malyasian pictures

malaysian pictures
At the airport in Hong Kong

From my bedroom, the petronas towers


at night

a better picture

more

a restroom at a restaurant, its unisex
many of the restrooms had a hose, i guess if things get out of hand
but with no seat you kind of have to squat, so if you miss the hole, just hose things off, the bathroom were always soaking, luckily i didnt need to take a sit down right that moment

some dish, it was good

same

again

dancers from the cultural show

more

afterwards we took pictures with the dancers, originally i was going to caption this, hmmm whom should i choose, but now the captions reads look all the chicks staring at white godzilla, except for the girl to my immediate left, why is she giving me the stink eye

ahh, ive made my decision, and look at said stink eye girl, shes happy once more

pretty hot, although, upon further review, im hoping that the shocker is not a global hand gesutre, because if so, I just got punked

petronas towers from the tour

same

this is how many of me it would take to equal the building height

from the sky bridge

same

same

same

me and said colonels daughter, and if you didnt know us, you could easily think we are 15 and 13

petronas paraphanelia

no more captions, just enjoy



you can bet your sweet dick im naked under there

my room

bathroom

this is the way to mecca, in case you need to pray

see you next week,

egg

malaysia

It’s been quite some time since I wrote my last traveling blog and nothing was going to happen with this until November. Then I showed up to work on a Monday and my boss said I was going to Malaysia on Thursday, okay. I was overlooking my flight schedule, I was to leave Tucson on Thursday and I wouldn’t be getting to Kuala Lumpur until Saturday afternoon. Sheesh, even with crossing the International Dateline that’s a lot of AIS. Ass in Seat. Flight to Dallas was not memorable. Then I had a 7 hour layover in Dallas, I spent most of the time in the lounge, that was better than being with the locals, but I would have preferred to just get on with my trip. Next I had a 3 hour flight to San Francisco. Got to San Francisco, went to the lounge and watched my Michael Phelps continue with the dominance. Afterwards I thought to myself, I’m going to go check out the Cathay Pacific lounge. Good thing I did because I actually needed to leave the terminal, re check in, and go through security. I did all of that and still had time to get to their lounge, eat some dumplings, watch some female gymnastics and then catch my 14 hour flight to Hong Kong. I had an okay seat but it was very tiny and I was sitting next to a stinky Indian. One thing I was very impressed with was Cathay’s in seat entertainment system. Almost 100 movies on demand and 8000 CDs on demand. Simply amazing. Somehow or another I made the 14 hours and I was now in the Far East. Walking around Hong Kong airport at 5am is nothing special, it’s empty and very quiet, everything is closed, but the lounge is open at DragonAir airlines; okay go have some noodly soup and some dry ginger ale. Then I had another 3 hour flight to KL, as it is affectionately known. The airport here is fairly nice, it’s very hot and muggy, which is what you would expect for the jungle but still.

As soon as I checked in I went to HRC, that’s what all pinheads do, and went to an Argentinean steakhouse. Came home went to the steam room and couldn’t keep my eyes open past 9pm, fast forward 11 hours of sleep. I awoke, went down and head some breakfast and went and got a massage. This was my first massage and I really enjoyed it. I might have fallen asleep during. It wasn’t super relaxing because I’m not a stressed person but when she went to work on my claves I winced. Afterwards I was covered in relaxing oils and went to work kind of sort of. Went for walk to HRC for lunch. That night I walked to an Italian restaurant and had some pizza and beer. Since the area is predominately Muslim they are very reluctant to give you beer. So when you are ordering your 4th refill they seem upset by that
Monday was the first day of the conference and I didn’t do much, but I went to a great Chinese restaurant for lunch. Worked on my chopstick skills and had some tofu. Not very good. Monday night I went to China town and bought some truly authentic knock offs. A great polo shirt and Lacoste shirt. Some other gifts, which some readers may be getting so I won’t say what else I purchased.

Tuesday I actually did some work. Then I went to some huge 6 story electronics store where everything under the sun with a battery could be purchased. Sadly it was the same thing on every floor, cameras, flash cards, motherboards, phones, memory sticks, yada yada yada. That night some of the conference coordinators took us to some Malay hole in the wall for dinner. I had some egg fried rice dish and satay. Satay is just like a kebob. Good stuff.

