Tisk, Tisk American Eagle

Dress code for the dining facility is nothing shorter than shorts that touch your knees. I'm not so old yet where that would be a normal staple in my wardrobe. So I thought I'd order some crop jeans so I am still able to eat food in the summer time. 

 

 

Wait a second, American Eagle. I realize I'm in an unusual part of the world, but I don't think your jeans increased in value THIS much. What is this, some kind of third world country penalty?

 

James will have to order these $39 jeans for me in the States and mail them to me. Sheesh, highway robbery! Nice jeans, but not THAT nice!

 

#FirstWorldProblemsInAThirdWorldCountry

North Camp Sights

Two weeks has gone by, and I've gotten myself into a pretty good routine. The weather is nice, and my job is starting to look pretty enjoyable. I'm very much looking forward to my time here in the Sinai (I just wish James and Picasso were here too).

 

I'll give you a little look at some of the sights on North Camp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's very... educational being with all these other Armies on a very small post in the middle of the desert. I'm going to learn a lot here. And, hopefully, I'll get to do some exploring in Egypt and Israel, too!

I Can't Live Like This

I worked really late at the clinic this evening. I had a pounding headache all day from caffeine withdrawal. I had just eaten a rather unimpressive dinner at the DFAC. All I wanted to do was go back to my room, put on pajamas and curl up with the internet for the night to relax. Maybe I'd shop online or iMessage my best friend for a while. The possibilities are endless with the internet.

As soon as I walked in the door, I knew something was amiss. Cords were haphazardly dangling from the ceiling in the doorway. Cords that lead to the router.... the router that no longer sat on the shelf to provide sweet, sweet wireless internet for my building. 

 

We'd been robbed!

Who would do this to us? To ME?? What had I done to deserve this? I felt like this was a personal attack against me. Whoever took the router did it to further ruin my crappy day. I ran to my 1SG's room to tell him what happened (that's how strongly I felt about my loss of internet). He humored me enough to come look at the sad dangling wires and said he could try to get it fixed tomorrow. 

TOMORROW!? I can't live like a wild animal, internetless, all night and tomorrow morning! This is just cruel. 

And, of course, I sit here typing away furiously on my iPad knowing I can't even post this blog right now without the precious internet! My life is basically ruined right now. 

Whatever, I'm backdating this blog!

Cats Everywhere

I was issued a cat the same day I was issued my room. The girl who lived in my room before me had befriended a cat, fed it and let it sleep in her room. Which is now my room. I like cats but I don't want a cat with fleas and worms in my room, regardless how cute and friendly it may be. 

At first I thought it was special to have my very own cat. But the more I've been walking around, the more I'm realizing that there are a lot of stray cats who look well fed. All of them are friendly.

"My cat" must have already found a new person to mooch off of because I have not left food out. I haven't seen it in a while. The cat moved on. But there is a cat who lives between the clinic and the fire station whose name is Maze. And she is super friendly and cute. I think I will feed Maze because she won't be tempted to sleep in my room with me. 

Its funny to walk down the road and have a cat jump out of the bushes and start walking with you. They just kind of go where you go. One followed me all the way to the clinic yesterday evening and waited outside for me for like 5 minutes before it got sick of that and probably followed someone else somewhere else. 

The cats who live here are allowed to. They are caught by the veterinarians and neutered or spayed and released back onto post. They get a little tattoo in their ear for identification. Once they are tracked, they are allowed to run around and keep the rat population down. But they also run around and want to love on people. 

Head Gear

Since I've been here in the Sinai I have been issued some really interesting military head gear.

First up, the stylish burnt orange boonie cap. Boonie caps are horribly embarrassing military headgear regardless. But this hat even more so because it's made out of really thick canvas and has a rolled up neck flap inside the back of the brim making it extremely bulky. The brim won't get floppy and everyone look like a witch. 

Next up, the slightly less burnt orange burnt orange beret. I hate headgear that requires to be shaved before you can wear it. But I took s few hours to shave and shape my beret in the hopes it would be better than the before mentioned boonie cap. I put it on for a test run and it's HUGE on me. It's a 6 7/8. That's my normal beret size! How can I fit my entire hand between the leather band and my head!?

And finally, the "don't-shoot-me-I'm-deer-hunting blaze orange" ACH cover. Calling this an ACH cover isn't exactly right though. It's not snug like an ACU printed cover. This cover is more like an orange shower cap for your helmet. It's very ill fitting and embarrassing to have on your head. 

 

Luckily I won't have to wear the blaze orange helmet cover often, but I have to choose between the beret and the boonie cap for every day wear. Ugh, I'm between a rock and a hard place! 

Deploying Is Hard

Over the past 3 days I have internationally hitch hiked over 3 continents. As you all know, I was set to deploy this January, and well, I did. I'm in Egypt right now, boys and girls. And it was not easy by any stretch of the word to get here.

We left Fort Campbell on the morning of January 10th. Our flight was to leave out of Nashville so we were bussed to the airport. We checked all our 50+ pound duffle bags and thought we were good to go. After waiting on our delayed flight to Newark, NJ for a few hours, the flight up and got cancelled from under us! My Commander had to scramble to get all 28 of us on some flight, some way, somehow. 

So we flew to Houston, TX. Our original flight from Newark was supposed to take us to Frankfurt, Germany. Well that was totally out of the picture now, as we had to travel through London, England instead. Of course we waited nearly 8 hours in Houston before we could board the redeye to London.

