Saturday, May 15, 2010

I've moved off Base

Yesterday afternoon I left work and took my house boy with me to move my stuff out of the hooch I lived in.  It took about an hour to pack everything up.  The friend of mine from the Branch that lives where I will now live came over with the car and picked me up -- it only took two trips and I was moved in.  Then we went and picked up another guy that is moving in that I work with.  He came over and looked around and then we dropped him off back at work.  I went to ISAF with two of the guys I live with for dinner and then I walked back to my apartment.  It was a little scary walking along the streets of Kabul at night -- I was still in the green zone though.

When I got back to the apartment the guards kind of looked at me funny like -- who are you and I said I live here now -- I just moved in.  So they let me in.

I settled in for the night and set the alarm to wake me up -- not needed, the roster next door woke me up crowing at the top of his lungs at 4:10 am.  So I got up at my regular time and got ready for work -- only took 20 minutes vice the 30 minutes in the apartment because I didn't have to walk down the hall to the shower or get dressed in the dark -- sped things up.

Then I proceeded to walk to work.  Took 14 minutes and had to go by 17 guard shacks to get to work -- talk about secure.  Only got stopped once while they figured out whether they would let me walk the street.  Then one guard came out and told me I was walking on the wrong side of the road (the side closest to the Presidential palace), so I crossed the street and everything was OK.

The walk to and from work should help the waist line -- we are working on hiring a car/driver to take us to/from work.  Life is good!!!!!

1 comment:

Martha Andelin said...

Sounds a little scary!!