Wednesday I went to a meeting and then it was our cultural dinner. We had a great show with dancers. Malaysia is a melting pot of Chinese, Indian, and Malay, so all week I had either Chinese food or Indian food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was able to try many new fruits that I had never seen or heard of before and sadly I cannot pronounce them either so you will not be privy to that information either. Had many good meat dishes and some Indian pastries. Afterwards I called it a night.

Thursday was only a half day because of our cultural tour. We had lunch at the hotel Italian restaurant which was exquisite. Then we were off. We went to a Malaysian craft center, they make many fine silk garments and products with a many fine price attached. Next we went to the Petronas towers. If that doesn’t ring a bell it’s the towers from the movie Entrapment. Quite a nice view, of course another 6 story mall is attached with very high prices. I bought a FCUK shirt because I like the word fuck. I was accompanied by one of the Malaysian colonel’s daughter. Good conversationalist, she wanted to practice her English. It was nice. After we got back from the tour we went back out with our coordinators to another Malay restaurant and I had some egg fried noodles dish. I really hadn’t gotten drunk yet so I decided it was my last night better imbibe. I went to a bar, sat down, and proceeded to order pints of Singapore beer. Its called tiger and its ferociously good. I also smoked a Cuban cigar, It wasnt very enjoyable and Im sure I did it wrong but with the whole trade embargo I thought why not. Does smoking making you drunk at all because I only had 4 pints and I walked home a la Billy from Family Circus. I even wrote drunken emails and IMs.
Currently Im in Tokyo sipping Japanese Whisky, it has the flavor of a cherry blossom with the bite of a samurai, I realize those references may be to the wrong country, but the thought seemed amusing to me and now you really want to try it as well don’t you. Anyways Im off to my gate c71.

Alright picking up where we left off. I left Tokyo at 11am on Saturday and now Im in texas at 10 am Saturday morning. Love that international dateline. One of the coolest things about my SFO trip was that I had about 20 hours of nighttime that night. Usually when I come home from Europe I have 20 hours of sunlight and it gets pretty annoying but I didn’t mind the 20 hours of nighttime. Let me go back and reread and see where I left off.

Looks like we are on Friday now. Friday was a pretty chill day, like most of my days, I try to do as much chillaxin as possible. We wrapped things up and some admirals and general said some closing remarks, we had a small awards assembly, then we went back to that same Chinese restaurant. I ate too much duck and squid, but it was tasty. I packed up all of my equipment and packed my luggage and somehow with all the crap that was given to me and with all the crap I bought I still came in under the baggage limits. I had to be in the lobby at 6pm to catch my van, fast forward to 8 when the van actually showed up. The host nation was very apologetic and embarrassed but no worries my flight wasn’t until 1050.

I had a very enjoyable ride with a wing commander from Bangladesh. We talked about human interoperability and we had a great discussion on Christianity and Islam. We came to the conclusion that they are 98% identical and how everyone should just chillax and this world would be a better place. I learned what the difference is between covering your hair and covering your whole face when it comes to woman in Islam. Good stuff. My flight from KL to Tokyo wasn’t too bad only 6 hours, but my coach seat was super cramped and they wouldn’t turn the lights off either. I fell asleep twice for about 30-40 minutes and REMed it up. I woke up covered in my own drool, must have been good REM. Not much else going on with that trip. My flight from Tokyo to dallas was 11 hours and the movie selection sucked it royally. And it was super cold. When I was in Tokyo I broke down and bought some duty free noise cancelling headphones, shits rocked my socks off. I slept something fierce on that flight. The breakfast and lunch were okay coming from Asia. I always recommend everyone to order the kosher meal when traveling to Europe on AA because the other food sucks. Currently sitting in the DFW lounge drinking vodka and orange juice about to get on my flight. I think when it is all said and done I will have traveled 28 hours, pretty long time. Well if I can think of anything else Ill write it, but im tired so this will wrap it up.


