Today was my first official day off. Well, actually, I really didn't
have the day completely off. In the Iraqi culture, their Friday is
equivalent to our Sunday in that most places of work are closed for a
day of "rest". Because of this, we of the coalition forces take a half
day off since most of our Iraqi counterparts aren't around to do
business with. The odd thing about it is that we take the morning off,
reporting in around lunch time. Wouldn't it make more sense to take the
afternoon off? My guess is the policy makers are folks who like to
sleep in so we just show up at lunch and work until 8ish or so. It's
still a full day of work, but the illusion is the military doesn't work
us 24/7 and they actually give their folks some personal time to do
things like laundry, or write home to their loved ones, run errands that
they can't do during the week, or even have a nice picnic lunch outside
under the sandbag reinforced mortar awning with razor wire surrounding
it. We don't have much say in the matter. Uncle Sam is paying for this
vacation, so he gets to make the rules any way he wants. I guess it
doesn't matter much to me as it's not like I'm going to go dancing at
the embassy on salsa night nor do I have a desire to go hang out at the
MWR (morale, welfare and recreation) pool with the DOD contractors or
interpreters. If you think a farmer tan is bad, a Kevlar/body armor tan
is just plain ridiculous.
I did try something new today. Since they didn't serve breakfast at the
base, we had to fend for ourselves and try to hunt down another DFAC
serving breakfast. We strolled over to the embassy to find chow and
ended up just missing the mess hall hours. This prompted us to hit the
coffee shop in the embassy. Green Beans is a military coffee shop that
is a replica of Starbuck's in that they serve lots of foo-foo coffee and
muffins for those willing to dish out the dough for a $4 cup of coffee.
Since my compadres wanted coffee, we stopped in for breakfast. Now, I'm
not much of a coffee drinker. I'll occasionally have a cup after a big
meal or with dessert, but I'm not a regimented drinker like the folks
who can't function until they've had their daily cup of joe. The Green
Bean menu was a limited one so I opted for a vanilla chai latte, which
is basically tea with steamed milk and some vanilla flavoring. Very
yuppyish sounding, but I soon learned not to judge a drink by it's sissy
name. It turned out that the drink was pretty good. Not "I must buy
one of these every day and spend a small fortune to support my daily
chai latte habit" good, but tasty enough that I would buy one again if I
happened to be near a good coffee shop.
Interesting fact of the day: The plumbing system in Iraq is very
sufficient for their indigenous population, but is not designed for us
"westerners". In order not to stop up the toilets in the bathroom, one
has to dispose of their "used" toilet paper in a bin next to the commode
instead of actually flushing it down with the rest of their business. I
guess it's better that using rocks like some other cultures use.
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