NATO Forces

KAF is a NATO base. It's not just Americans. So far, I've seen coalition forces from Slovakia, Belgium, France, UK, Australia, Turkey, Romania, Kosovo, and Bulgaria. Definitely there are more Americans than anything else, but these other soldiers make themselves known.

Merukah!

This is the sign for the Romanian compound with the creepy church in it. Might as well say "Quarantine".

Every time I see a Bulgarian I want to talk to them, but don't. I visited Bulgaria as an Ohio State University International Affairs scholar back in 2008, so I know a lot about Bulgaria's history, landscape, and culture. But I know the conversation would go something like this:
Me: Hi! I've been to Bulgaria!
Bulgarian: Really?
Me: Yes! I've been to Sophia, and Plovdiv, and Nessebar, and Veliko Turnovo, and I know about Aleksander Nevski and so on and so on.
Bulgarian: Ok.
Me: Nice talking to you.

As much as it would be nice listing to a Bulgarian the things I know about and the places I've visited in Bulgaria, I think it's a conversation worth avoiding. Perhaps the urge will be too great and I'll have that very conversation some time - word for word.

Bulgarski?

Every time I go to the British compound's "Hero's Cafe" to get a bagel with lox, they're sold out. Their problems with restocking their lox stores aside, their cafe area is a nice place. Almost on par with the Tim Horton's the Canadians have. I'll continue checking in regularly in an attempt to eat some delicious, delicious lox.

The Royal Air Force has come a long way since the events of 1923.

What? Switzerland?! I thought you guys were supposed to be neutral! Oh wait, that's Denmark...

This is in the entrance hall to the building where the people in charge of KAF work. I had to go there to get my Flyer for High Holidays approved to post on the Boarwalk.

Slovaks are everywhere here. I haven't interacted with many of them, so I'll let Sarah Kemp's blog post about them suffice. Whoops! It was about Albanians... same thing, almost.

The inside of the Slovakian compound is guarded as though it were the nuclear launch codes.

There are too many of these country signs for me to take pictures of, so this'll be the last one.

What would one buy in a Canadian Store? Roots hoodies? Muskoka Bear Wear?

The Canadians are headed out of here, which is a shame. They're all very friendly, and on Canadian Thanksgiving we all got a great meal out of it. Also when they leave (which I'm told is going to be in about a month and a half) the Tim Horton's goes with them. This is a calamity! I should start a petition to keep them here. They have the best coffee and doughnuts on KAF. Maybe the Belgians will bring in a chocolate shop to replace it...

Driving Around

In my broad and deep two-week experience downrange, I have had some opportunity to see a majority of KAF. There's plenty yet for me to see, but here are some highlights from driving around the base and taking pictures of standard things one might expect to see here.

First thing you see when driving around is the steering wheel. Here it is:

Anything strike you as odd?

The steering wheel is on the right!

Proof - except I easily could've shown the mirror image of this photo. You know what? You'll just have to trust me.

Getting used to driving on the right side of the car was an ordeal. It's all a matter of overpowering the desire for your head to be 43% of the road distance from the right side the road and instead having your head located at around 10% of the road distance from the right side of the road - because we still drive forward on the right here. Was that confusing to read? Because it was confusing to write. When I get back to the states people might want to avoid driving with me for a while because I'll be going through a similar acclimation period - also I'll be windshield wiping instead of turn-signaling.

Our next-door neighbors.

So next door there's a sort of headquarters, but it's not the main headquarters at KAF - I haven't quite figured out what goes on over there, but it's apparently the wing of the Army that we fall under in the overarching hierarchy that is this little world.

Here's what you're definitely most likely to see when driving around here:

Barbed wire, generator flood-lights, and fence.

Another thing you're very likely to see: 

What's your sign? "Speed limit is walking speed"? You must be trustworthy.

Signs are everywhere here. Oh look! here comes another one!

For those who can't convert 20 km/h is like 12 mph.

So we have to go very very slow around here. And for good reason! You don't want to get in an accident with this:

MRAP

So this is what an mrap looks like up close. There isn't really anything in this picture to compare it to for scale, but imagine an average sized person standing next to the front wheel right there. Their head would be at about the top of the wheel casing above the wheel - these things are massive, and there are all sorts of them driving around here in addition to a myriad other large and useful vehicles.

Spoiler alert: I'm going to be collecting pictures of the different international compound entrances and posting about them because I think they are pretty cool looking, but here's what one of them looks like.

The Slovaks compound.

And there you have it, a little summary of what driving around KAF is like. Invariably we end up back at the Ed. Center:

Work, sweet work.