Hugs and kisses,


jake

25 on the 25th

25 on the 25th

I turned 25 on the 25th and when I awoke this morning I didn't feel any different; although I had some slight back pain. Not because I'm old, but because I did dead lifts yesterday. Leading up to this day I was really dreading the well wishes. Except for my friends who started kindergarten when they were 4 I'm one of the last people in my school year to turn 25. I talked a lot of shit over the last year, "You're old as balls, old as shit, old as dirt, how does it feel being a quarter of a century, you're that old and what have you accomplished, mas viejo, mas vieja, and you smell like a grandparent" I was not really looking forward to the reciprocal of that. Most of my friends who are older than me told me to shut the hell up. When my mother told me to shut the hell right up, I felt better, at least I don't have a 25 year old kid. One of my grandma's turns 80 this year, she told me to suck it, in so many words.



I thought about being depressed, but I don't know how to do that. I thought I would write a eulogy to the spring of my life and a stern warning to the summer saying, "Alright you didn't totally foul up the spring, so lets make the summer better." I decided against that though, since 4:21 p.m July 25, 1983 coming out the dirty H-town Ive done a lot and have experienced a lot. So instead of writing a down in dumps, doom and gloom, shitty blog, Im going to write the greatest love fest, superfluous filled, superlative laden, exaggerated, pluperfect, prepotent, incalculable, incomputable, monumental, prodigious, stupendous, tremendous, spectacular, breathtaking, striking, wonderful piece of literature about myself. It will be so filled with the awesome that is me that you may want to stop being my friend due to how far you pale in comparison.



--Cue curtain rise



Here are a few things I have on the average American and frankly for that matter the average Earthman.

Im taller, smarter, healthier, leaner, thinner, and hotter than most

I have more education, more friends, more family, and better racquetball skills than most

I have more frequent flier miles and time spent in the car, only Matty Brown is a bigger polluter than me.

I make more money than the average person and do less work for it.

I can dunk a basketball

I can ski through the trees

Ive been to 8 countries

I can out drink any 5th grader

I can beat you at trivia, Hash might have something to say about this

I know more acronyms than you, I do military IT, you know its true

I can cheers in six languages

Of all your friends, Im your mother's favorite

I have more HRC pins than you

I can drink scotch straight

I have a competent communicator in Toastmasters





That's all I can think of right now, but its pretty good stuff. It's a lot of stuff for 25 years and with 75 years more to live I can accomplish even more. Thank you all for the birthday cards, birthday wishes, facebook and myspace love, and phone calls. It meant a lot.





See you shortly,



jake

dallas times three

dallas times three

I was hoping to go to Puerto Penansco for Memorial Day Weekend, but not enough people wanted to go, or could get time off, or had money. No worries, I'll just go to DFW and party there.

I was upgraded on my 2 hour flight Tucson to DFW and Scott, the first-class attendant, hooked me up with 7 vodka and orange juices. Yes, I was still flying high when I landed. Booth and I went to Smokey Bones, which is like Hooters meets BBQ, only better food and better looking girls. Next, we went and got some culture at the 6th steet book depository. They have a museum set up for Kennedy's assassination. Interesting stuff. They even had the uneditited Zapruder film. I had never seen this before, Kennedys head opens up, my jaw dropped and jumped. Crazy!