 

Once in London, which certainly isn't Frankfurt, we had to beg for a flight into Cairo from Egypt Air. They were very displeased with our last minute 28 passenger request. It was hell trying to get our 50+ pound duffle bags transferred from one airline to the next in one country to the next. We waited in London for another 8 hours. 

 

I ate some DELICIOUS fish and chips in London.

When we finally landed in Cairo, Egypt and we deplaned onto the runway, the smell hit me immediately. It was very early in the morning and it was that familiar damp, standing water and garbage smell that Iraq has. I never thought I'd smell that again. 

Immigration and customs were a breeze to get through. Our baggage came around the carousel. Duffle bag after duffle bag. 56 were supposed to come out. Only 53 made it all the way from Nashville to Cairo. It was pretty amazing we didn't lose more, but absolutely devastating to the people who lost an entire duffle. The worst part is, all 56 duffles were tagged wrong. When we had to switch planes to go to Houston, the guys in Nashville who loaded our heavy duffles were pissed and slapped anyone's new tag on any duffle. So the missing bags in Cairo can't really be tracked because the tag for their bag made it to the destination, but not their actual bag. Huge disaster!

We got shuffled to the coldest damn terminal in the Cairo airport where we waited with the remaining duffles for another 4 hours. That's where the Czech Air Force picked us up and brought us to North Sinai, Egypt.
 

I have never had a more tiring trip ever. Ever.  3 days in airports is absolutely bad. But I'm here now, and I'm ready for this adventure to start!

Facebook Best Friends

I took a stupid Facebook quiz. I don't usually mess around with those because they ask for access to your personal information and photos and who knows what the heck they're going to use them for. But a few of my friends did this "Who is your best friend on Facebook" quiz and the lure of the unknown sucked me in.

Who!? Who could it be?

When I refer to this thing as a "quiz", I'm using the term extremely loose. Since the only thing I did was click the link, agree to have my privacy invaded, and then (almost) sign up for a Zoosk account. Zoosk is online dating-- but shitty. It's online booty call dating. I stopped agreeing to things when this page came up. But anyway, in the meantime, Facebook looked into their crystal ball... and revealed to me who my Facebook best friend is.

It was James!

 

How lucky am I that a social media platform could decipher through my personal info (which they pilfered) and photographs (also pilfered) that James and I are together A LOT and might be, in fact, best friends?

Amazing.

Sugar Skull

I had my lower left arm filled in over the past few weeks. Last night I had the color tattooed. It's finished enough for me to deploy for 9 months and not long for a finished tattoo. Background and the rest of my left arm when I redeploy from Egypt and complete my sleeve. :)

 

 

 

 

Snow In The New Year

Happy 2014 y'all!

James and I rang in the new year super lame and stayed home. I had been feeling sick (NOT hung over, thank you very much) and didn't want to be out in public. We stayed in and let off fireworks at midnight.

We are 2 days into the new year and Mother Nature got frigid cold and took a big snow dump on Clarksville, TN. This is our first real snow of the year... (duh)... well, first real snow of the winter season! And Picasso hates it. He's seen snow before. Last Christmas he saw a lot of snow in Iowa. But having experience with it didn't make him appreciate the "winter wonderland" outside our doors when it came time for him to walk through it to go potty.

 

 

 

The potty venture was quick, and he immediately hauled ass back to the door to go back in. Picasso is an indoor kind of guy. He wasn't trying to deal with me calling his name and making enticing clicking noises to get him to look at me, so I couldn't get a picture of his unhappy bulldog face. Not amused at all. We He was very set on being back on the couch.

According to weatherchannel.com, it's not going to get any warmer or less snowy any time too soon. Picasso might have to wear a sweater when we go out from here on out... James will be so embarrassed.... :)

Foot Treatment

I found this picture on Facebook and it intrigued me:
 

Looks relaxing.

 

I'm skeptical. This could be because I am biased. I have THE WORST Army feet. My feet are always cracking and peeling. Skin absolutely refuses to stay alive and healthy on my feet. James has nicer feet than me and he's with the Infantry. My feet are disgusting.

I figured I'd give it a shot. Put it to the test. If it didn't work, oh well, the only ingredient I had to go out and buy was vinegar. If it did work, then the skin sloughing party would at least be medically interesting.

So I mixed it all up. I tripled the recipe since this concoction is obviously for people with a normal amount of dead skin on their feet. I sat on the couch and dunked my feet. It smelled really... strong. Picasso didn't want anything to do with it and it kinda hurt my eyes to be so close to it.

 

Slightly less spa-like.

 

Stupidly, I started this experiment while James was out of the house and I didn't get a towel out beforehand. So I was stuck in the stinky water for way longer than the recommended 10 minutes. After about a half an hour, my feet started to dye blue from the mouthwash. No! Blue feet were not what I was going for!

 

I did what I had to do, I scooted on my butt into my kitchen while pushing the bin with my feet ahead of me. Slowly, as to not slosh this stinky liquid everywhere.

After I scooted all the way to the stove and wiped my feet off with the hand towel, I anxiously inspected my feet for signs of dead skin I could "wipe away".

Pffffffft. What a rip off. All I was left with was a bunch of blue dead skin all over my feet. I guess I'm going to have to go get a professional pedicure tomorrow and horrify the ladies with my gross blue Army feet.

They didn't picture very blue, but BELIEVE me, they're blue!