean vacation for next summer after I get
back. I'm excited, and so spent some of the morning researching ways
to do it for a reasonable (depends on who you ask, really) price. For
those of you who want to drool, check out St. Lucia. I think on that
note, I will head to bed to dream of being in a tropical paradise...