From the building

Another angle

A plaque

From the grassy knoll

The actual spot

Where conspiracy theorist believe the other shooter was

a building across the street

I think Ive seen everything there is to see for Kennedy, this museum, his library, his grave at Arlington. (awkward segue) Afterwords we went to Booths place, chilled and waited for another gy to drive up from Beaumont. I played GTAIV, pretty cool game. Did a little drunk driving, got a couple of lap dances, got into a couple of fights, a grandma beat me up, and got some hookers. What else could you ask for in a game? Then we played some GHIII, I smoked Booth, then I got a headache. I realized for the first time in my life I was hungover in the same day. Place a check mark against another life accomplishment. Slammed a bunch of water and then we went out to eat. We went to place called Cubra Libre, I didnt feel like having one so I just had some beer. I ordered quesadillas as my meal and Booth was concerned for me and my lack of appetite. I told him since Ive been back from Germany I just havent really been that hungry. He didnt buy that and called me a pussy. To put his mind at ease and prove my metabolism is still strong. I told him I ate pork and pork by products 3 times a day for 19 days straight all while quenching my thirst with beer and I lost 7 lbs. Conversation over.! After dinner we went to a bar called Gingerbread mans, I think that was the name, or at least we wanted to go there. Unfortunately, Booth left his credit card at the restaurant and we had to go back to get it. When we finally got there I was very pleased with the beer selection. We had our choice of about 65 different beers on tap. Good stuff! Afterwards we went to another bar, but I have no recollection. I was just ready to go home, because we had to get up at seven for golf. That fact was lost on Booth and the other guy, because they played GHIII, very badly I might add, until 3 am. Ive been told I can sleep when Im dead, but Im tired leave me alone.

Saturday
Golf was good, I woke up with a sad, very sad stomach. Through the power of green tea and pop tarts I overcame and was able to hit the ball like a son of a bitch. I shot a 102, not bad for not playing since last June. Everyone was impressed with my iron play. Long and straight. Thats all Im good at though, no putting or chipping or driving. Most people would give up those skills to hit irons long and straight. At least thats what they are saying at me in between curse words.

mike

the guy i keep referring to as "the other guy"

and pure slop

After golf we went to a hamburger cafe, I ate a hamburger in about 6 bites. I dont each much any more, but I can still put it away before you finish half of your food. We went home, showered, napped, and then met one of Booths friends at a Bavarian restaurant. I really wasnt in the mood for German food, but Im always in the mood for German beer so that was okay. I accidentaly ordered potato spatzel, which is a lot like noodles. I dont really like them, but I had forgot what they were called. When I didnt finish them you would have thought I slapped our waitress's mother, she was so upset and offended. Tough cookies. Next we went to a bar and met some other UTEP Alumni people and watched the UFC fight. Im dont normally watch UFC, but there were some pretty good hits and some high fives going around. I didnt hate it. After the matches were over we went home.

Sunday we slept in and went to IHOP, I never think to go to IHOP, but everytime I've been its been great. I had two eggs, english muffins, bacon, hash browns, put it away in 5 minutes. Oh yeah, nothing like refueling. I cant remember what we did after that. I think just chilled and I did some homework. Oh I remember now, we went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. It was alright, very much like a National Treasure movie, and I didnt really like Shia LeBeouf's character. After the movie we went out to a lake in Lewisville. Have you ever been out to Wet 'n' Wild and seen everyone bbqing and all the kids running around in their underwear and fat people swimming with shirts on. Yeah, it felt like home. They also didnt allow drinking so it felt like being underage again. Taking sips from beers after the cops and rent a cops walked passed. So we decided to got to a legit bar and drink legit beers. We went to a place called sneaky petes. It was a really cool place, gazebo bar, 4 sand volleyball courts, sports bar, pool bar, pool, stage for live music. Lots of co-eds in bikinis, not too bad. We were there from about 8 to 2 am. Watched the spurs win, Oh yeah, that doesnt matter now, but it made the night that much better. Two stories I want to share with you. We were walking around and someone laughed in my general direction. No big deal, I didnt even think twice. But Booth decided to make an incident. "Are you laughing at my friend?", The guy said what. "Are you laughing at my friend?" He said no, I would tell you if I was. "Alright, then" Jeez, Booth, what are you doing. Who cares if someone laughs at me. The other friend said. Yeah man, I dont feel like fighting anyone, I said. Fuck that, no ones going to make fun of my friends. It was no big deal I said. Fuck 'em, I've got a black belt in Tae Kwan Do. I dont care if you are packing .45s. Chillax! Next incident took place a little later in the night. I had about 8 beers and about 8 waters, so I was feeling fine, and bloated, but still fine. Booth had about 13 and said he was good to drive. We took the other guy home about 2 miles down the road, but I didnt like Booth driving. So I took the keys. I was doing the speed limit and driving at 10 and 2 and here come the fuzz. Im thinking to myself, Im perfectly coherent, I can do some Calculus, but Im sure Im over .08. So he comes over and goes through his basic questioning. Curious as to why Im driving, wants to know where we were drinking and how much. I have to get out of the car, but Im confident I can pass any field sobriety test. Except for backwards alphabet, I cant do that sober. Turns out we were pulled over for broken liscence plate light and expired registration. Fucking Booth! He told me to have him get his shit fixed and go home. So I was upset, and couldnt sleep because I was jacked up on adrenaline.

