What do I even do all day?

Good question! Every day, I usually wake up between 7:30 and 8 in my tiny little room at the weber hotel here in Mannheim. I'll postpone getting out of bed as long as possible and then go down to breakfast (which is automatically getting paid for so I feel obligated to eat it.).

Don't be fooled, it's smaller than it looks.

Many different cheeses.

At 8:30 Ladell Heath (the deployment coordinator for CTC) picks up everyone to go to work at Coleman barracks a couple miles away.

Thanks for schlepping us around, Ladell

Work, sweet work...

In case you forget whose fire escape this is.

We spend the morning training in the training room and then go to the DFAC (Dining facility) for lunch which costs $4.25. This includes everything - basically like in a college dining hall.

See our rag-tag bunch of trainees in the training room.

Devin, deciding to get the ice cream for dessert.

So something the DFAC has that I find fascinating is the POW/MIA table. It's constantly set for one on a raised platform and everything on the table is meant to be symbolic of something involved with the experience of being a POW/MIA (Prisoner of war/missing in action). For instance, the slice of lemon on the plate represents the bitterness of their experience, and the salt on the table represents the tears of their loved ones... it's really powerful and a constant reminder that while we are in a peaceful place here in Germany, it's still very much a part of the military.

The caption below the silhouette of the POW says "you are not forgotten"

Some time between 4 and 5pm we leave. I've started going to the gym on base when I can and then walking the little over a mile back to the weber hotel. Home sweet home! In the evenings I spend time in the lobby where we get internet (no internet in the rooms), and find someone also with ctc to go to dinner with. There are a bunch of places that are the standard places to go for us around here. There are Italian, Turkish, and German places all nearby.

And that's basically what I do every day. All of this I wrote while Shakira lounge musak is playing over the hotel lobby speakers.

The hotel lobby.

The Hotel Lobby Soundtrack:

This weekend I think the plan is to take another day trip like we did last weekend.