Extreme Sleep Deprivation Part II

So I may not have been tired on my way through Manas this time around, but I started off on the wrong foot to continue my journey in the same manner when I got to the Bishkek commercial airport at 5 AM having gotten no sleep whatsoever.

The whole day was a textbook description of experiencing reverse-culture shock. I was constantly barraged by the extreme cleanliness of the Istanbul airport and the restaurant attached to the hotel I stayed in in Germany. Did you know the Istanbul airport is full of nothing but women? It's true! Because I was used to there being practically no women downrange it really seemed like they were everywhere I looked (and this continues to be the case as I write this while I am currently visiting Israel). Anyway with a relatively long layover in Istanbul, and a shuttle from Frankfurt to Sandhofen, just north of Mannheim, I was very ready to pass out and did.

Being back in Sanhofen was also very strange, but in a way unrelated to the reverse-culture shock. Firstly, CTC is no longer storing people in the Weber, it's all about the Adler hotel, now. There are good things and bad related to the change, anyway it was only for one night. Also, being in the same place first in summer, and then again seven months later was interesting to see. 

After my out-processing in Coleman Barracks, which consisted basically of my filling out some forms and giving my opinions on how the program can be improved, I was on my way again back to the Frankfurt airport. Hearing Israeli's speaking Hebrew on their way back from a trip to Italy in the Rome airport (which coincidentally was also full of women) was like music to my ears.

Alitalia is very concerned over the people nearing their 40s who still play their original gameboys.

By the time I got to the little hotel near the beach in Tel Aviv that I was staying in it was 5 am again, and I had a hard time sleeping. By Saturday night, I had gone since Wednesday morning with nothing more than 10 hours of sleep total...

It's good to be back, civilization.

Almost Forgot!

Since we have literally no days off downrange, I spent this last weekend lazing around the hotel and around Mannheim. Saturday, I went to the Synagogue again (and it was a crowd the size one would expect of a Central/Eastern European Shul). There was just one family with like five little kids that was really cute, but aside from that it was mostly older Russians (since the majority of German Jews came to Germany following the breakup of the Soviet Union). I brought my friend Devin with me to Synagogue and it a unique experience for him.

Afterward we spent some time walking around Mannheim and seeing the famous water tower and the park surrounding it. We got back to the hotel at like 2 and I jumped in the pool because it got hot in the last week I was in Germany and because we had a pool.

This is the water-tower. I can't imagine they still use it.

Very nice. Miss you already, Mannheim!

Then we did something awesome. We made arrangements in this little bier-gaarten/restaurant called the alte-fass (means old-spigot) to go to this event they'd been advertising with fliers on the tables. It was an all-you-can-eat salad bar and barbecue! Man it was awesome!

The chef at work.

All day Sunday I lazed. Not only because of the no-days-off downrange thing, but because Sunday is still very much a Sabbath for Germany. Most restaurants and shops are closed. So I did mostly nothing and then we went to Ali's this little Turkish place near the tram stop for dinner.

Farewell Sandhofen!

The Little Things

When there have been no blog posts on this page, it's not as though I'm doing nothing waiting around for something to write about. Things are still happening, none of them are important enough by themselves to write a full post about. Here's a few of the little things that go on around here.

Sandhofen is the name of our little suburb north of Mannheim. It's a collection of about 30 blocks with a tram line that connects us to downtown Mannheim, and farm or factory in every other direction (and the military base). If you check out the webpage for our little enclave you'd see that there's not much there. In those 30 blocks, there's our hotel with a Mcdonalds/gas station across the street, a couple of mini marts and like 10 restaurants, 4 or so of which are Italian.

Jordan and Erin enjoying the authentic German restaurant in Sandhofen

The crew.

We've recently re-implemented into the CTC training process Tuesday go-kart outings. There's this indoor track with lots of turns nearby and on Tuesdays that happy hour is like $20 or so for 20 minutes of go-karting. It's wayyy faster than American go-karts that are similar in size. I came in second on our last run.

The track

Me and Cheryl preparing to race

I'll beat you next time Raymond!

Speaking of diversions, there are signs around Coleman Barracks (where the training takes place) for a paintball play area and Raymond Wilson, the CTC employee who organizes our go-karting expeditions says that there's paintball on Saturdays... Will be investigating further before the weekend.