Monday
Slept it off, went for a run, Booth made pancakes and bacon. MMMMmmmMMM.
My flight wasnt until 230 so we just played some GHIII, I showed off my expert level skills. My flight was delayed because of a broken lavatory. Its only a 2 hour flight, cant people hold it I asked myself. Our flight was then cancelled over that. Everyone and their mother ran up to the counter. I slowly sashayed to the Admirals Club where I was promptly turned away by the douche bag known as Dino. I know Im not a member, I just thought maybe you could help me out I pleaded. A simple no would have worked, but he went through this whole process of how I could be here, and why I shouldnt be here, and that I dont belong. Okay, so I went to a counter in the general popluation that was free and explained the situation. In two seconds I had my boarding pass, and it was all done with smiles. She said since you are platinum we'll take care of you and we appreciate your business. I was speechless towards her customer service skills. So I was upgraded again and had some nice Ravioli and Cabernet. Touchdown, get luggage, and go home. Memorial Day would have been more fun if we could have gone to the beach, but this was a very close second.

Mandy Moore said my love is sweet like candy,

Jacob

deutsche pictures

Here are some pictures from my Germany trip.


Windmills off in distance

Some flags around the work area

i dont know what this is

i like the windmills

the heidelberg hillside

the castle of heidelberg

Streets in and around

a statue

a nice building

the place where goethe wrote some shit

statue on the bridge

the neckar river

the castle

neckar and castle

the keep on the bridge

the oldest hotel in heidelberg

this is inside the gothic protestant church

the baroque catholic church

the outside

the altar

paintings

mas paintings

the town from the castle

the same

the back of the castle, they decided not to restore it. they only maintain, at about a cost of $4,000,000 a year

the kind of sort of moat, or grassy knoll, or just the inner outside, take your pick

more of the back side

more dilapidated backside

heres the rest


I know I was there a long time, but we only had one day off. So there arent that many pictures, but the ones that are here, are nice. Right.....right?!?!

all my best,

jacob

baumy baumholder

Balmy baumholder. Well here it is day 6 of my trip and I have some free time before homework starts and I thought I’d better start writing this blog. A usual 10 day trip comes out to about 2500 words, so I can imagine what a 20 day will end up being. My flight was good over here, I was upgraded on the Tucson Dallas flight and the stewardess hooked me up. Every time I finished my vodka and orange juice she hooked me up with another one. So it would not be a farce to say I was hammered when I landed in the lone star state. My flight to Germany was okay. A very quick 10 hours. I didn’t like that both national treasures were a selection but I survived. I watched I am legend. And now I know why cousin mark has a man-crush on will smith. He was jacked in that movie. I also watched a movie about debaters from an all black school in Marshall, TX circa 1931. I will never see a Denzel Washington movie in the theaters but every time I see one of his movies I thoroughly enjoy it. Nevertheless, my mind has not changed. Because my company is cheap or perhaps because the US is broke we had to take taximeter cabriolets to baumholder which is 215 Euros from Frankfurt am Main airport. That’s about 2 hours. Because taximeter cabriolets are not allowed on base we had to stand outside the main gate for about an hour. Luckily it didn’t rain. It rains a lot here. At least that’s how’s it been thus far. My boss told me to pack for hot cold wet dry all in the same day and thankfully I heeded his warning. I go from t-shirt and sunglasses to overcoat and hat within the hour. We’ve been eating quite a lot of mess hall food; I’m accustomed to it at home. But not three square meals a day’s worth. There are a lot of cold cuts in European foods, not my favorite by a long shot. So I’m already tired of the food and we still have two more weeks. The days are long but they go by fast. The nights go by quickly also, sunrise is about 6 am and sunset is about 10pm. You fall asleep quickly because of all the beer you drink. Beer is drunk by the liter here, not ounce. I don’t think I’ll reach my collegiate capacity, that would just be unprofessional, but it certainly will be higher than when I got here. The troubleshooting I’ve done has been fun. Made some new friends from Ukraine, Montenegro, and Azerbaijan. They have a neat tradition at the workshops of exchanging pins. Usually flags of the home countries. Currently I have 5 pins, but only from two countries. That should go up, I’m rather personable.

Alright it’s currently one week later than the last sentence. I can’t remember what I didn’t Saturday or Sunday night but Monday night was Cinco de Mayo and I got hammered. I went to the Macedonia party and drank 2 liters of their finest. Went to Germany and Slovenia and had Jagermesiter, they call it Jagy here. Had some more beer somewhere else then had some Patron in honor of Mexico whooping the shit out of the French. As you all know Jagermeister translates to hangover in a bottle. And that is what I had. I didn’t go to bed that late on Monday probably 130 or so. We had the cultural tour the next day which was in Heidelberg we left by busses. About 1.5 hours into the bus I started getting that churning feeling in my stomach and you start to sweat and swallow hard. It was very reminiscent of Albania if my readers remember correctly. Well luckily they had given us sack lunches, because I was forced to dump out my lunch and put my breakfast into the bag. Not once but twice. I have to tell you though, it was the most professional regurgitation I have ever had. It was quiet, into a bag, in the corner; no one smelled it, I tied up the bag quickly, wiped the tears, snot, and saliva from my face. All the marines laughed at me, but it was handled in the best possible way. I was able to finally sleep after that and got to Heidelberg ready to tour.

Heidelberg is a beautiful town if you even get a chance to go. It’s on the Neckar River, there’s a beautiful castle, beautiful bridge, beautiful churches, and beautiful co-eds. See, beautiful, I told you! We had an excellent tour guide who gave us lots of details, dates, and facts. Visited the Alstatht, which is the German old town. There are over 600 pubs and restaurants there. There is a wannabe Hard Rock Café, so yes of course I got some pins from there. I say wannabe because it is neither a corporate nor a franchised HRC, just a complete knock off. But HRC recognizes its pins, so my pin catalogue was able to grow. There were some beautiful churches, Catholic and Protestant, they were built in the Baroque and Gothic style, 300 and 600 years ago. More gorgeous than me. The University there is the oldest school in Europe dating back to 1386. The castle is not complete anymore, they decided not to restore it, they wanted it to keeps its relic state; so now it is just maintained. All of the streets are cobblestoned and cleaned. There is a monument to Martin Luther when he came to Heidelberg to defend his thesis. I had some lunch at a small Italian bistro, very good Margherita pizza. Giuseppe made my pizza, I’m not sure if that’s what his name was, but it should have been. I pretty much slept the whole way back and came back to find my coworkers preparing for a bbq. Oh yeah I jumped in there and mooched some good steak and hamburgers did not want to have any beer, but my German counterpart made, so I drank half of a Heineken and called it a night. During the BBQ we played catch, when was the last time you played catch, everyone should add catch to the list of things to do in a year.

The next day was back to work and I wasn’t feeling well, there was a cold going around that everyone seemed to have caught. I don’t know if my throat hurt from that or from singing or from the regurgitation. Anyways, I was in a salty mood, or so my coworkers said. That night I took some Nyquil and called it an early one. I must have needed my sleep because I slept through my alarm again. This time only by twenty minutes. That day I just drank lots of water and hit up some Dayquil and all was well in the world. I said one more night of not drinking would do me well so I watched Good Luck Chuck, which is hysterical by the way. Jessica Alba is hot and Dane Cook is awesome, I know none of you like him, but that shit is funny. So the next day, I don’t know the days, because they have all run together, all I know is that it is currently test day 9 and tomorrow will be two weeks here. And somehow or another Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash has become the theme song of Combined Endeavor. Someone is either whistling it or playing it on their computer. I actually don’t mind, I think it’s funny. Last night we cooked the remaining steaks and hamburgers, mmmmm beef. Then I went to the Finnish sauna. They made an impromptu sauna out of a tent and an oven it’s pretty legit though. Cedar planks and the works. And a bunch of naked Europeans. Someone wanted to get into an argument about George Bush. I would have won because I probably would have concurred with them. Whenever people find out where I’m from, Texas not Arizona or the United States, they all want to Bush bash or ask questions about freedom fries or something. I don’t mind, I don’t find it offensive or anything. The Finnish have their own version of Jager that is a little bit stronger. Theirs, too, is pretty much hangover in a bottle but I only had one shot so I didn’t feel that bad this morning. Nothing that a little 7-up couldn’t cure. That’s about it for now, tonight is the UK party so that where I will be abusing my liver at. Cheers mate‼

Fuck the UK and Slovenia and their glorious beer. I drank some water and took some pepto before bed, not even drunk, woke up at 2am thinking I would take a horse sized piss and ended up throwing up in my sink. I was so upset with myself. I really didn’t have that much too drink, 2 liters tops, TOPS. The next night was the American Italian party and the Americans brought steak, STEAK‼‼! The Italians brought some good cheeses and some spicy pasta, but they brought some bad wine. Very, very dry. Usually the more drink the better everything tastes, but I didn’t want to give it a try. The marines were pretty much running the show. Some of the worst IT persons Ive seen in my life. They were nice individuals, but they were very dumb. I wont tell you the actual number and division, but they don’t do very good IT. They were reservists, so their day jobs are all scattered but their MOI is IT. Oh well, we got through it. They also had some beer pong going on. Took off fairly early because I was severely sleep deprived. Tuesday night was the CJCCC dinner, Im not going to explain that group but its basically a planning group for Combined Endeavor. They had a nice schnitzel and white asparagus dinner. White asparagus is pretty good, they just bury it so that it can’t photosynthesize, tastes like regular asparagus, and now I can say Ive had it.

Wednesday was our last test day and the night of the BIWAK, its pronounced beevahk, I don’t know if it translates to anything other than a drunken good time. I was pretty tired of beer so I decided I would only drink red wine that night. I had red wine from Germany, France, Slovenia, Moldova, and Hungary. Canada was serving up pancakes and moose milk. Moose milk was basically a white Russian. Had some shots from various countries, did quite a lot of dancing. My contacts fell out, but I had my glasses, said goodbye to all of My German friends and called it a night. Woke up with a hangover but no real stomach problems. We had about a two hour bus ride to Frankfurt and to our **** hotel. Im not sure if it was really 4 stars, but it had a sauna and Im all about the sauna.

We arrived to the hotel about 2 and went to get some dinner. Stopped in an Italian restaurant had some very good gorgonzola ravioli and we were kicked out right at three, evidently there is siesta in Germany. We rode the subway downtown and did some shopping, bought some euro trash sunglasses. Came back and had the same red snapper with mango coriander rice and walnut ice cream. This time though I had a couple glasses of Riesling.

Friday morning got up and had some very expensive euro buffet breakfast. Went to the airport a little too early, went to the admirals club and had a number of vodka and orange juices. I don’t really sleep well on the plane and since this was a ten hour flight I was able to watch almost 5 movies, bucket list, blood for oil, jumpers, you could never be my boyfriend, and the savages. Again I ordered the kosher meal, this time it was really good. Salmon, peas, egg fried rice, and some chocolate cake. Then for a snack they served vegetable lasagna and fruit cocktail. We had a pretty long layover in Dallas so I did some more Admirals club, that’s where I am currently. It’s a quarter to six Dallas time which is a quarter to one for my body Germany time. My flight is currently delayed so I won’t be getting home until 7 or so which should be hour 25 or 6 for me. All of these days and dates have been squished together. I didn’t even know that today was Friday. That’s what’s it like for me right now. Well I’m going to go for a walk to try and stay awake. Ill finish the rest this weekend. Going for a walk I smelled some delicious McDonalds. I can’t remember the last time I had burning hot fries, man were they delicious. Got on the flight and came home. I don’t know what it is about Tucson airport, but you always have to wait 5 hours to get your luggage. Got it and went to my cousin’s house. Sorry for the unexciting finish but that’s it.

Peace love and soul,

jacob